In my although some would consider biased opinion, Man City are a million miles away from the Big Boys of this world ATM.
You cannot just throw money at players of significant quality without having a team spirit, and leaders! It showed in absolute abundance out on the pitch last night that when they come under pressure there is absolutely no one to lead the team!
When they attacked early on they caused us a lot of problems, Silva is unbelievable, Dzeko however needs time to adjust like the ever improving Nikola Zigic! Only comparison in type of player not quality obviously :$
Although when we decided to wake up in the game and really give them a game they had no answer to our attack, and it wasn't just long ball play whatsoever, we were playing good football, using Zigic when needed. We were totally on top just before De Jong and Richards clashed which totally stopped our flow of play and balanced the game out before the end of the half.
Once we rediscovered our belief to pressure them again which happened after like 10 minutes of the second half, again defensively not many answers to prevent it, although Kompany is an absolute BEAST, really HIGHLY rate him!!
It was clear to see that there was just no team coherence with the City side, they need leaders and personality in their team if they are going to get anywhere near to the promise land of matching United & Chelsea.
Kevin Phillips came on for Jerome in the last 20 minutes of the game last night and totally changed it, the City back line were hoofing the ball away whenever they could because they were scared to death of the veteran striker. That says all it needs to say for me! Although he was absolutely BRILLIANT in that spell last night, changed the game, and forced Vieira to make that stupid challenge to get us back in it.
I came away from the game thinking we had the chance to win it, and some could argue we could of with no complaints, except for Mancini's absurd claim that it wasn't a penalty. Although then common sense kicks in, we were playing billionaires and matched them, many people have criticised City for their lack of performance but for me it was as much us playing at a high level as them not performing.