Thompson rues poor finishing

City "shot" to pieces

City boss Steve Thompson described his sides finishing as woeful

Manchester City exited the English Cup last night after a shock 4-0 away defeat to division 4 side Aldershot Town. Despite enjoying the lions share of the chances creating twice as many as their host their poor finishing was to be their downfall as Aldershot showed a ruthless edge converting 4 of their 5 chances on target to progress to the 4th round and set up a tie with fellow division 4 outfit Brentford.

Thompson made 9 changes from the side that played against West Ham in the league with goalkeeper De Gea and midfielder Iker Munian the only survivors but despite the abundance of talent within the team the changes had a negative effect.

Aldershot took the lead with just 2 minutes on the clock courtesy of French attacker Valère GERMAIN. The second goal came bang on the 30 minute mark Rodrigo DE PAUL. Despite losing City continued to carve out chances but Shots keeper Fabiano was reluctant to surrender his clean sheet making a number of world class saves to keep City at bay.

The second half was pretty much like the first and Aldershot punished Thompson's men for their wastefulness making the score 3-0 on 52 minutes Youssef MSAKNI the scorer and with just over 10 minutes remaining Aldershot completed the rout thanks to a fine finish from Flávio FERREIRA. Despite bringing on Messi, Ronaldo and Hulk City could not break through a resolute Aldershot rearguard and the game finished 4-0 to the host. 

Speaking after the game Man City boss pointed to his sides poor finishing as the reason for defeat. 

"I wouldn't say our performance was that bad tonight but our finishing was poor and in the end it has cost us. We have created enough chances to win two matches tonight but we just didn't show that ruthless edge which Aldershot did and we go back with out tail firmly between our legs.

People will look at the scoreline and think blimey they have been hammered but that simply was not the case. The scoreline certainly does not look good for us but on another day we could have walked away from this game as winners and the players that played tonight need to find that edge to their game.

I will give Aldershot credit they played well the early goal was key for them and their keeper has had a worldie where as David will perhaps look back at the goals and say i could have done a bit better. We will put this down as a learning curve for all we are still in another cup competition and this group of players will get their chance to put things right then"