Quick Kicks: Still p*ssed off despite expecting nothing; why isn't Moyes being questioned re: Khazri?

Never expected anything, but I'm still angry!

Going in to this game I felt that anything other than a loss would be viewed as a fantastic result, and that even if we could match Manchester City throughout - like we did in this exact same fixture, despite losing, last February - we would feel fairly content with the end result of the game.

And for 40 minutes of the first half we did match our opponents - they controlled the game and didn't allow us possession of the ball, as we expected, but we worked hard to press and harry them in midfield and it almost worked. Jermain Defoe hit the woodwork, Billy Jones came close with a couple of headers and Fabio Borini missed the chance of the game when he put the rebound from Defoe's effort nowhere near the goal.

Yet again though we conceded right before half time and it killed the game stone dead, there and then. You just knew that we weren't going to muster up the same level of energy in the second half because we've seen it so many times already this season - it doesn't matter how many soundbites the players give in press interviews through the week about how good the training has been, we all know that they just don't have it in them to battle and work for one another.

David Moyes spoke to Sky after the game and said that the players weren't yet resigned to relegation, but their body language and results tell a completely different story. This isn't a team, this is a fractured bunch of individuals.

Khazri's role is baffling

Granted, Wahbi Khazri has came on for five minute cameos here and there in recent times and hasn't done a great deal. But I'll be honest, I'm slightly irked as to why nobody in the media seems to want to grill our manager on why he's unwilling to fully utilise a player like Khazri, a man who was so influential for us in the second half of last season.

The 'Khazri has a bad attitude' argument just doesn't wash with me anymore. Adnan Januzaj has been largely invisible since he arrived at the club and he plays almost every week - though granted, he did alright against City yesterday; whilst the less said about Fabio Borini's performances this season the better.

Is a player that was able to directly influence games last season, Khazri, really only worth short appearances here and there? Could he not at least be given a chance to prove his worth by starting in a run of games?

We haven't scored in any of our last three matches. Jermain Defoe has been a passenger for much of that time because he's got absolutely zero creativity coming from the midfield behind him.

Bizarre. We 'lack quality' according to our manager, yet he has a player sat on the bench every week that he's not prepared to get behind and motivate, a player that could provide us with crucial goals and assists at a time when we desperately need them.

The sooner that Jan Kirchhoff is back, the better

It doesn't seem to matter who we are playing, our midfield is completely pedestrian. Didier Ndong does the job of two or three players most of the time and it's because the other players in there with him just aren't good enough to play every week at this level.

I'd rather not be pinning my hopes on a player that is famed for his inability to stave off niggling injuries but against Burnley we need to have Jan Kirchhoff - and perhaps even Jack Rodwell - back in our team. Sebastian Larsson just isn't able to do it any more and Darron Gibson looks like he's not quite ready to play full games just yet, so it would make sense to change it up slightly in an effort to see if we can do what we haven't been able to do on three other occasions this season, and actually beat Burnley.