Is Pep the greatest manager of all time?

KeanoMagicHat said:
It is nonsense to judge beating Bayern and Real Madrid as the champions league as not being impressive because they’re in transition. Real Madrid were defending champions with the same players that beat them a season before! In 1999, United beat Inter Milan and Juventus who were 8th and 9th in Serie A but it did not matter. They were still serious clubs with serious players. Bayern Munich won 8 straight matches in the competition before they faced City. ‘Teams in a rebuilding phase’ is such a nonsense to discredit any manager for winning a trophy.
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The original point one user said was that most clubs in Europe had had an off season. Someone then replied Bayern and Real Madrid had good years to which I replied that had not been the case for their own standards.

It is still compatible to say City are a very good side and rivals were not at their best. After all, it's not Pep's fault that was the case.
 
jm99 said:
Didn't you also finish 3rd in your CL group? Xavi seems to be doing a good job, but let's not pretend as though this was a great Barcelona side, or that losing the title to them with 4 games to spare isn't indicative that your team isn't anywhere near its best
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I agree it is not a great Barca side
 
jm99 said:
This was clearly quite a weak year for the champions league, I can't imagine anyone saying otherwise. You had inter and AC, two teams that would struggle to make the top 6 of the Premier league both in the semi finals.
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This was a weak year for the CL, but the main weaknesses were elsewhere: Liverpool, Chelsea, Atletico, and Barcelona's inexplicable exit. This allowed one bracket to be easier than the other.

The bracket that Real Madrid, Bayern, City were in wasn't really easy.
 
jm99 said:
And since a great bench is clearly worth more than one point a season
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Divock Origi scored a 96th minute winning goal in 18/19 season, giving Liverpool a win over Everton. In the next game, Rihad Mahrez missed a penalty against Liverpool in the 86th minute, giving Liverpool a draw over City. Bench's looking good for Liverpool!
 
Iker Quesadillas said:
This was a weak year for the CL, but the main weaknesses were elsewhere: Liverpool, Chelsea, Atletico, and Barcelona's inexplicable exit. This allowed one bracket to be easier than the other.

The bracket that Real Madrid, Bayern, City were in wasn't really easy.
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But again real were miles off a Barca team that first got knocked out of the champions league at the group stages, then got knocked out by us in the europa league. Bayern sacked their manager abiut a month before the city games and barely won the title with a very low points total by their standard.
 
The 18/19 season is the season in which Liverpool famously came back over Barcelona, winning 4-0 without Salah or Firminho.

Let me guess what the explanation is: this has nothing to do with the quality of Liverpool's bench and everything to do with Klopp because *waves hand around*
 
Iker Quesadillas said:
Divock Origi scored a 96th minute winning goal in 18/19 season, giving Liverpool a win over Everton. In the next game, Rihad Mahrez missed a penalty against Liverpool in the 86th minute, giving Liverpool a draw over City. Bench's looking good for Liverpool!
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Ah OK, well if the only way a bench helps is whether a player comes off the bench to score and not allowing you to rotate, stay fit, deal with injuries etc. Then you might have a point.

A question youve avoided answering, if spending more ,pmey doesn't help, why did City need to cheat so much to spend more, and why did pep spend it, if a bigger budget is a hindrance
 
Iker Quesadillas said:
The 18/19 season is the season in which Liverpool famously came back over Barcelona, winning 4-0 without Salah or Firminho.

Let me guess what the explanation is: this has nothing to do with the quality of Liverpool's bench and everything to do with Klopp because *waves hand around*
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If you can't see the value off strength in depth, ability to rotate and deal with injuries, rest players knowing their replacements can easily slot in then there's no point continuing because you'd have to lack even the most rudimentary understanding of football to not see the value in that
 
Iker Quesadillas said:
Real Madrid essentially lost the title to Barcelona on matchday 26 (narrow defeat at the Camp Nou).

Real Madrid had 56 points by the end of matchday 26. In the three previous seasons, at that same stage, Real Madrid had 60, 54, and 56 points. The average of that is 56.6 points. We were performing pretty much exactly the same as in the previous three seasons, in which we'd won two league titles and competed until the last day for another one.

You are judging the quality of Real Madrid based on the fact that Barcelona performed extremely well and you have chosen not to rate them on the basis of a single knockout against United. It is a relative argument that confuses more than it clarifies.

