Is it fair to worship Guardiola at this point? | The Ball Did It

[Treble]

I guess that the thought processes behind regarding Guardiola as a fraud are something like this: You are a true great at managing teams if you can win big tropheys with squads that are not the best. If you can win only if you have the best players, then you are nothing special really and to pretend to be special under these circumstances is fraudulent.

Now, this argument is wrong for various reasons. Guardiola doesn't just happen to work with exceptional talens but develops them as players as well. Messi, Xavi and Iniesta had all the talent in the world but nothing guaranteed in advance that they would have become all-time greats without Guardiola. Messi, for instance, had injury problems that were holding him back at the time. But the main reason why most criticisms against Guardiola fail is that they disregard style. They take it for granted that the only thing that matters is to win. A great style of winning is just a bonus. Well, I'm happy that Fergie and other managers did not think like that. Because football would be boring as feck. For Guardiola what really matters is to win in great style and this cannot happen with squads full with average or just very good players. To play exceptional footbal you need special players. But to have special players is not enough to play exeptional football. Great teams are not just collections of very talented players. Barca in 07/08 are a case in point.

 

[sugar_kane]

Can't judge anything at this point in the season, City start like this every single year and people never fail to get over-excited. Football fans have notoriously short memories but they're especially bad where City's starts to the season are concerned.

 

[fellaini's barber]

He'll probably win the league this season, not because he's particularly good but because he's bought a shit ton of very good players and the other teams including us won't get their act together

 

[FCBarca]

He'll probably win the league this season, not because he's particularly good but because he's bought a shit ton of very good players and the other teams including us won't get their act together

Hard to argue with brilliant reasoning like this

 

[Tango80]

In fairness, he's done well so far this season. Got Aguero and Jesus playing well together, and they seem to be a lot more tighter at the back. They also bought well, strengthened where they needed to instead of buying a fancy dan attacker to join their other fancy dan attackers (cough Liverpool).

Title winning teams are generally the most solid ones, and this City side seem to have that so far this season.

 

[Mani]

Its too early to judge his current team,yeah he got talented bunch comparatively but I like to see how resilient these men's are when season gets tough.

 

[AshRK]

Sorry I missed this. Great post. My exact point was a reply to someone saying Pep was clearly better, stating he wasn't and defending Jose. Likewise I'll defend Pep too when I read rubbish like, Jose is clearly a better manager. In reality, like I said in the first place, they are both top managers, both have been at top clubs most there career (since Jose left Porto, Peps entire career) and there is very little to seperate them. Jose has slightly more trophies over a longer time frame but Pep started at a higher level.

Pep has never finished below 3rd in his career, Jose has being sacked for being 10th with the defending champions of course its a blemish on him.
Jose has won the CL with Porto and Inter, Pep has won it with an underdog Barcelona (yes they were underdogs in his 1st season, but of course they weren't the level of underdog Inter were or even close on Porto.). Pep though failed to win it at Bayern which is a blemish for him.
Joses time at Real will always be a solid 6/10 for me and thats a blemish for a manager of Jose caliber.
Last season was a blemish for both. Pep's pretty much infallable reputation too a huge hit and deservedly so...
Only winning a competition he didn't want to be in save Jose from an even worse fate. Both scraped CL football, albeit Pep marginally more comfortable than Jose. That's a blemish for both with £500m squads.

I'll openly admit, the two trophies mean Jose had the better season in the end last term, but it was still a poor season. When your season defining moment comes down to 90 minutes in a competition you shouldn't be in in the first place that's a poor season though. The gloss of the trophies make it a better one than Cities and Pep's but on its own merit. 6th in the league, plus Europa and Carling Cup is not a Manchester United season... not even close and not the season you guys were expecting at the outset. Liverpool were laughed at for their treble.

The last two seasons are the two seasons that have left question marks hanging over both imho.

I never understand why Jose's time at madrid is so underrated. What was he expected to do, win 3 champions league. Ok yeah he didn't won any but let us look back. In 2010 madrid were not that great like they are now. They had failed to reach beyond the last 16 in champions league for 4 or 5 seasons continuously. Barca were tearing them apart every time they both met. Jose took over a real madrid side which were in shadows of barca and made them winners. And his football at madrid was probably one of the best I have ever seen.

Real madrid fans may not love jose but even many appreciate what jose did for them. He brought back that confidence that they can match or even better that great barca side.

