We are talking style here not the means, i.e., financial cheating.
We simply played much better football in 06/07 compared to the next 2 seasons. Nothing to do with control. Infact we were more dominant on 06/07.
Do you find Man City (and other Pep teams) boring?
- Thread starter Tyrion
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I've always had the opinion that City are the most boring team to watch and that no-one really cares about them.
But then I've thought maybe I'm just bitter and it's because they are so good, but a lot of people hold the same opinion throughout football so I think there is some truth to it. There's no element of danger in most of their games, it's just pure suffocation of an opponent in the same style with an air of inevitability about it.
But then I've thought maybe I'm just bitter and it's because they are so good, but a lot of people hold the same opinion throughout football so I think there is some truth to it. There's no element of danger in most of their games, it's just pure suffocation of an opponent in the same style with an air of inevitability about it.
Like all the plastic sportswashing and corporate franchises, like 'Leipzig', they're privileged to an improper extent. It's obvious they'd win.
city are peculiar insofar they have copied Barcelona's La Masia structure wholesale. Indeed, when Abu Dhabi's dictatorship decided to use football, they were watching Pep 'Democracy' Guardiola's Barcelona.
It winds me up when people regurgitate the 'Ineos are copying city' line whenever city are absolutely nothing original.
city are peculiar insofar they have copied Barcelona's La Masia structure wholesale. Indeed, when Abu Dhabi's dictatorship decided to use football, they were watching Pep 'Democracy' Guardiola's Barcelona.
It winds me up when people regurgitate the 'Ineos are copying city' line whenever city are absolutely nothing original.
No one likes a ball hog and that’s what city are, they keep the ball and pass you to death and it’s as boring as washing the dishes
Yes I think the style is pretty dull, not just City play it, lots of teams do. Football wax a lot more entertaining 10 or 20 years ago.
I'd be interested to see experiments with offside law to reduce high pressing as the dominant style. Maybe just try it from the box lines, not halfway. Wenger offside law would make counter attacking, way, way easier as well.
It would totally change the game, so proceed with caution.
I'd be interested to see experiments with offside law to reduce high pressing as the dominant style. Maybe just try it from the box lines, not halfway. Wenger offside law would make counter attacking, way, way easier as well.
It would totally change the game, so proceed with caution.
I get why City are good, they just do nothing for me. Like watching a perfectly executed recorder solo. I can appreciate all the right notes being played in the right order, but it doesn't move me in any way. Perhaps it's bias. Most likely is, to a large degree.
But I don't get it with Liverpool now. I didn't get it with Arsenal (98-2004). Despite the rivalry I admired them. Liked watching them play. Even though it hurts. There's a....energy there. Not talking about workrate. Something intangible that there really isn't there with City.
It's like a TV series or film that's massively loved by critics and therefore wins all the awards and accolades but it doesn't really engage the public.
The moment that Martin Tyler's commentary will immortalise forever aside, it's quite stunning how all of City's incredible achievements are completely forgettable.
When Westlife broke the Beatles records of number 1s in the UK charts. It never meant the same. That's what City are, the modern equivalent in football of Westlife. Massive financial machine behind them, churning out paint by numbers performance, sweeping the boards when it comes to accolades and prizes with absolutely nobody giving a s***
But I don't get it with Liverpool now. I didn't get it with Arsenal (98-2004). Despite the rivalry I admired them. Liked watching them play. Even though it hurts. There's a....energy there. Not talking about workrate. Something intangible that there really isn't there with City.
It's like a TV series or film that's massively loved by critics and therefore wins all the awards and accolades but it doesn't really engage the public.
The moment that Martin Tyler's commentary will immortalise forever aside, it's quite stunning how all of City's incredible achievements are completely forgettable.
When Westlife broke the Beatles records of number 1s in the UK charts. It never meant the same. That's what City are, the modern equivalent in football of Westlife. Massive financial machine behind them, churning out paint by numbers performance, sweeping the boards when it comes to accolades and prizes with absolutely nobody giving a s***
Yeah, agreed re above. Messi really turned an unparalleled robotic dominant system into something of a thing of beauty
I think they are better because I watched both football teams play. ‘As a United fan’. They are a better football team. Now if you want to ask whether anyone cares that they are better then that’s another matter, but they win more football matches would be my simplest answer to your question.
Anyway, my focus was on the Barcelona team in particular, which was better than City, and better than anything that’s ever stepped on to a football pitch, but have somehow managed to be labelled a ‘boring’ team because they didn’t allow their games to be more of a contest.
