Outclassed...

That's all I can say from watching the match last night.

So that's the end of the hype and optimism for the new era under Roy? Not really. I don't really think we should get too carried away with the result. Yes it was abysmal. Yes, I was annoyed by the fact that I had to wake up at 3 in the morning and be subjected to utter dross and watch my team getting creamed by City. But it is still early days. I mean, come on, it's only the second game in the league. And we haven't had the best of fixtures to start off with, Arsenal and Man City.

So let's look at the positives shall we? Honestly speaking, I can't really find any positives from this match. Up front, both Torres and Ngog looked starved off service. Torres looked sharp and had a few decent moves here and there, and had a point blank effort superbly saved by Hart. Ngog, somehow still doesn't impress me.

In midfield, we were totally over-run by the City midfield. Lucas, still has yet to impress me as well. Something that I don't understand is, people keep on saying that he is a potentially good player. I didn't see that from last night's match. Gerrard was OK. Kuyt was his normal hardworking self, albeit not that effective. Milan, on the other hand somehow hasn't impressed me yet. I didn't think much of him from the Arsenal match, nor this one. People keep on saying that his touch and movement and whatever was impressive, but I have yet to see that. If you want to see impressive, I'll tell you have a look at Adam Johnson from Man City. Now thats what I would call a proper winger. I feel envious thinking they got him for only 7m pounds last year. Looks like a snip now.

In defence, we looked an absolute shambles. Agger is not a left back, and got run ragged by Johnson, Reina was partly to blame for the second goal, and somehow Glen Johnson looks a shadow of the person we bought. I remember the first 3-4 games he played for us and he looked absolutely brilliant. Nowadays he looks way short of confidence.

Overall, I think we lost the game in midfield. Our 442 lost to their 433 / 451. Its a shame as just a couple of years back, we had arguably the strongest central midfield in the league with Alonso, Gerrard and Mascherano. Alonso's long gone, it seems Mascherano's almost gone as well (with the news of the offer from Barcelona), and the player who could have provided some playmaking abilities for us (Aquilani) is no longer with us for the season. That leaves us with Gerrard, Lucas and Poulsen for the central midfield births, and maybe Joe Cole (who's out for another 2 games). Somehow our central midfield doesn't provide much sense of optimism.

Alonso, Masch and Gerrard. Sigh, those were the days.