Ajax 3-1 Manchester City: City's European hopes in tatters

 
Samir Nasri grabs his head in disbelief
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Ian Herbert25 October 2012

It really was what they said it might be – a Group of Death – and it has all but certainly deposited Manchester City from the Champions League at the first hurdle once again. But what we saw from the side here tonight was an act self-immolation, a defeat which confirms that the club's own failings are the problem on an evening of dreadful defending and few chances created.

Plunged to the bottom of Group D, even wins in all three remaining pool games will provide no guarantee of progress and City may be playing for a Europa League place when Ajax come to Manchester, two weeks from now.

City had won only twice away in Europe under Roberto Mancini before last night and here there was a real sense of a manager still trying to put together a combination that can accomplish things on the Continent. There was a back four which had never before played together in Europe, with Joleon Lescott's start perhaps reflecting Mancini's realisation that the more offensively minded Matija Nastasic really is not yet the big-game player he thought he would be.

And after the midfield that had been torn asunder by Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund – 57 shots had rained in on Joe Hart's goal – there was a solid, old-fashioned Englishness about James Milner and Gareth Barry holding midfield.

From the start it looked as if Frank de Boer's youthful charges might overwhelm City. The white flags their fans wave in military fashion before every kick-off were certainly not emblematic of the football which ensued in a stadium where De Boer and Dennis Bergkamp are desperate to restore things to the days of the No 14 whose image dominates and haunts the place. "Johan Cruyff Ajacied [Ajax player]" it reads.

Christian Eriksen, the brightest talent in the local firmament, was the best player on the field from the start, turning Barry so elegantly and easily to open up space and fire wide after 20 minutes. He had already positioned himself to take a ball which Lasse Schone chested and laid into his path, but his shot swerved wide.

Given Ryan Babel's early snatched effort, this certainly wasn't an encouraging start for the visitor but it was here that Samir Nasri found the goal which, for a time, settled City's nerves. Milner was instrumental, seizing the opportunity of only his sixth start in a season when his City star has seemed to be dropping. He controlled Micah Richards' speculative ball from the right and guided it carefully into the path of the Frenchman, whose sweetly struck first-time shot nestled into the left hand corner of the net for his third goal of the season.

But the goal could not obscure the underlying uncertainties about how to play and to win in a tournament which slowly and inexorably has become Mancini's curse. Attack? Defend? Play narrow? Wide? Even as his side led, Mancini was switching things very significantly, restoring Yaya Touré from the advanced midfield three where he started in a 4-2-3-1 to the core of a 4-4-2. Milner, the holder, was repositioned wide right.

But if the idea was to meet the wide threat then the strategy misfired. Defensive failings have frustrated Mancini often this season and the way that Ajax equalised on the stroke of half-time must have set up an uncomfortable time in the dressing room for City's players. The enterprising right back Ricardo van Rhijn, who had already cut up Nasri on one advance into the City box, took on a firm 30-yard cross-field pass from Siem de Jong, delivered a quick but rather trundling cross back into the area, and watched no fewer than three City players fail to deal with it.

Barry, the prime offender, wafted a leg over the ball, Vincent Kompany and Lescott were static. Milner, perhaps expecting at least one of them to cope, could not react fast enough to prevent De Jong stepping up, past an immobile Nasri, to take the ball back and thump it past Hart and put the Dutch side level.

It got worse. Very much worse. When Eriksen wafted a corner over from the right just before the hour, Lescott was simply outjumped and overpowered by the advancing presence of Niklas Moisander, whose header took the Dutch side ahead.

That was another grievous moment for Mancini, and there was no eye contact between defender and manager when Lescott was substituted, a mere six minutes later.

That meant another mid-match team rebuild – to 3-5-2 this time – though no strategies could help with the calamity which was to ensue on 68 minutes, when Schone stole the ball from Barry and fed Eriksen. Kompany's studs seemed to get stuck in the turf as he advanced to challenge, allowing the Dane to ease around him and fire off a shot which Gael Clichy deflected dismally into his own net.

There were shades of Dortmund when Hart hurled himself at a shot from Tobias Sana, who had been eased through on goal by Schone, and that staved off an embarrassment. Nasri looked like he was about to burst into tears when the Norwegian referee refused him a penalty but it was a feeble appeal.

It was desperate – kitchen-sink time – when Mario Balotelli arrived on 77 minutes to make it a four-man strike force. But the real despair will come today, when Mancini awakes to wonder if he will ever grasp the secrets of Europe. For a sophisticated manager so versed in European ways, he seems lost in Europe.

Booked: Ajax Blind. Manchester City Kolarov, Y Touré.

Man of the match Eriksen.

Possession: Ajax 54% Manchester City 46%.

Attempts on target: Ajax 6 Manchester City 5.

Referee S O Moen (Nor). Attendance 45,743.

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