Our games may have been more exciting due to the fact that you did not know who would win them. Which, sadly, means that we were not as good as teams that made you switch off due to knowing they would win. I don’t watch City games, for the record, but that is largely because I’m a hater.
Man City's playing style if it was played by a more iconic club, like us or Liverpool or Real Madrid/Barca/Bayern/Milan clubs/Juve, would be considered the greatest thing in football. It's because it's City that it's soulless. And for good reason. Off the pitch stuff and history matters for public consciousness.
Pep gets frustrated by this all the time, but he signed up to the soulless oil project. Can't have winning everything and complete control over a club without a price. The price is universal respect. He said he used to hate the politics of his previous clubs that he doesn't have to deal with now. That's because people cared about his previous clubs. When people care, it's complicated. When nobody cares, it's easier but less satisfying.
Pep gets frustrated by this all the time, but he signed up to the soulless oil project. Can't have winning everything and complete control over a club without a price. The price is universal respect. He said he used to hate the politics of his previous clubs that he doesn't have to deal with now. That's because people cared about his previous clubs. When people care, it's complicated. When nobody cares, it's easier but less satisfying.
Like watching paint dry. It's admirable in terms of just how well drilled they are- but the same reason pretty much any player can just be moved into another position is why they're so boring to watch. Stones into CB, Gvrdiol or ake at left back - none of it matters. Silva and Foden are hard to tell apart. None of it matters because the individual expression is removed. they're a brilliant team, no doubt, and while that level of discipline and prep is admirable, it's unquestionably boring to watch.
Real Madrid punting City out of the CL 2 years ago with 2 injury time goals, when City thought they were home and hosed and their fans were giving it the "Olés" in the Bernabeu, remains one of the most satisfying moments of the last decade for me, and I'll be forever grateful to Real Madrid for giving us that moment (and beating Liverpool in the final too).
Shame you lot couldn't repeat the trick last year, but I am a Real supporter as long as you stop those cnuts winning the CL again.
I'm not sure, I remember the brilliant barca team of 09-11 getting huge praise, but mixed with people who found it boring - and largely saved by messis magic in terms of watchability. If you look at the spain side of the same time, built with a similar core, i think many admired them, but found them to be very boring but deserving champions.
City these days don't play like Spain though, they're far more vertical. Guardiola also usually has 1-2 players to break the mould, De Bruyne for his time at City and now Haaland in the way Messi was, just not quite as good. Guardiola has also adapted his style to be a less possession focused than it once was. It's just sorta boring as there isn't much jeopardy in their games because they're too good, rather than an issue with how they play I think. Whenever they play top teams like Liverpool or Real Madrid games for example, it's a great watch.
I think I'd put City in the middle of the posession for possession sake teams:
Most entertaining: Pep Barcelona, largely cause Xavi/Iniesta and Messi will never not be great to watch. But I always thought that team severely abused tactical foul and injury feigning. They seemed setup to absolutely blitz the opposition until the 65th minute, then all of a sudden the whole team would get injured anytime someone looked at them, tactically foul anytime someone countered and basically ensure no football was played for the last 20-25 minutes of matches. It worked of course.
Middle of the road: Pep's City. They still love to go backwards because why wouldn't going from the touchline back to teh GK because an obvious cross wasn't on not be fun for everyone. They'll have halves with 70% posession and 0 shots on target, and Pep will consider it a job well done. I've written on here before: I actually think Pep is an extremely cowardly manager whose obsession with control isn't about scoring, it's about limiting the opposition's chances. But, City can never do it all match, every match so always concede quite a lot of goals because they're unable to handle counters if out of shape.
The dullest 'good' team in history: Spain when winning everything. Good god. The World Cup they won was less entertaining than work for me. Literally, people stopped watching and went back to their desks. They had 10 minute spells where scoring seemed like antithesis of their approach to football. If I had to play against that I'd let them score just for something to happen in the match. Pass, pass, pass, pass, pass...go nowhere.
Say what you want about Arsenal/Liverpool - at leats they both play football with the intention of getting forward and scoring goals.
Most entertaining: Pep Barcelona, largely cause Xavi/Iniesta and Messi will never not be great to watch. But I always thought that team severely abused tactical foul and injury feigning. They seemed setup to absolutely blitz the opposition until the 65th minute, then all of a sudden the whole team would get injured anytime someone looked at them, tactically foul anytime someone countered and basically ensure no football was played for the last 20-25 minutes of matches. It worked of course.