People tend to confuse that just because jose had ronaldo he should have won champions league, no it's not that how it works. And even then the 2011-12 season , they should have beaten Bayern. Watch that game again and you will know what I am talking, higuain missed 4 or 5 easy chances. And then to lose on penalties was just bad luck for jose and his side. That side scored record goal in la liga and deserved to win the champions league .

Overall, his tenure at madrid was pretty amazing. Considering he stayed 3 seasons at a club where they sack managers left, right and center so he must have been doing something right if he managed to stay there for 3 seasons.

 

[De Portago]

I never understand why Jose's time at madrid is so underrated. What was he expected to do, win 3 champions league. Ok yeah he didn't won any but let us look back. In 2010 madrid were not that great like they are now. They had failed to reach beyond the last 16 in champions league for 4 or 5 seasons continuously. Barca were tearing them apart every time they both met. Jose took over a real madrid side which were in shadows of barca and made them winners. And his football at madrid was probably one of the best I have ever seen.

Real madrid fans may not love jose but even many appreciate what jose did for them. He brought back that confidence that they can match or even better that great barca side.

People tend to confuse that just because jose had ronaldo he should have won champions league, no it's not that how it works. And even then the 2011-12 season , they should have beaten Bayern. Watch that game again and you will know what I am talking, higuain missed 4 or 5 easy chances. And then to lose on penalties was just bad luck for jose and his side. That side scored record goal in la liga and deserved to win the champions league .

Overall, his tenure at madrid was pretty amazing. Considering he stayed 3 seasons at a club where they sack managers left, right and center so he must have been doing something right if he managed to stay there for 3 seasons.

I don't think you can call a three year stint at Real Madrid with one title and one cup amazing, no matter who the opposition were. His third season was horrible, shades of Chelsea 15/16. He was 15 points off Barcelona in December, and lost the cup final against their city rivals. And then you have your Mourinho special, when things are going south just deflect the attention from bad results by picking up fights with everyone, from your captain, your star player, Jorge Valdano, chairman, you name it.

 

[Ishdalar]

I never understand why Jose's time at madrid is so underrated. What was he expected to do, win 3 champions league. Ok yeah he didn't won any but let us look back. In 2010 madrid were not that great like they are now. They had failed to reach beyond the last 16 in champions league for 4 or 5 seasons continuously. Barca were tearing them apart every time they both met. Jose took over a real madrid side which were in shadows of barca and made them winners. And his football at madrid was probably one of the best I have ever seen.

Real madrid fans may not love jose but even many appreciate what jose did for them. He brought back that confidence that they can match or even better that great barca side.

People tend to confuse that just because jose had ronaldo he should have won champions league, no it's not that how it works. And even then the 2011-12 season , they should have beaten Bayern. Watch that game again and you will know what I am talking, higuain missed 4 or 5 easy chances. And then to lose on penalties was just bad luck for jose and his side. That side scored record goal in la liga and deserved to win the champions league .

Overall, his tenure at madrid was pretty amazing. Considering he stayed 3 seasons at a club where they sack managers left, right and center so he must have been doing something right if he managed to stay there for 3 seasons.

Because posts like this only try to polarize the story into a narrative, and everytime someone does that there's a lot of people that will choose the other side of the argument to not get sucked up in you personal view.

For starters, I think he did a good job (6/10, maybe 7/10 even) but he had already laid some foundations that the club strengthened for him, Pellegrini for example got 4 more points in the league and circumstances were worst.

First of all, you can see that in the amount of minutes every player (and what players) got in the 09/10 & 10/11 seasons

