Is Pep the greatest manager of all time?

All it's taken for the supposed "greatest manager of all time" to seemingly lose the plot entirely is 6 games in a row without a win. Shows how soft he really is and just how much everything has been stacked in his favor up till now.

Makes you realize just how great Sir Alex really was. Some very hard years and some very low finishes in the league table before he won his first trophy with us, yet you never saw any kind of meltdown on this level from SAF.
 
Greatest manager of all-time great clubs. But in general management, unless he tests himself in lowlier climes, we'll never know.

Edit: obviously that only includes City on a financial basis.
 
If he can turn around the current rot and win City the Premiership, I'd be convinced he is one of the best of all time.
 
TheLord said:
If he can turn around the current rot and win City the Premiership, I'd be convinced he is one of the best of all time.
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Why? He still has the best squad in the league. A couple of injuries simply make things a little harder than normal, but winning even from this position is no big achievement.

Pep has consistently had the best (or comparable to the best) squad in the league ever since he took over that insane Barcelona team. The only exception is his first year in charge of City. But even then he arguably had the best midfield and attack. So what happened then? He barely made top 4...
 
Scandi Red said:
Why? He still has the best squad in the league. A couple of injuries simply make things a little harder than normal, but winning even from this position is no big achievement.

Pep has consistently had the best (or comparable to the best) squad in the league ever since he took over that insane Barcelona team. The only exception is his first year in charge of City. But even then he arguably had the best midfield and attack. So what happened then? He barely made top 4...
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I think we had a better squad in 21/22 and he still pipped us to that one. Otherwise yes.
 
B20 said:
I think we had a better squad in 21/22 and he still pipped us to that one. Otherwise yes.
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Even if you could make a strong argument, I don't think that you were definitely better. Hence why I added "comparable".
 
The best squad, facilities, biggest financial backing, entire back team, technical staff chosen for him and the comfort of every other team needing to watch their spending in the face of laws that they break.

But yeah, if he overcomes a few injuries, he is the best manager of all time.

Ferguson fought, and eventually beat, all the pretenders that were willing to spend more, had better facilities, better scouting and recruitment, more expensive players, more powerful contacts, and eventually, he rose to the challenge and beat every single one of them, including City.

He played the likes of Rafael, O’Shea and Gibson in CL semi finals. He is the undisputed goat and Guardiola could never accomplish what he did with some of the squads that he had. There is no comparison.

The fact that he appears to be having a breakdown at the first sign of any real adversity, only proves that further.
 
Scandi Red said:
Why? He still has the best squad in the league. A couple of injuries simply make things a little harder than normal, but winning even from this position is no big achievement.

Pep has consistently had the best (or comparable to the best) squad in the league ever since he took over that insane Barcelona team. The only exception is his first year in charge of City. But even then he arguably had the best midfield and attack. So what happened then? He barely made top 4...
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Because every season does not exist in a vacuum. He's already won four in a row, winning a fifth would already before been incredibly impressive, turning this around to win a fifth would even be a great achievement.

SAF used to have the best team in the league most seasons, even some seasons we didn't win. The only season he won when he clearly had the second best squad was 12/13. And even then he bought the best player in the league from one of his rivals before the season. SAF isn't the greatest because he kept won with an underdog, he is the greatest because his relentless desire and incredible ability to keep winning.
 
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Scandi Red said:
Why? He still has the best squad in the league. A couple of injuries simply make things a little harder than normal, but winning even from this position is no big achievement.

Pep has consistently had the best (or comparable to the best) squad in the league ever since he took over that insane Barcelona team. The only exception is his first year in charge of City. But even then he arguably had the best midfield and attack. So what happened then? He barely made top 4...
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I think he created that insane Barcelona team, he didnt just take over an insane team.
 
Stadjer said:
I think he created that insane Barcelona team, he didnt just take over an insane team.
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He did indeed create an insane team. There's a reason peak Barca is seen as his team, and it's not because every player magically peaked at the same time while he was there.
 
CoopersDream said:
SAF isn't the greatest because he kept winning with an underdog, he is the greatest because his relentless desire and incredible ability to keep winning.
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Plus his ability to over-perform. Be it Aberdeen or all those games where we fielded our B/C squad because of injuries and still managed to beat solid teams.

Stadjer said:
I think he created that insane Barcelona team, he didnt just take over an insane team.
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That team still had Messi, Xavi, Iniesta, Eto'o, Henry, Toure, Puyol, Abidal and Valdes before he arrived.
 
