Is Pep the greatest manager of all time?

erikcred said:
Just saying.

Since you all are contextualising Mourinho's Inter exploits with this caveat, especially in a discussion comparing him to Pep, I think it's appropriate to add that Pep failed to do this in three years at Bayern. After taking over at a club that had made 3 finals in four years. And it took him 6 years and a gazillion quid to achieve this at City.

So, while not quite a Leicester story, I think we should show more respect for the first treble in Italy and not just dismiss it with a "Oh well, was expected". I would've thought people on this forum would value that particular achievement much more than they seem to. It's not like United won the treble after just getting promoted to the PL either. But it's still one of the greatest achievements in club football.
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Again, that's missing the point. Mourinho himself failed to win at Real and Chelsea. That can happen, even the best fails.

No one has said anything else than that it was an incredible achievement to win the treble with Inter. What has been said is that just about anyone could have done what Pep did at Barcelona. Which is obviously laughable. Mourinho's treble in Inter was an incredible achievement, just as Pep winning everything there was to win inside 18 months of his appointment.
 
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CoopersDream said:
Again, that's missing the point. Mourinho himself failed to win at Real and Chelsea. That can happen, even the best fails.

No one has said anything else than that it was an incredible achievement to win the treble with Inter. What has been said is that just about anyone could have done what Pep did at Barcelona. Which is obviously laughable. Mourinho's treble in Inter was an incredible achievement, just as Pep winning everything there was to win inside 18 months of his appointment.
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Yeah, that's fair.
 
SungSam7 said:
Just going to ignore Aberdeen then is it?
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Didn't Aberdeen have decent resources? By Scottish football standards obviously. I do remember some begrudging comments from Rangers and Celtic fans that Aberdeen's rise was backed by huge investment from north sea oil money at the time.
 
padzilla said:
Didn't Aberdeen have decent resources? By Scottish football standards obviously. I do remember some begrudging comments from Rangers and Celtic fans that Aberdeen's rise was backed by huge investment from north sea oil money at the time.
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Not heard that. Cooper, Black, McLeish, couple of others were Aberdeen youth. Strachan, Archibald and Leighton peanuts… sold Archibald to Spurs for huge fee.

Even if parity (and didn’t think it was… ticket income alone would be noticeably different?), Celtic and Rangers didn’t take on Europe.
 
njred said:
Oh. I see. As long as we’re in agreement that Ferguson had his pick of players with united with no limitations. Pep never coached a team like an Aberdeen so how would we know how successful he would have been. The thing is most coaches if not all are financially strained. Just boggles the mind that people are burying the guy for having one bad year out of what,15?
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That's not even close to being true.
 
BeforeKeanetherewasRobson said:
Not heard that. Cooper, Black, McLeish, couple of others were Aberdeen youth. Strachan, Archibald and Leighton peanuts… sold Archibald to Spurs for huge fee.

Even if parity (and didn’t think it was… ticket income alone would be noticeably different?), Celtic and Rangers didn’t take on Europe.
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Yeah absolutely agree, oddly enough Dundee United came closest during those years. Didn't they get to the semi final of the European Cup in 1984? Beaten 3-2 on aggregate by Roma. They got to the UEFA Cup final a few seasons later. A Roma director said years later they tried to arrange to bribe the referee the night before the second leg but that it was unsuccessful, very dodgy to say the least.
 
red.knight said:
Pep just needs 300m in January and he will turn it around in no time.
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This is a litmus test of whether Abu Dhabi are still all in or not. Their transfers over the last few seasons feels like they are backing off. Doku etc feel like a step down from their previous signings.

The team needs 300m spent on midfield and attack.
 
SER19 said:
Im not going to hold luck against managers much, even our 99 win was peppered with luck, and Barcas 09 semi final win is one of the most controversial wins in modern football and still stinks a little today- if youre going down any conspiratorial routes. Mourinhos defeat of Barca with inter, on the way to the treble was an incredible feat. You could call mourinhos porto win a freak if he didnt do it a few years later with another unfancied team- both of those CL wins put each of guardiolas in the shade, I believe any manager worth anything would have won the cl with that barca side, its also why spain won 2 euros and a world cup with that midfield trio that was once in a generation, with the bonus of messi at barca.
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Pep won 2 CL in 4 seasons for Barcelona
Post Pep Barcelona has won 1 CL title in the last 12 seasons. which they had great All timers like Xavi Iniesta Messi Suarez Neymar Busquets
 
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BeforeKeanetherewasRobson said:
Every City player yesterday an experienced international bar Ortega and Lewis? Bench included Walker, Doku, de Bruyne….