Spoiler

2009/2010

2010/2011

1) Mourinho got 1700 minutes more of Cristiano Ronaldo and, afaik he was up for every key match of that season, but Pellegrini didn't have him for the R16 first leg
2) Pellegrini never got destroyed by Barcelona. 1-0 in the Camp Nou thanks to Zlatan and 0-2 in the Bernabeu without Pepe, playing Garay and with everyone knowing he was out by May no matter what. Not brilliant results, but normal considering circumstances, he didn't get 5-0'd in his first game.
3) Pellegrini never had full control of the team, he asked for Sneijder and Robben to stay, then for at least one of them, and finally the club sold them both, this always weighted on him. Mourinho had a much better transition and Florentino always gave him full command
4) Pellegrini had to give minutes to legends like Guti or Raul that clearly weren't cut for elite level anymore, and a subpar Kaka that had to play because of his price tag, Mourinho never had those problems.
5) Not only Mourinho was spared the problem of appeasing Raul, Guti and Kaka, he could give those minutes to players miles ahead of them like Angel Di Maria and Ozil
6) The backline with Pellegrini was Arbeloa, Ramos, Albiol and Marcelo because Pepe (arguably Real Madrid's best defender in the 21st century) lost half the season over an ACL. Mourinho not only had Pepe for most of his season, he signed Ricardo Carvalho, got rid of Mama Diarra and added Khedira to the midfield in detriment of Lass Diarra. Those changes would be huge improvements for any manager.

So, if we take those two seasons all things considered and compare them to how they fared against Guardiola, they're not really that far from each other.

The biggest problem is, the media always sold Barcelona as an unstoppable machine because they had World Cup winners and Lionel Messi, Mou + Real Madrid were underdogs against that(and Mourinho liked it), but time has put everything in perpespective, those teams had a lot of similar pieces.

Barcelona had a lot of World Champions (Valdes, Puyol, Pique, Busquets, Xavi, Iniesta, Pedro and Villa) + Lionel Messi and a top 10 historic fullback (Dani Alves).
Real Madrid had a lot of World Champions (Casillas, Ramos, Arbeloa, Albiol, Xabi Alonso, Khedira and Ozil) + Cristiano Ronaldo, a top 10 historic fullback (Marcelo) and Pepe.


So, to sum this up, it was a fair challenge between both those managers and Guardiola won that if we look at silverware (and luck will always have a part on that), won it if we look at longevity (Mou burned up sooner) and his peak with Barcelona (all his seasons) was way higher than Mou with Real.

A lot of people took for granted that Barcelona were unreachable because they had once in a lifetime players to win things and play beautifully, with Guardiola not doing a lot. But here we are, just 5 years later and Real Madrid have won back to back UCL titles with two silky midfielders (Modric and Kroos) that can hold a candle to Xavi+Iniesta and just after Barcelona won a treble too. I've been saying it for almost 7 years, Real Madrid had the tools to do more against Barcelona (maybe not winning every year, but the overall job of trying to surpass them in every aspect, not just titles) but didn't put them to use because Mourinho was happy to live in Guardiola's shadow and never really tried to surpass him beyond results.

After his first title, Mou had in his squad something even bigger than current Real Madrid and maybe better than Barcelona had in 2007:

Pepe, Ramos, Ronaldo and Xabi Alonso at their peak
Marcelo, Higuain, Modric and Di Maria about to enter an absolute crazy form for 3/4 years
Benzema, Ozil, Carvalho, Albiol, Khedira, Essien, Arbeloa and Callejon as a great supporting cast.
Varane, Morata, and Casemiro in the youth ranks to replace Carvalho, Xabi Alonso and any striker that was bound to leave.

And that third season did happen and is there to rate his work at Real Madrid, as much as some people tend to forget it

 

[AshRK]

Because posts like this only try to polarize the story into a narrative, and everytime someone does that there's a lot of people that will choose the other side of the argument to not get sucked up in you personal view.

For starters, I think he did a good job (6/10, maybe 7/10 even) but he had already laid some foundations that the club strengthened for him, Pellegrini for example got 4 more points in the league and circumstances were worst.

First of all, you can see that in the amount of minutes every player (and what players) got in the 09/10 & 10/11 seasons

Spoiler

2009/2010

2010/2011

1) Mourinho got 1700 minutes more of Cristiano Ronaldo and, afaik he was up for every key match of that season, but Pellegrini didn't have him for the R16 first leg
2) Pellegrini never got destroyed by Barcelona. 1-0 in the Camp Nou thanks to Zlatan and 0-2 in the Bernabeu without Pepe, playing Garay and with everyone knowing he was out by May no matter what. Not brilliant results, but normal considering circumstances, he didn't get 5-0'd in his first game.
3) Pellegrini never had full control of the team, he asked for Sneijder and Robben to stay, then for at least one of them, and finally the club sold them both, this always weighted on him. Mourinho had a much better transition and Florentino always gave him full command
4) Pellegrini had to give minutes to legends like Guti or Raul that clearly weren't cut for elite level anymore, and a subpar Kaka that had to play because of his price tag, Mourinho never had those problems.
5) Not only Mourinho was spared the problem of appeasing Raul, Guti and Kaka, he could give those minutes to players miles ahead of them like Angel Di Maria and Ozil
6) The backline with Pellegrini was Arbeloa, Ramos, Albiol and Marcelo because Pepe (arguably Real Madrid's best defender in the 21st century) lost half the season over an ACL. Mourinho not only had Pepe for most of his season, he signed Ricardo Carvalho, got rid of Mama Diarra and added Khedira to the midfield in detriment of Lass Diarra. Those changes would be huge improvements for any manager.

