Is it Guardiola or is it his City squad?

Dr. Funkenstein said:
I beleive the playing style itself is the problem. I believe he's a manager who knows his job very well, he makes players play his difficult style extremely quickly. But that style is about perfection, players have to do everything with full control and composure. They're not allow to take risks with their technique, everything they do they really have to master, get every touch right, 10 out of 10. But players can do a lot more when they're allowed to try things at the max of their ability and risk loss of posession. With Messi and Iniesta he got away with it, allthough he probably should have won more with that group of players. With Bayern he didn't, and in the PL with it's high pace it's even more difficult.
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I don't think the playing style is a problem in general, i think its a problem when he tries it with players who are perhaps not suited to it almost like he believes his own hype. If he had Torres, Weigl and Isco in midfield i doubt they'd be struggling this much. We've seen them dish out some very impressive performances this season alone where they've made some rather good sides look really mediocre. Those performances were at a level we hadn't seen dished out by a city side before.
 
RooneyLegend said:
I don't think the playing style is a problem in general, i think its a problem when he tries it with players who are perhaps not suited to it almost like he believes his own hype. If he had Torres, Weigl and Isco in midfield i doubt they'd be struggling this much. We've seen them dish out some very impressive performances this season alone where they've made some rather good sides look really mediocre. Those performances were at a level we hadn't seen dished out by a city side before.
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that's flat out untrue. City regularly went through spells under Pellegrini where they absolutely hammered teams.
 
Massive Spanner said:
that's flat out untrue. City regularly went through spells under Pellegrini where they absolutely hammered teams.
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This. Pellegrini and even Mancini to an extent, had City playing some genuinely quality stuff. Easily on par with whatever Pep had them dishing up at the start of the season.

Heck, just go back to the first 5 games of last season. Are you seriously saying the quality of football was not at least as good as the first 10 games of this season? If anything, it was better IMO. City have looked suspect at the back all season, it was just that Aguero, KDB and Sterling (to an extent) were in fine form. Last season, City genuinely looked like world beaters, and didn't even concede a goal while averaging something silly like 3 goals per game.
 
robinamicrowave said:
The infrastructure is there and we're turning a massive profit now. The owners have set up camp and they're going nowhere. But ever since 2013 it's been all style and no substance. The connection with the fans has gone, the squad has regressed to the tune of a £500m investment, and none of it needed to happen. We were winning things and still very good value for money as late as 2012, but what we're going through now isn't just a rite of passage for any team wanting to get to the top and stay there, it's been enforced from day one and it's driving me away.
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This is a whole other argument, but you know yourself that's a fallacy. You owners other businesses undoubtedly make tonnes of profit, but without them funding you through various sponsorships you'd do a Leeds.

From a rival point of view, I much prefer the current City as it's much easier for neutrals to hate you; it was uncomfortable when you were winning the league with superstars, whilst still having cheap tickets and a fan-centric approach.
 
Massive Spanner said:
that's flat out untrue. City regularly went through spells under Pellegrini where they absolutely hammered teams.
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Never saw them do what they did vs barca under him, have a half like that vs arsenal. Same thing at liverpool even though they did well under Rodgers they never looked close to being an elite team like they do now.
 
RooneyLegend said:
Never saw them do what they did vs barca under him, have a half like that vs arsenal. Same thing at liverpool even though they did well under Rodgers they never looked close to being an elite team like they do now.
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you've a short memory then. Start of last season they were unstoppable.

they also put in an amazing performance to beat Bayern last season, too.

Their performances under Guardiola earlier in the season were nothing new, and just like in previous seasons, they couldn't keep delivering them.
 
Massive Spanner said:
you've a short memory then. Start of last season they were unstoppable.

they also put in an amazing performance to beat Bayern last season, too.

Their performances under Guardiola earlier in the season were nothing new, and just like in previous seasons, they couldn't keep delivering them.
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Nah, their wins vs bayern were nothing close to what they did vs barca this season.
 
RooneyLegend said:
Nah, their wins vs bayern were nothing close to what they did vs barca this season.
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Agreed. We were battered by Bayern even though they had ten men and only managed to nick two goals at the end when Alonso and Boateng fecked up. It was a great night, that, but we were shocking for large periods of the game.

The Barca game this season was different. They dominated for half an hour and went in front but we forced them into a mistake before half-time and equalised. From then on we just dominated. Barcelona couldn't string a passing sequence together and we deserved to win.
 
Pep made a bizarre comment recently that he's "near the end" of his career.

Looking at his overall demeanour, and hearing him say things like that, I could see him just walking away and disappearing.

He's won tonnes in Spain and Germany, and Italy is yesterday's league, so where would he go from here?
 
Sandikan said:
Pep made a bizarre comment recently that he's "near the end" of his career.

Looking at his overall demeanour, and hearing him say things like that, I could see him just walking away and disappearing.

He's won tonnes in Spain and Germany, and Italy is yesterday's league, so where would he go from here?
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He enjoys managing team's with no competition. The Juventus job will be ideal for him - their fans crave the CL too, they haven't won it since 1996.
 