Stadjer said:
I think he created that insane Barcelona team, he didnt just take over an insane team.
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No doubt, Guardiola is one of the greatest managers of all time. However, when he took over as Barcelona manager in 2008, he inherited a squad already filled with exceptional talent: Valdes, Messi, Xavi, Iniesta, Puyol, Eric Abidal, Eto’o, Thierry Henry, Yaya Toure and others. Credit to him though for reshaping this talented group and successfully implementing his visionary tiki-taka tactics.
 
As many people have been saying for years, he always starts the race in 1st place with the fastest car.
 
He shouldnt be put in the same bracket as managers like
red.knight said:
No doubt, Guardiola is one of the greatest managers of all time.
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On what basis? Managers like Sir Alex, Jose, and Klopp all achieved success with small unfancied clubs and built dominant squads at clubs that were previously poor sides while Pep has only ever managed 3 already successful clubs where he inherited top squads and huge transfer budgets.
 
Pep is one of the greatest of all times. If he is the greatest, he needs to pull through the few moments like these
 
RedRocket9908 said:
He shouldnt be put in the same bracket as managers like

On what basis? Managers like Sir Alex, Jose, and Klopp all achieved success with small unfancied clubs and built dominant squads at clubs that were previously poor sides while Pep has only ever managed 3 already successful clubs where he inherited top squads and huge transfer budgets.
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Grabbing that Barca being a rookie in the way he did it, beting in so many academy players it's not normal. While he risked quite a lot. In fact he didn't started that well and he didn't have a huge backup if that trend continued. Later delivering some of the best football ever seen was quite admirable.

How many times many of the most successful coaches does not achieve success with lots of resurces and even after winning manteining that trend on regular basis. He did it time and again.

He tends to have a signature style, he is someone that bar the ocasional Erling or Ibra does not go on buying Mbappe's for the dozen, he normally just sellects players that suit his agenda and style. He has demonstrated that no matter charges, financial doping, or whatever, had spent quite wisely what he had avaiable and also (even not always right) he constantly takes big bets with new players, new roles for them, etc.

Dissing Pep's talent and carreer it's quite crazy. And I'm not precisly that fond of many of his decisions and many of his tendencies.
 
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Fobal said:
Grabbing that Barca being a rookie in the way he did it, beting in so many academy players it's not normal
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He only brought through 2 players from the B team (Bojan, and Pedro) and they wernt key players for him, the rest of his Barca team were already first teamers or were bought.
 
RedRocket9908 said:
He only brought through 2 players from the B team (Bojan, and Pedro) and they wernt key players for him, the rest of his Barca team were already first teamers or were bought.
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He gave Roberto, Thiago and Busquets their Barca debut. (Pique too, but y’all had nabbed him from the La Masia and given him a handful of league starts by then).

Beyond the players he gave debuts to, he also developed a lot of Barca’s talent. One game his entire starting XI were academy graduates.
 
RedRocket9908 said:
He only brought through 2 players from the B team (Bojan, and Pedro) and they wernt key players for him, the rest of his Barca team were already first teamers or were bought.
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He got rid of many high profile players from a former succeesfull team with huge stars. That's why I've said he bet on the academy. He gave Busi, Xavi, Iniesta roles more suitable to their styles and improved their styles too. He gave the number 10 to a 22 years old little fella, no matter how great that fella ended being, that takes balls, when leaving players like Deco, RG and such out of the team.
 
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In hindsight, it seems simple.

But at the time he made some bold choices in getting rid of deco and Ronaldinho without real replacements, supplanting Toure with a kid from the B team and throwing a kid center back purchased from United's reserves into the first team.

Xavi was world class, but second fiddle to Deco and Iniesta backup when he took over. It wasn't necessarily in the cards that they would become all time greats.

Messi was touted as a potential all-time great, but it was guardiola who primed him to become a goalscorer and turned him into the best player in the world.

And even with all that talent, they became more than the sum of their parts in a way they weren't before or after Guardiola.
 
For someone so great, his football is dire and there are massive question marks over cheating at Barca and Citeh under his tenure.
 
B20 said:
In hindsight, it seems simple.

But at the time he made some bold choices in getting rid of deco and Ronaldinho without real replacements, supplanting Toure with a kid from the B team and throwing a kid center back purchased from United's reserves into the first team.

Xavi was world class, but second fiddle to Deco and Iniesta backup when he took over. It wasn't necessarily in the cards that they would become all time greats.

Messi was touted as a potential all-time great, but it was guardiola who primed him to become a goalscorer and turned him into the best player in the world.

And even with all that talent, they became more than the sum of their parts in a way they weren't before or after Guardiola.
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Yeah I don't ascribe to the narrative that he simply inherited an all time great team and winning a treble was some forgone conclusion

At city I firmly believe a treble was a matter of not if but when considering the resources but at Barca he really did create something absolutely amazing and deserves all the plaudits for what he achieved there
 
B20 said:
In hindsight, it seems simple.

