#4 – MAN CITY vs. HULL CITY

Well if you’re going to win the title, you will need scrape out results at times and Manchester City certainly did that against Hull City who were the better side on the day and didn’t deserve to lose the match 2-0. Manchester City may have won the match 2-0 but they weren’t that much better than their performance at Cardiff City last week and will have to improve in the future.

MATIJA NASTASIC

It was Nastasic’ first game for Manchester City in the Premier League this season and to sum it up in a word, Abysmal performance from the Serbian defender. Defensively City are absolutely all over the place at the moment, when defending I saw on occasions Manchester City split in defender not just against Hull but against Cardiff to. Things have to improve for Manchester City, we have seen gaps appearing in defence and on another day the chances that Graham and Aluko had in the first half would have gone in and counted. City to need more additions defensively especially with Kompany currently out injured and the sales of Toure and Maicon in the summer. Manchester City are yet to bring in any replacements but are reportedly on the verge of signing Martin Demichelis from Atletico Madrid.

TOM HUDDLESTONE

Along with Sone Aluko for Hull one of their stand out players was midfielder Tom Huddlestone. I’m a massive fan of Huddlestone, not only is he strong and has a good shot on him but he has an excellent range of passing which was noticeable today along with excellent awareness. Huddlestone is one of the top passers in the Premier League in my opinion and had the ability to be world class but his career has so far been hit by injury after injury but he is still only 26 so he has years ahead of him, a consistent run of form could see him get into the England mix one day. He picked up positions well all over the pitch and passed excellently to team mates in defence, midfield and attack.

LACK OF WIDTH USAGE

With Hull being so difficult to break down then I was very disappointed with the lack of balls into the box from Manchester City for players like Dzeko, Aguero or Negredo to attack. When you have Kolarov, Navas and Zabaleta on the pitch if you’re not going to use their strengths then you’re missing out.

With Silva drifting in field a lot as he does this then meant there was room for Kolarov to cross a teasing ball into the box for players to attack, but did he ever receive the ball in this position to put one in? Not that I can remember. In my opinion Kolarov is one of the best crossers in the Premier League so not using his skill in my opinion is silly. Same with Zabaleta I didn’t see many runs in behind the opposition full backs which was disappointing, a bit similar with Jesus Navas to he cut in field too many times, didn’t see much of him or Zabaleta on the wing until City scored their first goal which was from a cross.

PLAYER RATINGS

Below are my player ratings, some may see some of them as a bit of a shock. Dzeko in my opinion was absolutely awful I didn’t even realise that he was on the pitch first half, I take it Pellegrini wasn’t happy either as he brought Negredo on in the 2nd half. Aguero was another who didn’t turn up in my opinion, along with Nastasic who was quite poor. Hull should be proud of their performance. Huddlestone and Aluko were their stand out players but from what I’ve seen from them this season so far I expect them to just about survive.