The defense and midfield are not the strongest, got rid of still a decent city keeper for a pretty average keeper who has yet to even make any kind of decent save, even against united he should have been sent off after fluffing his lines. It surprised me how PPL tipped them to win the league with the current keeper, age of the side, a pretty weak defense and a midfield that can be passed by. They scrapped past united on goal difference last year, against a united side that were struggling. Pep is learning the PL he must have a top class keeper, and strongbackline, and no playing midfielders in the CB positions, like he got away with it at barcelona, and even Barca had a stronger keeper. But the big one is going into the season with the GK he did sign, was very surprised allot of PPL thought pep's decision with what he done with hart and who he replaced him with was a good move and not even brought up more how bad of a decision it was, and the reason why he signed who he did sign, of course he was going to be found out at the back
 
Xeno said:
This is a whole other argument, but you know yourself that's a fallacy. You owners other businesses undoubtedly make tonnes of profit, but without them funding you through various sponsorships you'd do a Leeds.

From a rival point of view, I much prefer the current City as it's much easier for neutrals to hate you; it was uncomfortable when you were winning the league with superstars, whilst still having cheap tickets and a fan-centric approach.
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That point would've admittedly held more weight 6 or 7 years ago but not these days. City are less and less reliant on sponsorship deals from that part of the world with each passing day as:

1) We've signed plenty of sponsorship deals of varying sizes over the past few years with companies all over the globe
2) Other revenue streams have risen exponentially in the meantime. Premier League prize money, for example, has gone up hugely over the last few years and again this year, and will net all clubs an extra £40-50 million this season. Champions League prize money has also gone up - City earned more in CL prize money last season than every other club in Europe. Matchday revenue has increased too and will do further with more corporate facilities being available.

Take away the Etihad, Etisalat, Aabar, and AD Tourism sponsorship deals and you're probably talking around £60 million out of a turnover of nearly £400 million. The Etihad deal is the biggest deal out of those 4 I mentioned and at the time it certainly looked over-inflated but I'd argue these days that it's under-valued at £35-£40 million a year for shirt, stadium, and campus sponsorship and is actually holding us back from making more money. If City went out into the open market today with our current global profile, I'd hazard an educated guess that we could comfortably get more money from a company not in any way related to our owner for a joint shirt/stadium/campus deal but that will probably never happen because part of the reason why we were bought was to promote Abu Dhabi so there's no chance we're getting rid of Etihad even though we could probably get more money elsewhere.

In short, there isn't a cat in hell's chance City are "doing a Leeds" even if the sheikh pulled out tomorrow and pulled all the AD-related sponsorship deals into the bargain because we're generating so much money elsewhere. Not only that, we've got far more saleable assets than Leeds had - both on and off the pitch - plus the Leeds model under Ridsdale was built on a whim with money being borrowed left, right, and centre at extortionate interest rates to fund player purchases, that they could only ever hope to have a chance of paying back if they reached the latter stages of the Champions League every season.
 
Xeno said:
Good to see a bit of honesty, although pretty much all top level football is a bit like that now. You can't have a local, passionate, tribal fanbase at the same time as having big ticket day trippers and executive boxes. This was a good post though.
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Personally I believe you can have both but too many clubs - City and United included - are too obsessed with monetising those fans who are prepared to spend shit loads down the souvenir shop that they've taken their eye off the ball with regards to their core fanbase.

If safe standing gets the go ahead and the clubs embrace it - and to be fair both City and United have made noises that they would be keen to entertain the idea - then you'll see a positive difference in atmosphere right away IMO.....providing the safe standing areas are of significant enough size of course, and not some token area of just 500 spaces. For United, I'd say make the whole Stretford End Lower safe standing and for City it's been mooted that the proposed North Stand expansion may take the form of a single tier end with no corporate facilities whatsoever.
 
@M18CTID without looking at the figures, I thought you made a profit of circa £20m last year? And that includes the sale of equity to China which was £200m? In any case, £20m profit minus the "£60m" that comes from ADIA is a fair old loss. Anyways, it's not important, I doubt the Sheikh is leaving soon.
 
Xeno said:
@M18CTID without looking at the figures, I thought you made a profit of circa £20m last year? And that includes the sale of equity to China which was £200m? In any case, £20m profit minus the "£60m" that comes from ADIA is a fair old loss. Anyways, it's not important, I doubt the Sheikh is leaving soon.
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Yeah, I agree mate - take the £60 million off a £20 million profit and it's a fair old chunk. I wasn't being facetious - really my points were just that that alone wouldn't lead to a Leeds type situation and a hell of a lot more would have to go wrong for us to be in that kind of trouble. My other point was that we could find other sponsorship deals elsewhere to part fill or fully fill that £60 million black hole.

I'm not sure how the Chinese investment was recorded in the accounts or how it gets logged but looking at the turnover figures I don't think it was included simply as a lump sum figure.
 
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