But at the time he made some bold choices in getting rid of deco and Ronaldinho without real replacements, supplanting Toure with a kid from the B team and throwing a kid center back purchased from United's reserves into the first team.

Xavi was world class, but second fiddle to Deco and Iniesta backup when he took over. It wasn't necessarily in the cards that they would become all time greats.

Messi was touted as a potential all-time great, but it was guardiola who primed him to become a goalscorer and turned him into the best player in the world.

And even with all that talent, they became more than the sum of their parts in a way they weren't before or after Guardiola.
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Exactly

Just as a side note, Iniesta was great since day one, but Pep is the one that absolutely bet on him.
Xavi had his ups and lows, he was very very close to leave Barca and God knows how his carreer would have developed. With Pep on charge Xavi changed his style too and that amde him a better player and gave Xavi the best players to surround him, given his atributes and style, in order to him increase his level in his game and in his confidence.
 
Top_Bins said:
For someone so great, his football is dire and there are massive question marks over cheating at Barca and Citeh under his tenure.
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The dire thing it's a question of personal taste. Some of his teams at times infuriated me with their pargamatism, yet others are among the very best displasy I've ever seen in the history of the game.


Personal opinion, far form facts:
The drugs in football like any Pro Sport would always be some mud waters in my opnion, it's like Amstrong the only cyclist drugging. I think it's more a question of it they got you or not.

Leaving that aside, every huge club always had matches with dubious or bad calls on favor of them, while every huge club from every traditional League thinks their rivales have cheated more than them.
In reality I think everyone at some point gets some extra help and even in those periods or moments, since everyone is in the game doing their thing or refs just fvcked up or be biased, some call or situation would go against.
Barca, being a huge club, would receive more calls on favor than smaller clubs, yet at the same in 2014 (I think) they had to deal with a single wrong decision that altered the result of an entire tournament when a Messi goal against Aleti was wrongly disallowed, that single decision gave Aleti the title.
In other ocasions when a huge bad call goes against, but that team ends winning anyway, there isn't much fuzz about it later and a large etc.
 
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Fobal said:
The dire thing it's a question of personal taste. Some of his teams at times infuriated me with their pargamatism, yet others are among the very best displasy I've ever seen in the history of the game.


Personal opinion, far form facts:
The drugs in football like any Pro Sport would always be some mud waters in my opnion, it's like Amstrong the only cyclist drugging. I think it's more a question of it they got you or not.

Leaving that aside, every huge club always had matches with dubious or bad calls on favor of them, while every huge club from every traditional League thinks their rivales have cheated more than them.
In reality I think everyone at some point gets some extra help and even in those periods or moments, since everyone is in the game doing their thing or refs just fvcked up or be biased, some call or situation would go against.
Barca, being a huge club, would receive more calls on favor than smaller clubs, yet at the same in 2014 (I think) they had to deal with a single wrong decision that altered the result of an entire tournament when a Messi goal against Aleti was wrongly disallowed, that single decision gave Aleti the title.
In other ocasions when a huge bad call goes against but that team ends winning anyway, there isn't much fuzz about ir later, and a large etc.
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Yeah exactly. I bet City (and Barca) lose a far higher proportion of games by a single goal compared to how many they win by a single goal. So everyone forgets the mistake in a 4-0 win, but not in a 2-1 win/loss.
 
RedRocket9908 said:
He shouldnt be put in the same bracket as managers like

On what basis? Managers like Sir Alex, Jose, and Klopp all achieved success with small unfancied clubs and built dominant squads at clubs that were previously poor sides while Pep has only ever managed 3 already successful clubs where he inherited top squads and huge transfer budgets.
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I could write a book on why I believe Guardiola is one of the greatest managers of all time. His revolutionary tiki-taka approach and his consistent success at every club he's managed with a dominant style of play. It's foolish to deny his greatness.
 
red.knight said:
I could write a book on why I believe Guardiola is one of the greatest managers of all time. His revolutionary tiki-taka approach and his consistent success at every club he's managed with a dominant style of play. It's foolish to deny his greatness.
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But there's always that caveat.

Those clubs would have been successful with a dominant style of play without him.

We know this because before and after him they were.

Doesn't mean he isn't a great manager but I think the tika taka style that everybody has copied is his biggest legacy. Not many managers change how the game's played(for good or bad).
 
Marwood said:
But there's always that caveat.

Those clubs would have been successful with a dominant style of play without him.

We know this because before and after him they were.

Doesn't mean he isn't a great manager but I think the tika taka style that everybody has copied is his biggest legacy. Not many managers change how the game's played(for good or bad).
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Even with all the caveats, Guardiola is one of the greatest managers football has ever seen and he will be remembered as such.
 
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