Middle of the road: Pep's City. They still love to go backwards because why wouldn't going from the touchline back to teh GK because an obvious cross wasn't on not be fun for everyone. They'll have halves with 70% posession and 0 shots on target, and Pep will consider it a job well done. I've written on here before: I actually think Pep is an extremely cowardly manager whose obsession with control isn't about scoring, it's about limiting the opposition's chances. But, City can never do it all match, every match so always concede quite a lot of goals because they're unable to handle counters if out of shape.
The dullest 'good' team in history: Spain when winning everything. Good god. The World Cup they won was less entertaining than work for me. Literally, people stopped watching and went back to their desks. They had 10 minute spells where scoring seemed like antithesis of their approach to football. If I had to play against that I'd let them score just for something to happen in the match. Pass, pass, pass, pass, pass...go nowhere.
Say what you want about Arsenal/Liverpool - at leats they both play football with the intention of getting forward and scoring goals.
Spain were dreadful to watch, anti football packaged in a more novel way. Barcelona were the same except Messi doing his thing masked that fact a bit more.
Many people said the same thing about Pep's Barca. I believe they legitly don't like the playstyle and prefer more spectacular hero type football. They miss the crosses, powerful headers, flying tackles, long shots etc. that are rationalized out of the game. Which is a bit funny because the same people always argue that 'aesthetics' aren't everything when people praise those technical, agile Pep players over the 'more complete' packages
I'm still on Xavi's side here. He once said that they don't play for possession but if the opponent parks the bus, it is just natural that you have it that much. If they played front foot football, it would look different. Unfortunately, 90% of the teams facing possession oriented opponents just surrender to the technical superiority and try to play as negatively as possible.
That aside, I still enjoy such games. Football takes place all over the pitch, not just in the penalty box, and great passing sequences to free yourself out of pressure in your own half are a joy to watch as well, IMO.
Depends with Spain, the three cups they won were all slightly different teams. The 2008 team was great to watch I thought. The 2010 World Cup was dull and stale and actually a defensive team, just with possession rather than without the ball. The 2012 team played some good football I thought, and were unbelievable in the final. But played with no striker, so was jarring. That was partly to do with David Villa getting injured for the tournament though that was out of their control.
There was nothing remotely anti-football about the way Barcelona played. The anti-football was the teams they played that camped in the box for 90 minutes and refused to engage with them, afraid of losing. At least Fergie tried to play against them and lost. Arsenal also went toe-to-toe with them too and had some great games. Those Barca-Inter matches are strong in people's memory but Mourinho instructed that the ball was the enemy, how can you get more anti-football than that?
I feel like they're too patient, nerves never seem to come into it yet nervous energy is what football is all about. It's like reading Ulysses or something, you can tell the writing is fantastic but you have no idea what's going on and don't really care.
Ya this is what I'm getting at. If messi was spanish theyd have been incredibly similar teams, and excellent and dominant, but very tough to watch bar Messi's brilliance.
City games are so boring to watch unless they're playing Liverpool or Arsenal.
Yeah, they play differently, but to the point that if they were one of the big teams they'd be admired more, Im still not sure. It's very repetitive and yeah, defintiely less 'tiki-taka' but generally still kind of predictable. Stones sums it up for me - Guardiola deserves big credit for getting out of him what he does, and making him a midfielder too, but in any other team I don't think he's actually that good, he's just been disciplined enough to absolutely nail the over and over and over again nature of Guardiola's teams. I get no real instinct or joy from his game, and the same could be said for others too. Its why grealish was such a strange signing and 14 league appearances this season kind of shows it- he was a 100m pound plan b option, but ultimately just is not a player who will end up being a guardiola-bot.
Agreed. Liverpool have always been better to watch under Klopp for me. People think it’s jealousy but it’s an opinion expressed even by people like Gary Neville.
it’s all very mechanical and structured. The incessant short passes, recycling possession, tactical fouling, cut backs. Theres a massive misconception in football these days that having 75% plus possession and completing 2 million passes a game is “great football”. It isn’t, not to me and a lot of football watchers anyway.
Like there’s no city player I go “ooh I like watching him play”. Not to say they’ve not had exciting players. Aguero was brilliant to watch and is twice the all round footballer as Haaland yet Haaland has received more hype and accolades than Aguero ever did and gets referred to as ‘the robot’. Yet Haaland couldn’t score half the individually brilliant goals Aguero did. Silva and Kompany had some individuality to them too. That Liverpool city game was the perfect example of the difference between the two teams. And you look at signings like Doku and Grealish, you can see the individuality being sucked out of them. Grealish was great to watch at Villa yet at city he’s basically a more efficient version of Park Ji Sung.