We hardly 'clawed back' anything, our form was terrible after the league was 'done', we lost 4 of the last 12 games.
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The 56 point tally until the 26th game does not reflect the trend especially after the World Cup though. Real Madrid starts the season with 10 victories and 1 draw. In the following 15 games which comprises until the Barcelona match at the Nou Camp you refer to the record consists of 7 wins, 4 draws and 4 defeats which means 25 points out of 45, which extrapolated to a league of 38 games means point tally of 63 points. The fact Madrid loses the league in the 26th game in spite of having beaten Barcelona in the Bernabeu is explained by the dip in form after the first 11 games as much as Barcelona's consistency.

So same similarly to Bayern's case, Madrid's form is actually quite good roughly speaking until the World Cup and very bad after it for their own standards. My theory is that dip in form can be explained by deficiencies in their squads in the context of a complicated season with lots of games to be played.
 
jm99 said:
But again real were miles off a Barca team that first got knocked out of the champions league at the group stages, then got knocked out by us in the europa league.
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Who the feck cares? Real Madrid lost to Barcelona. United beat Barcelona in the Europa League. Liverpool beat United 7-0. Real Madrid beat Liverpool 2-5. Which part of the circle are we in now?
 
GatoLoco said:
Real Madrid starts the season with 10 victories and 1 draw. In the following 15 games which comprises until the Barcelona match at the Nou Camp you refer to the record consists of 7 wins, 4 draws and 4 defeats which means 25 points out of 45, which extrapolated to a league of 38 games means point tally of 63 points.
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There was an actual, full league campaign with 38 games in which Real Madrid finished with 78 points. You don't need to "extrapolate" anything. All teams have runs of form, nobody gets the same PPG on a 10-game rolling basis all season.

But if you wanted to extrapolate anything, you would have to pick an interval that has some external basis, like 'after the World Cup' or something. Matchday 12th was in October, this is literally just cherry picking and not a sensible argument.
 
Iker Quesadillas said:
There was an actual, full league campaign with 38 games in which Real Madrid finished with 78 points. You don't need to "extrapolate" anything. All teams have runs of form, nobody gets the same PPG on a 10-game rolling basis all season.
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All teams aren't relying on a 35 year old striker and a 37 year old midfielder, that might be impacted more than others by a packed schedule after a winter world cup
 
Iker Quesadillas said:
Who the feck cares? Real Madrid lost to Barcelona. United beat Barcelona in the Europa League. Liverpool beat United 7-0. Real Madrid beat Liverpool 2-5. Which part of the circle are we in now?
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We're in the part where a team that finished 3rd in their champions league group and got knocked out in their first europa league tie beat Real Madrid to the title with 4 games to spare.
 
jm99 said:
This was clearly quite a weak year for the champions league, I can't imagine anyone saying otherwise. You had inter and AC, two teams that would struggle to make the top 6 of the Premier league both in the semi finals.
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AC Milan were completely irrelevant to Man City as they weren’t in their side of the draw and never played them. Playing Bayern and Real Madrid to reach a Champions League final is well deserved. If you start going through year by year in the Champions League, who was good, who was in ‘transition’ like you say then it’s a road to no town, fact is they won the Champions League and were the best team in Europe this year. In another example you brought up Porto winning the Champions League, where Paul Scholes had a clear goal ruled out for offside, Tim Howard made a howler as United, who were the definition of in transition in 2004, were harshly beaten on away goals by Porto. Porto then best Lyon, Deportivo and Monaco to the title. Nobody cares now, Porto deserved it, Mourinho’s career was made.
 
KeanoMagicHat said:
AC Milan were completely irrelevant to Man City as they weren’t in their side of the draw and never played them. Playing Bayern and Real Madrid to reach a Champions League final is well deserved. If you start going through year by year in the Champions League, who was good, who was in ‘transition’ like you say then it’s a road to no town, fact is they won the Champions League and were the best team in Europe this year. In another example you brought up Porto winning the Champions League, where Paul Scholes had a clear goal ruled out for offside, Tim Howard made a howler as United, who were the definition of in transition in 2004, were harshly beaten on away goals by Porto. Porto then best Lyon, Deportivo and Monaco to the title. Nobody cares now, Porto deserved it, Mourinho’s career was made.
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Yes Porto did have quite an easy run to the final, it's actually frustrating thay we went out because given their run I'd have expected us to win it. I suppose the difference is subtle, but as far as I remember Porto hadn't spent a billion pounds in the previous seven years
 
Iker Quesadillas said:
There was an actual, full league campaign with 38 games in which Real Madrid finished with 78 points. You don't need to "extrapolate" anything. All teams have runs of form, nobody gets the same PPG on a 10-game rolling basis all season.
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Call it the way you want.

