Sanchez would have made a difference today and last week
Manchester City under Pep Guardiola | Pep on City v Liverpool ref: "He likes to be special"
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100% he has a problem with pacing his players throughout a season. It's not hard to see that they play at an extreme intensity and with the same nucleus of players in the most demanding positions. Both de Bruyne and Silva look out of it at the moment.
In the first half of the season de Bruyne got a score of 8 or above on WhoScored in 11 games. Since January he's had 2 games at that level, and none since February onwards. You can see from the way he gets around the pitch that it's more than just form. He ran himself into the ground.
That said if that way of pacing your players means you win 3/4 of league titles while you suffer in the cups...I think that's not a bad trade off. They're not a team that should be expecting to win the CL anyway. Not yet.
Good time to bump that PED thread now that it looks like this squad has completely run out of gas.
Malkovich Malkovich...?
Oh, many still do. Even right here in the CAF. I can’t stand the fecker, BTW. Never could, never will.
Gotta agree, a lot of our players are still young with plenty of room for improvement. Sometimes you have good weeks sometimes bad. The team isn't suddenly shit because we lost 3 games in a week. Against pretty decent teams. There might be a question about their mentality, but again thats something that comes with experience. If from here we manage to lose the league thats one thing, but not quite managing to win it in record time isn't the end of the world. I'm certainly not going to call the league cup and the league a bad season.
They can’t improve if they have a manager who believes in his hype so much and doesn’t ever mix things up. So long as they only play one way they’ll eventually get sussed. This is the problem Conte is having at Chelsea at the moment.
If Spurs hand them their 4th consecutive defeat, they will be a bunch of wet hens when they finally lift the premier league trophy after beating one of the lesser teams. I'll take that scant consolation.
Agree that a lot of it is due to sterling and sane currently not good enough. But then it's on Pep for playing Jesus ahead of Aguero, no?
Spot on
They have lost their last 3 games at Home.
In last 10 games they have lost 5 and won 5.
In last 10 games they have lost 5 and won 5.
For a great attacking side they are lacking great attackers. Sterling, Jesus and B.Silva really aren't much to write home about. Outside of their normal attacking pattern you wont see Sterling and Jesus doing anything useful while B.Silva lacks the effectiveness for the highest level of club football. I know, i know, someone will tell me they are all young and are to develop but i don't really see them as players with huge upside, unlike Sane who if he isn't a great player, it's almost guaranteed that one day he will be one. I'd package them in a deal and send them away if i were them.
Is it to a lesser level though? I mean he usually gets trashed, 5-1 aggregate is a spanking
Pep really likes to whine and make excuses doesn’t he?
Surely a 5-1 aggregate loss wasn’t the refs fault. That or he’s delusional.
Surely a 5-1 aggregate loss wasn’t the refs fault. That or he’s delusional.
He does get trashed more often, but he loses vs better teams.
I guess it's pick your poison. His biggest embarrassment to me was that 4-0 drubbing at the Alianz.
Whereas with Jose, I thought it was losing and getting outclassed by 10 man PSG at the Bridge.
To be honest I thought b.Silva looked quality last night.
Well they conceived 6 timesAt least the rubber wasn’t torn.
puhlease. They played their strongest possible XI for the game last night for the formation the used in first half. There us no way in hell they took the derby as seriously as last nights tie. And the Liverpool tie was a dead rubber too. That's why they held back players for the Spurs match. Makes a lot of sense. I guess plastic is a kind of dead rubber.
Sometimes I wonder about mental health of Pep. He goes totally nuts on losing. Most of the top managers are bad losers but he reaches a different level of craziness when that happens.
Yes. Only Klopp and possibly Mourinho have the know how to combat City. The rest of the league cant and next year it will get worse. City simply need to keep replacing old squad members and signing quality back up for squad members without any. Experience will just make them continue to improve
Who remembers when city were going to go the whole season undefeated?
They didn't take as seriously but they took it very seriously.
They played Otamendi, Fernandinho, D.Silva, B.Silva, Sane, Sterling, Ederson that's 7 players who played in both games.
Then around 70 min mark the brought on Aguero, Jesus, KdB who all played against Liverpool too. They also brought on Gundogon on 70 min mark.
The players who played against us but didn't play vs Liverpool: Kompany, Delph, Danilo. You can make a very good argument that Kompany and Delph are first choice players. Delph didn't play as they wanted to overload with attacking players and maybe Kompany because his fitness record is questionable.
Was it before or after they were going to win the quadruple?
Or when Real fecking Madrid were going to chase shadows without touching the ball vs them?
I'm not even making it up, some crazy guy actually said this.