Pft. I'm a madridista. The Football Gods won't allow it
thats another good point. despite having some brilliant players since they started cheating, very few get brought up in conversation of the best PL ever xi for example. Even somebody like de bruyne, who really should be and is probably the most individually lauded player they've ever had, doesnt have any of those single individual defining moments of brilliance that somebody like gerrard had. For all the greats I can think of their 'moment', but not for somebody as brilliant as de bruyne.
It’s anti football because you assemble a team of players that are typically superior than the opposition and you stop them from having the ball. The whole point is to suffocate the opponent and suffocate the game. Avoid risk, avoid going toe-to-toe, and avoid any chance of a counter with tactical fouls.
Anti football.
Part of it is that really good teams do tend to play in a lot of really boring matches. The better you are, the more opponents will just set up to stop you and stop the contest from becoming a spectacle.
I think one of the most boring games I ever saw was when we played Steve Coppell's Reading on opening day back after we won the CL. They went five at the back, man marking everywhere, and probably had about 20% of the ball - if that. It was rubbish to watch, but that wasn't because we were addicted to possession.
With City, there are obviously a lot of other factors at play too, but I think it's fair to say there is an element of teams just giving up ahead of kickoff, and there certainly was with Barcelona and Bayern.
I think one of the most boring games I ever saw was when we played Steve Coppell's Reading on opening day back after we won the CL. They went five at the back, man marking everywhere, and probably had about 20% of the ball - if that. It was rubbish to watch, but that wasn't because we were addicted to possession.
With City, there are obviously a lot of other factors at play too, but I think it's fair to say there is an element of teams just giving up ahead of kickoff, and there certainly was with Barcelona and Bayern.
I agree with that aspect of turning Stones and Grealish and other players, Mahrez at times too and will inevitably happen to Doku. But I don't agree on Stones not being good enough for another team. Might be hard to remember now, but Stones was actually one of the most 'exciting' centre backs when he was at Everton, if you can be exciting at Everton, with mad dribbles up the pitch and risky passes, he would get destroyed for the opposite - indiscipline - and not playing like a regular centre back. Guardiola harnessed that clear technical ability over the years and turned into something less exciting, but more efficient. He's a better player but less interesting.
Barcelona under Pep didn't avoid risk, it was mostly the other team that refused to go toe-to-toe. Real Madrid spend hundreds of millions on the best players in the world and then played 3 DMs to kick Barca, I would say that was the anti-football there.
I think they are brilliant, but they are even more boring to watch. Can't stand pep’s brand of football.
I have never seen a game involving Barcelona or City against a side coming out to play, get the ball and attack them, that was boring.
The idea of proactive sides being blamed for boring games inside of the sides dragging a 747 onto the pitch from the first minute, is insane to me.
The idea of proactive sides being blamed for boring games inside of the sides dragging a 747 onto the pitch from the first minute, is insane to me.
They wouldn’t allow teams to go toe-to-toe with them, that’s the entire point of what that Barcelona team was about. They just kept the ball and ground the game down, fouled the opposition if they got a sniff, and relied on Messi to do what Messi does.
They are either the luckiest team in the World or the most corrupt. Doku kung fu kick not punished, neither was the Rhodri handball at Everton and the list goes on. Two deflected goals yesterday got them through. Guardiola is a sourfaced spoiled brat and when they get sanctioned for cheating, he'll be off like a shot probably with a big payoff of some kind. Small club with a lot of money.
What does this mean, they wouldn't allow teams?
Are there teams that deliberately give the ball away to the opposition? Whatever happened to, you know, just taking the ball from them?
And I'm not speaking in terms of theory. We have seen sides like Bayern take the game to them and strip the ball and dominate proceedings
Well, that’s a given.
There's a lack of jeopardy with them and they've been doing it for about 8 years so it's become predictable.
I don't think Pep's Barcelona avoided going toe to toe with anyone. If anything, teams that went toe to toe with them were more often than not slaughtered. We went toe to toe with them in the 2011 final as did Real Madrid and Arsenal several times but the result was not good for the opponent. So, opponents actually started playing antifootball vs them. I wouldn't call that Barcelona side antifootball.
The Spain team after Euro 2008 is another story.
Boring.
It's always weird when the coach who holds the ball gets blamed for anti football and not the one who purposely reject the ball
Yes on the evidence of today.
At their dominant best (first half against Real last year at home) you can be in awe of them but it still leaves you cold.
At their dominant best (first half against Real last year at home) you can be in awe of them but it still leaves you cold.
I really did fall asleep around the 50th minute. So yep City are pretty dull.