My point is Bayern and Madrid were much better before the World Cup and suffered after it due to lack of squad depth, so they were not as strong as some people imply they were.
 
GatoLoco said:
Call it the way you want.

My point is Bayern and Madrid were much better before the World Cup and suffered after it due to lack of squad depth, so they were not as strong as some people imply they were.
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Careful, according to iker squad depth is actually a hindrance, so bayern and real should have been better
 
jm99 said:
Careful, according to iker squad depth is actually a hindrance, so bayern and real should have been better
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I'm not really sure why you think sarcasm is getting you anywhere in a thread were most posters have found your arguments severely lacking.
 
GatoLoco said:
My point is Bayern and Madrid were much better before the World Cup and suffered after it due to lack of squad depth, so they were not as strong as some people imply they were.
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Yes, and my point is they were not as weak as people imply either.

The numbers are, we finished with 78 points, 8 points behind previous seasons' averages. We scored 5 less goals and conceded 5 more goals. 2 less wins, 2 more draws. If you pay attention to that stuff: our xG according to FBREF was 75.7 and our xGA was 38.9. In the previous season it was 71.7 xG and 43.9 xGA. Slightly better numbers this season, but finished 8 points behind. Understat gives different numbers but the gist is the same, relatively unchanged numbers from one season to the next.
 
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Iker Quesadillas said:
I'm not really sure why you think sarcasm is getting you anywhere in a thread were most posters have found your arguments severely lacking.
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You literally said that having a stronger bench is worth maybe one point a season, it's a dreadful opinion. The thing is I've said plenty of good stuff about Pep, he gets great consistency from his teams, he's very tactically innovative, while football was already trending this way, he certainly accelerated the move towards title teams having to try and win every game rather than the old win your homes draw your aways, he made good use of his full backs in doing this and he has influenced a lot of managers, but he has done this with the very best players and near unlimited resources which is a big caveat.

You on the other hand have not admitted a single fault or caveat to pep, he did great at Bayern because heynckes had them overperforming and he wasn't expected to win a champions league with the treble winners he inherited. Having a much stronger bench isn't much of an advantage, maybe a point over an entire season. This season's real and bayern sides were great despite their domestic performances showing otherwise. That the 08/09 Barca side despite routinely being in the best teams ever list wasn't actually that great and it was all down to pep.

Only one of us is showing extreme bias here
 
jm99 said:
You literally said that having a stronger bench is worth maybe one point a season, it's a dreadful opinion.
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It's very clear you did not understand my post, which was written for an audience level of "baby," I'm afraid it can't be simplified further.
 
Iker Quesadillas said:
It's very clear you did not understand my post, which was written for an audience level of "baby," I'm afraid it can't be simplified further.
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Yes because it's wrong. It totally discounts the possibility that Klopp was worth more points as a manager than guardiola that season
 
Iker Quesadillas said:
But if you wanted to extrapolate anything, you would have to pick an interval that has some external basis, like 'after the World Cup' or something. Matchday 12th was in October, this is literally just cherry picking and not a sensible argument.
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I had not seen this part before.

The dip in form starting from that matchday can also explained by the injuries of Karim Benzema who is not available for 6 games in October and November, which again is related to my argument of Madrid not being particularly strong from that point on and the deficiencies in the squad.
 
GatoLoco said:
I had not seen this part before.

The dip in form starting from that matchday can also explained by the injuries of Karim Benzema who is not available for 6 games in October and November, which again is related to my argument of Madrid not being particularly strong from that point on and the deficiencies in the squad.
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Last seaosn definitely gave the impression of a decent side that was very much carried by benzema to the league and CL, and this season he couldn't repeat it.

You clearly have a great base to build from, vinicius, camavinga, tchouameni and rodrgygo all seem like they'll be great players and yiu clearly have enough money put by to finance a big rebuild, but it's miles off your mid 2010 team
 
Serious question: If needing the best players to succeed is a big negative, what are we to make of the fact that Jurgen Klopp has won the Champions League exactly once, and it was against Spurs?

Liverpool's squad for the CL final cost almost twice as much as Spurs', 520m to 270m. Can Klopp not win a CL final without an enormous financial advantage?
 