They have had a good season, they will break records, but it is still only a league title. Other managers have won that for them. Pep was brought in to win the CL, end of and again he has failed. Goodness knows how much money they will spend in the summer again and that surely will start undermining the rest of his squad. Somebody is going to be shoved out of that team.
They've got it all technically and tactically.
They're mental weaklings though. A team of mercenaries, and it shows.
They can spend a billion more and that won't change.
They're mental weaklings though. A team of mercenaries, and it shows.
They can spend a billion more and that won't change.
If you look at their squad now how would They improve? They look like a finished product. Spending few hundred millions while selling some of their existing players can make them worse, it's a big gamble. You can hardly say the same with any other PL team.
For all the grief Mourinho gets for being defensive against half decent opponents Guardiola seems to suffer from same problem against opponents in knock out rounds in Champions league had he trusted his players more rather than setup his team defensively to counter Liverpool strengths in away leg they might still be in Champions league .
Jose is a genius.Sanchez would have made a difference today and last week
I could see them going for Messi or Neymar. Really that's the only kind of player that will improve them.
Pitchforks, angry mob, 6/7 threads on the main page all to the same effect etc.
A Striker and a back up for Fernandinho. Or a real back up left back, our only left back has been injured all season, its been surprising to everyone how well Delph has done but he does take away from the attack on that side.
@Treble i think Jose has a much smaller squad to choose from.
Carrick, Zlatan, Herrera, Rojo, Shaw, Blind, Darmain, Fellaini have all been passengers to a different degree or another this season (different reasons). So Jose’s squad has been depleted yet Pep can afford the luxury of having a £50m player not even stripped when fit? I have no sympathy for Pep his spending is unprecedented in world football. He has won the league with over 15 points with 6 games to go, maybe he should have rotated better during the season and been only 10 points clear but his main men like KDB and D Silva fitter and fresher. (All part of management for me).
The tunnel club thing with all this is so odd. A couple of people from one of the local pubs have done it. Grown men they are and they were praising how “amazing” it is being so close to players and all this. It really seems like something that should be targeted at kids not grown men. City really did sell their soul with this takeover over time. They have become everything their fans hated about United really and they can do nothing about it but pretend it’s fine for them and they never said any of the stuff they did.
I think if they as a club are to improve their underwhelming record in the CL they have to come to terms with it not being some huge corrupt competition. Again they’ve created this weird narrative the world is against them. Uefa, the media, the FA. They are adamant they are all biased and don’t want city in the elite. When questioned why that is they don’t have an answer it’s just accepted that’s what football is like. If you criticize them they dismiss it as a wind up or get really defensive yet they are open to giving comment on United and we have to listen to that. They honestly are the oddest bunch of fans I think.
Regarding Pep I think the media got way to carried away with them (as did the fans bit that is normal in fairness) and they won’t admit they’re wrong now. They will win a Prem whilst having no proper competition really, they have constantly said united are awful and we’re their nearest rivals. They’re no way near the best ever prem teams. Next season will be interesting as they should have some proper competition and there’s no doubt they have to improve on their CL performances.
Danilo was bought as a back up full back?
I remember that.
Imagine thinking that
Ronaldo would have had a field day with that City defense.
Guardiola's biggest blunder was Gundogan for Sterling/Bernardo in the first leg with Liverpool. It's partly due to his fondness of Gundogan and desire to give him the platform to impress in big games. It was a wrong formation to start such a game at Anfield because Gundogan is slow and cannot offer much against firece pressing. The worst part is that City played a similar formation in the first half vs Arsenal in the cup final and looked poor. That was stupid form Guardiola.
Another thing is that some of the key players were overpayed and lost form, especially Otamendi and KDB. He has some excuses for it because Kompany and Stones missed too many games due to injuries and David Silva wasn't available for 8-10 games.
There were also things out of his control like referee decisions, Aguero's injury, and the inexperience of the front three. It's still amaizing that they can break the record for most PL goals given that the average age of Sane, Sterling, Jesus and Bernardo over the course of the season is 22 y.o. The average age of Liverpool's attacking trio is 26 y.o. In hindsight, City missed Aguero in these 3 games a lot.
Another thing is that some of the key players were overpayed and lost form, especially Otamendi and KDB. He has some excuses for it because Kompany and Stones missed too many games due to injuries and David Silva wasn't available for 8-10 games.
There were also things out of his control like referee decisions, Aguero's injury, and the inexperience of the front three. It's still amaizing that they can break the record for most PL goals given that the average age of Sane, Sterling, Jesus and Bernardo over the course of the season is 22 y.o. The average age of Liverpool's attacking trio is 26 y.o. In hindsight, City missed Aguero in these 3 games a lot.