LOI in Europe 2017

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 reddladd wrote:

Your being too harsh lads. There wasn't a whole lot between them tonight despite the difference in money.
Ah stop! They were incredibly efficient and went through without breaking sweat. Well some of their theatrics were hard to stomach and they certainly don't ascribe to the Pep Guardiola school of coaching, their defensive play and game management was very impressive. I think Irish teams need to earn a lot from them if we are going to try and develop further in Europe.
They are an ageing team in pre-season and they were drawn against a younger team who were both in-form and in-season. They came to Cork with the game plan of not giving City any chances, and until tiredness kicked in late on they didn't. The second leg was just cynical catenaccio and Claudio Gentile and Helenio Herrera would have been proud of it. They played the conditions, the situation and the referee and never once looked like they were even going to give up a chance, never mind a goal.
Quite a few City fans are complaining about their diving, the thing is though, City tried diving on a few occasions too, the lads just weren't very good at it. Larnaca bought soft free-kicks on contact, it frustrated our lads who threw themselves down in the hope of the referee balancing it out.
Yes, City had claims for a penalty and that tackle early in the second-half was a blatant red-card, but they always had City at arms link. They marshalled Maguire brilliantly and nobody else was going to cause a threat.
I do think Caulfield got it slightly wrong and more could have been to get at them, Sheppard on the bench was a strange one, and there is also an argument that neither goal would have been scored with Bennett on the pitch, but realistically City never looked like scoring and they created the best chances without ever forcing the issue.