Iker Quesadillas said:
Serious question: If needing the best players to succeed is a big negative, what are we to make of the fact that Jurgen Klopp has won the Champions League exactly once, and it was against Spurs?

Liverpool's squad for the CL final cost almost twice as much as Spurs', 520m to 270m. Can Klopp not win a CL final without an enormous financial advantage?
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I'd wager the Barcelona squad he beat in the semis cost a similar amount or more, particularly if you factor in the 550m contract for 4 years they gave Messi.

Tbf I seem to remember spurs knocking out a side that year that had an enormous financial advantage over them, I wonder who the manager of that team was
 
Does feel like his tactical pedigree has gone up a notch. If I recall it was the change of formation (back 3) that turned city's fortunes last season I remember when we beat them in January they didn't feel threatening at all look how it turned around.

Now have started this season and a very peripheral figure in Alvarez is now leading the line with Haaland and it's a further worry for the opposition to deal with. While City are nothing short of a mess off the field, their dynamism tactically seems to be improving season by season whereas in the past the tinkering was oftentimes the cause for their struggles.

I think City will drop a level when Pep eventually departs. There's so much painted about the finances behind their success which is a valid point but objectively it's just a case of the best manager around with the best resources. I think it's a point not grasped with United fans due to familiarity with SAF, but the reality wasn't that United has been some special entity it's that the best manager triumphed above his peers.
 
Sir Alex Ferguson is the greatest football manager of all time.

In all of sports, it’s without any doubt John Wooden. If the name is not familiar to caftards, do the research.
 
What does Madrid season has anything to do with pep?

He won. Barcelona won. Doesnt matter if you're weak or in slump. It's just the way football is.

We almost won nothing in our treble season. But a treble is a treble. The margin could be a minute lapse in concentration or a 90 minutes siege. At the end of the day nobody would talk about ifs and buts.

We still brought up the scholes disallowed goal for the love of god. Let it rest
 
Redstain said:
Does feel like his tactical pedigree has gone up a notch. If I recall it was the change of formation (back 3) that turned city's fortunes last season I remember when we beat them in January they didn't feel threatening at all look how it turned around.

Now have started this season and a very peripheral figure in Alvarez is now leading the line with Haaland and it's a further worry for the opposition to deal with. While City are nothing short of a mess off the field, their dynamism tactically seems to be improving season by season whereas in the past the tinkering was oftentimes the cause for their struggles.

I think City will drop a level when Pep eventually departs. There's so much painted about the finances behind their success which is a valid point but objectively it's just a case of the best manager around with the best resources. I think it's a point not grasped with United fans due to familiarity with SAF, but the reality wasn't that United has been some special entity it's that the best manager triumphed above his peers.
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I don't think what is done at City can ever be given credibility.

Unlimited resources.

Backed by a club with decades of financial doping and cooked books.

2014 - City fined £49M
2020- City fined £10M
Currently- 115 charges.

Unprecedented levels of breaches over a long period of time.
 
I'd put SAF and Paisley above him domestically, at this moment. Still time for him to win a couple more CL and half a dozen Prem though...
 
lex talionis said:
Sir Alex Ferguson is the greatest football manager of all time.

In all of sports, it’s without any doubt John Wooden. If the name is not familiar to caftards, do the research.
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Or you could just say he was a college basketball coach. Takes two seconds and makes your post seem less haughty (about a guy who I'm sure most people know anyway)
 
Fluctuation0161 said:
I don't think what is done at City can ever be given credibility.

Unlimited resources.

Backed by a club with decades of financial doping and cooked books.

2014 - City fined £49M
2020- City fined £10M
Currently- 115 charges.

Unprecedented levels of breaches over a long period of time.
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Yeah I kind of think it’s like someone doping at the Olympics in the 100m sprint. Part of me thinks it would be great to see all the finalists without restrictions but if it’s just one person cheating, it’s not particularly impressive for then win the race comfortably.

Great coach but he’s had enough tactical feck ups and dubious ref decisions in knock out games all whilst in the privileged seats he’s had that I think it’s fair to say he’s not among the best ever.
 
Andrade said:
Or you could just say he was a college basketball coach. Takes two seconds and makes your post seem less haughty (about a guy who I'm sure most people know anyway)
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You’d be surprised how many people have never heard of a guy who retired 50 years ago.
 
He is a top manager, arguably one of the best. It's a shame he is managing a nothing club. City have been winning now for almost a decade and yet are seen as an afterthought. Their manager is bigger than their club.
 
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