So, if we take those two seasons all things considered and compare them to how they fared against Guardiola, they're not really that far from each other.

The biggest problem is, the media always sold Barcelona as an unstoppable machine because they had World Cup winners and Lionel Messi, Mou + Real Madrid were underdogs against that(and Mourinho liked it), but time has put everything in perpespective, those teams had a lot of similar pieces.

Barcelona had a lot of World Champions (Valdes, Puyol, Pique, Busquets, Xavi, Iniesta, Pedro and Villa) + Lionel Messi and a top 10 historic fullback (Dani Alves).
Real Madrid had a lot of World Champions (Casillas, Ramos, Arbeloa, Albiol, Xabi Alonso, Khedira and Ozil) + Cristiano Ronaldo, a top 10 historic fullback (Marcelo) and Pepe.


So, to sum this up, it was a fair challenge between both those managers and Guardiola won that if we look at silverware (and luck will always have a part on that), won it if we look at longevity (Mou burned up sooner) and his peak with Barcelona (all his seasons) was way higher than Mou with Real.

A lot of people took for granted that Barcelona were unreachable because they had once in a lifetime players to win things and play beautifully, with Guardiola not doing a lot. But here we are, just 5 years later and Real Madrid have won back to back UCL titles with two silky midfielders (Modric and Kroos) that can hold a candle to Xavi+Iniesta and just after Barcelona won a treble too. I've been saying it for almost 7 years, Real Madrid had the tools to do more against Barcelona (maybe not winning every year, but the overall job of trying to surpass them in every aspect, not just titles) but didn't put them to use because Mourinho was happy to live in Guardiola's shadow and never really tried to surpass him beyond results.

After his first title, Mou had in his squad something even bigger than current Real Madrid and maybe better than Barcelona had in 2007:

Pepe, Ramos, Ronaldo and Xabi Alonso at their peak
Marcelo, Higuain, Modric and Di Maria about to enter an absolute crazy form for 3/4 years
Benzema, Ozil, Carvalho, Albiol, Khedira, Essien, Arbeloa and Callejon as a great supporting cast.
Varane, Morata, and Casemiro in the youth ranks to replace Carvalho, Xabi Alonso and any striker that was bound to leave.

And that third season did happen and is there to rate his work at Real Madrid, as much as some people tend to forget it

You choose to cherrypick all the points that suit your agenda but forget one big thing that he brought to the real madrid side, that was winning mentality. Pellegrini may have got more points but jose got the winning mentality which helped real madrid immensely. He made them realise they can compete with barca, which showed in his second season. He built a spine which madrid even has today to an extent.

And what longevity you are talking, pep stayed at barca for 4 years (just one more than jose at madrid) and the moment he lost the title , he left. Also, the working of real.madrid is different to barca, madrid sack their coach even after winning the champions league, barca don't do that. So attaining longevity at madrid is more difficult than at barca and yet he managed to stay for 3 full season. And the rumour goes, some wanted jose to stay but because of player revolt he decided to leave.

Again, you conveniently chose to not elaborate the 2011-12 season, which was by far one of the best season madrid had. He outscored the dangerous barca side and dominated the league , should have won the champions league but got knocked in pens against Bayern.

It is no wrong in saying the circumstances jose took over madrid was tough. They were not the same madrid side that they are now. They hadn't progressed beyond last 16 for 4 or 5 seasons even after spending good amount of money on world class.players. It was clear they lacked the confidence to match barca side who (whether you want to agree or not) were dominating european football.

 

[squiggle]

I really didn't see that winning mentality. Well, maybe for a while in the second season but the third undid all that good work and more. The Real he left was a bit of a wreck, mentally, and it took the calmer management of Ancelotti and Zidane to repair the damage. Of course any team might become a collective basket case facing that Barcelona but I don't think his Real acted like winners so much as permanent underdogs. It brought some success but it could never last. The team came apart under the pressure.

I'm not inclined to be charitable to Mourinho, I admit, but I really don't see his time in Madrid as very positive, either for him or the team. Not a disaster but his poorest period up to that point and it seemed to affect him pretty deeply.

 

[adexkola]

Also, I'm not sure how anyone can label Mourinho's time at Madrid as a success and simultaneously ignore all of Guardiola's work at Barcelona because of the (false) notion that you can throw Messi, Xavi and Iniesta on the pitch and sleepwalk to a shit-ton of trophies.

 

[Shark]

Also, I'm not sure how anyone can label Mourinho's time at Madrid as a success and simultaneously ignore all of Guardiola's work at Barcelona because of the (false) notion that you can throw Messi, Xavi and Iniesta on the pitch and sleepwalk to a shit-ton of trophies.

When you look at what someone like Brendan Rodgers did in the PL with only Suarez, that notion isn't completely without truth although some people do exaggerate.

 

[dichinero]

Also, I'm not sure how anyone can label Mourinho's time at Madrid as a success and simultaneously ignore all of Guardiola's work at Barcelona because of the (false) notion that you can throw Messi, Xavi and Iniesta on the pitch and sleepwalk to a shit-ton of trophies.

It's called bias.

 

[adexkola]

When you look at what someone like Brendan Rodgers did in the PL with only Suarez, that notion isn't completely without truth although some people do exaggerate.

Then that applies to every top manager who has a collection of good players.

 

[SuperiorXI]

Also, I'm not sure how anyone can label Mourinho's time at Madrid as a success and simultaneously ignore all of Guardiola's work at Barcelona because of the (false) notion that you can throw Messi, Xavi and Iniesta on the pitch and sleepwalk to a shit-ton of trophies.

Not sleepwalk but you can't ignore just how much of a once in a generation team that Barca team were. I doubt we'll ever see a club-level team that good again. Guardiola can take credit for that, but he had great fortune there's no denying.

 

[Ishdalar]

You choose to cherrypick all the points that suit your agenda but forget one big thing that he brought to the real madrid side, that was winning mentality. Pellegrini may have got more points but jose got the winning mentality which helped real madrid immensely. He made them realise they can compete with barca, which showed in his second season. He built a spine which madrid even has today to an extent.

And what longevity you are talking, pep stayed at barca for 4 years (just one more than jose at madrid) and the moment he lost the title , he left. Also, the working of real.madrid is different to barca, madrid sack their coach even after winning the champions league, barca don't do that. So attaining longevity at madrid is more difficult than at barca and yet he managed to stay for 3 full season. And the rumour goes, some wanted jose to stay but because of player revolt he decided to leave.

Again, you conveniently chose to not elaborate the 2011-12 season, which was by far one of the best season madrid had. He outscored the dangerous barca side and dominated the league , should have won the champions league but got knocked in pens against Bayern.

It is no wrong in saying the circumstances jose took over madrid was tough. They were not the same madrid side that they are now. They hadn't progressed beyond last 16 for 4 or 5 seasons even after spending good amount of money on world class.players. It was clear they lacked the confidence to match barca side who (whether you want to agree or not) were dominating european football.

I'm not cherrypicking, right at the start I say I think he did a good job (even a notable job if you take 7/10 as notable) so of course he did his fair share of good things for the club, and some of them stood after he left as a legacy. But if I start talking in that wall of text about everything Mou did right and Pellegrini did wrong I'd be writing here until christmas

Guardiola didn't left the team because he lost the first title, he left because he had problems with the board (same as Mourinho, who became too hard to manage for Florentino, putting him in the position of having to choose between players or manager).

And I didn't elaborate in the 11-12 season because my post was mostly about how Mourinho's first season was more manageable than Pellegrini, a guy that is dreaded at Real Madrid but didn't have the resources Mou had, so it's not fair saying that Mourinho took a post-nuclear disaster Real Madrid, it was a 96 league points team, that had a couple of bad moments the season before but was on the rising and that the same summer Mourinho got there they managed to get rid of a lot of their baggage.

Maybe you want me to rate Mourinho in each individual season to know where I stand?

10-11 he gets a 7/10 (fought both major titles against Barcelona but lost, won the cup, team looked strong anyway)
11-12 he gets a 9/10 (Great league run, close legs vs Barcelona and Bayern in Cup and UCL, potentially a treble year denied by Alves' wonder goal and penalties)
12-13 he gets a 4/10 (Awful league run, bailed vs United with the red card, flirted with disaster vs Galatasaray, disaster vs Dortmund, only good thing was reaching the cup final which is why I put him bordering the pass, but in the end loses a final vs Atletico in the Bernabeu).

Guardiola has had some low points already in his career, but still he hasn't reached the total low of the 2012/2013 Real Madrid, not only one hell of a squad underperformed massively when they were on the edge of setting a dinasty, the manager helped create a civil war that took a couple years for the club to recover.

 

[adexkola]

Not sleepwalk but you can't ignore just how much of a once in a generation team that Barca team were. I doubt we'll ever see a club-level team that good again. Guardiola can take credit for that, but he had great fortune there's no denying.

Xavi was at the club since 1999. Iniesta (and Ronaldinho) joined at 2004. Messi joined at 2005. They were together for a few years and won a few trophies, but in no way were classified as a legendary ensenble until Guardiola came on.

 

[Ishdalar]

When you look at what someone like Brendan Rodgers did in the PL with only Suarez, that notion isn't completely without truth although some people do exaggerate.

As good as Suarez leading Liverpool alone to almost win a league sound, if we watched now those 38 games we would find a lot of other things that put them there, not only Suarez, he was the spark, or the finisher, but no player carries one team like that if the manager isn't able to make things click together.

And that applies to Guardiola too, there's this paradox that the season Messi went mental with 73 goals under Guardiola (50 in 37 league games, 3 in 7 cup games and 14 in 11 UCL games) the team only managed to win the trophy were Messi scored way below his ratio, the Cup. If Guardiola's job only was to put generational talents in the field and make them play, that Barcelona with a guy having the best season ever + 2012 Iniesta (his best year, look at the Euro he had) would've walked every title, but Pep didn't find the right balance

 

[Sad Chris]

I was noticing that he doesn‘t bother me much anymore. Klopp has taken the weird stuff to a new level.

So not being bothered about his behaviour anymore I‘ve softened to him a bit and even managed to look at him from a different angle.

I think unlike most other managers, he‘ll be leaving the football stage after this contract at a fairly young age. I think he has bigger fish to fry, probably along the line of politics for an independent Catalonia.

I think it might not be too early to judge him, it might be too late to judge him. He‘s just not in the game anymore, at least not wholeheartedly. It‘s a job now. He takes it very seriously and he obviously wants to win, but I think he understands that footy is basically a game and that doing other things, more meaningful things would be a step forward and upward.

He should still win a few things, maybe the PL, but I doubt the CL.

 

[Manchester Dan]

Irrespective of whether you think he's done well or not in his career to be considered a great manager. I just love the way he views football. His comment that no player can even move faster than the ball sums up very simply what he is trying to do in his team.

His focus on consistently fast movement of the ball from the back, and the team moving out of a static shape to continuously outnumber the opposition in the midfield to make moving the ball forwards easy is a very simple concept, but to actually achieve it takes incredible football players. That's what Barca had, and that's why they were a fantastic side. I'm not sure he'll ever get THAT collection of talent ever again, with any side, but I'll always enjoy football being played in this way.

 

[Rhyme Animal]

Irrespective of whether you think he's done well or not in his career to be considered a great manager. I just love the way he views football. His comment that no player can even move faster than the ball sums up very simply what he is trying to do in his team.

Van Gaal used to say this.

Van Gaal also used to pointlessly tinker around and make things far more complicated than necessary in order to come across as some kind of genius if/when it worked.

 

[PepG]

"Running is for animals. You need a brain and a ball for football." Louis Van Gaal

 

[Manchester Dan]

Van Gaal used to say this.

Van Gaal also used to pointlessly tinker around and make things far more complicated than necessary in order to come across as some kind of genius if/when it worked.

Some just do it better than others.

 

[Rhyme Animal]

Some just do it better than others.

Better, but essentially the same thing.

Give van Gaal that current City squad and you'd get a similar situation - moments of great flourish, particularly early in the season, odd decisions (from the manager), some level of capitulation as the season went on.

In short, elaborate underachieving.

Trophies in Manchester - José 3 - Guardiola 0

 

[Manchester Dan]

Better, but essentially the same thing.

Give van Gaal that current City squad and you'd get a similar situation - moments of great flourish, particularly early in the season, odd decisions (from the manager), some level of capitulation as the season went on.

In short, elaborate underachieving.

Trophies in Manchester - José 3 - Guardiola 0

Let's be honest, neither manager has won a trophy big enough to keep them in a job long-term yet. For a start, you don't get the chance to win the EL when you're doing well enough to be in the CL, the same way you don't enter the Johnsons Paint Trophy when you're in the PL.

 

[Rhyme Animal]

Let's be honest, neither manager has won a trophy big enough to keep them in a job long-term yet. For a start, you don't get the chance to win the EL when you're doing well enough to be in the CL, the same way you don't enter the Johnsons Paint Trophy when you're in the PL.

Trust me, winning trophies is better than not winning them.

End of.

 

[Manchester Dan]

Trust me, winning trophies is better than not winning them.

End of.

Well if the choice was between the league cup or nothing every year then yes... what's your point? I still love the way Pep views football..

 

[Rhyme Animal]

Well if the choice was between the league cup or nothing every year then yes... what's your point? I still love the way Pep views football..

You missed out the UEFA cup, we won that too last season.

 

[Manchester Dan]

You missed out the UEFA cup, we won that too last season.

Newcastle won the Championship too, that's how you both ended up in the real competitions.

 

[adz_87]

Van Gaal used to say this.

Van Gaal also used to pointlessly tinker around and make things far more complicated than necessary in order to come across as some kind of genius if/when it worked.

Guardiola has said on numerous occasions that you need very good players for that philosophy to work. In my opinion, Van gaal wasn't wrong in what he said he just didn't have the top quality players to execute that style of football.

 

[adz_87]

You missed out the UEFA cup, we won that too last season.

I was happy with won the UEFA cup just so we were back in the Champions league! But let's be honest with ourselves, City were in the Champions league and finished in the top 4 and were cleary better than us last year. We were so poor that I couldn't really be overley happy with the achievements as I came away from old trafford dissapointed far to many times last year. Felt more relief than anything that we no longer had to play Thursday night's. And whilst we're on it can we stop counting the charity shield as a trophy it's embarssing.

 

[Josep Dowling]

Usually the EPL is decided by big clubs beating the little ones. This year I think the EPL will be decided by the results in derbies, that's how much of a difference between the top 3-5 and the rest is.

I don't believe this to be true otherwise Liverpool would have won the title over the last few seasons.

 

[adz_87]

I don't believe this to be true otherwise Liverpool would have won the title over the last few seasons.

Yeah but they got beat of the smaller sides far too often.

He's basically saying that bar Chelsea and Burnley first game of the season the big sides are comfortably beating the smaller ones (at this stage) and if that continues the league will be won on derbies/top 4 clashes.

 

[Rhyme Animal]

Newcastle won the Championship too, that's how you both ended up in the real competitions.

You just sound so bitter mate (no pun intended).

Are you actually claiming that you'd rather you won nothing than won the League Cup and the UEFA Cup in the same season?

 

[el magico]

You just sound so bitter mate (no pun intended).

Are you actually claiming that you'd rather you won nothing than won the League Cup and the UEFA Cup in the same season?

Your fellow United fan adz_87 seems to have answered this question quite well. As a City fan I would have rather have won the League Cup and the Uefa cup than nothing. However, last season City were too good to be in the Uefa Cup so they could not win it, therefore, your question is irrelevant.

In answer to the OP, it is fair to criticise Guardiola at this point. Although in approximately four hours we will be in a much better position to ascertain what Pep has done for City.

 

[Laurentiu amt]

Yeah but they got beat of the smaller sides far too often.

He's basically saying that bar Chelsea and Burnley first game of the season the big sides are comfortably beating the smaller ones (at this stage) and if that continues the league will be won on derbies/top 4 clashes.

THanks for the translation. D THat's my point.

 

[VorZakone]

He's still a fraud IMO.

Hehehehehe

 

[FCBarca]

Easily playing the best & most entertaining football in Europe

 

[VorZakone]

Easily playing the best & most entertaining football in Europe

'Easily'? Forgetting Napoli?