Hopefully the City board out their hands in their pockets in Jan, poor man’s living on scraps.
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A bit too experienced is the issue. No hunger or fight in them, they've all won anything and not willing to scrap anymore.
 
erikcred said:
Maybe a team dominating in their domestic league should also hire Pep just to win the CL. Like, a Bayern Munich or someone of that level.
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At the time Pep signed for Bayern in January 2013, Bayern had gone 2 seasons without the league and have won 1 league in 4 seasons. Hardly a dominant domestic force that Inter were pre 2010
 
Hester_manc said:
A bad season can happen. But if we are talking about the category "the greatest manager of all time", it cannot happen on this scale.
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Ferguson finished last in a CL group of Lille Villareal and Benfica.
 
stefan92 said:
In a way Mourinho made his clubs underdogs. His whole approach of "everybody is against us" to rally his teams to a cause projects this image. No matter how good his teams actually were, he always worked that way.
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He managed to make Madrid look like underdogs even when playing Bayern with Luis Gustavo Badstuber, 20yr old Alaba and Mario Gomez while he was managing Kaka Ronaldo Ramos Benzema Alonso Ozil Casillas
 
KeanoMagicHat said:
A bit too experienced is the issue. No hunger or fight in them, they've all won anything and not willing to scrap anymore.
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They’re definitely aging (and tfr policy has been average recently… though you wouldn’t know it from the media), but they were fine a few months ago when winning the title, again (hard to do as we know).

I’d have thought they’d show more fight… if only to show other clubs what they could buy, when City get binned from the PL.
 
Near the end of his career Fergie won 2 PL (only seconds away from 3 in a row) and reached a CL final with the following being regulars or clocking in serious playtime:

- Cleverley
- Anderson
- Gibson
- Welbeck
- Evans
- Young De Gea having to adjust to the PL
- No proper RB (although Rafael was good in '13)
- Giggs being 100 years old and converted to CM
- Scholes being 100 years old, retiring once and then coming back and then retiring again

Oh and we had a million injuries obviously.

Pep can't be compared to Fergie when it comes to dealing with a subpar squad.
 
kaiser1 said:
At the time Pep signed for Bayern in January 2013, Bayern had gone 2 seasons without the league and have won 1 league in 4 seasons. Hardly a dominant domestic force that Inter were pre 2010
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It's a fair point but should note Bayern were 13-3-1 top of the table at the winter break that year and enroute to securing four trophies under Heynckes and winning the league by 25 points.
 
MrMarcello said:
It's a fair point but should note Bayern were 13-3-1 top of the table at the winter break that year and enroute to securing four trophies under Heynckes and winning the league by 25 points.
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Yeah. Will be similar to Liverpool getting a new coach next month starting next season who goes on to win 3 leagues in a row
 
PlasticRed said:
This is a litmus test of whether Abu Dhabi are still all in or not. Their transfers over the last few seasons feels like they are backing off. Doku etc feel like a step down from their previous signings.

The team needs 300m spent on midfield and attack.
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They probably realized spending closed to some billion didnt help white washing anything as nobody still cared for ManCity and decided to cool it off circa 2020.
 
He doesn't belong in the same conversation as Ferguson. We're currently seeing what a clueless weirdo Pep is now things are falling apart and his multi-billion pound, state-funded squad aren't steamrollering everything. He doesn't know what to do
 
CoopersDream said:
Sorry, third it should be. Misremembered that one. It was City that finished fourth the year before he arrived. Still 18 points off the top, hardly a team thriving, was it.

This is where I don't really agree. Of relative contemporaries, I'd have SAF ahead (arguably the GOAT) and then Mou could be argued ahead only if you place an incredible importance of winning a CL with a sort of smaller club. Ancelotti hasn't done anything of note when he hasn't managed either the richest or biggest and richest clubs in the country he's managed in, so he hasn't really proven himself at any range of challanges either. No other contemprorary is near Pep.
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I agree with what you are saying generally, but it's worth pointing out that Ancelotti did win promotion with a Serie B club.

However, I think the whole 'Pep hasn't proven himself over a range of challenges' notion is a stupid one. He won the first treble in Spanish football history and the second treble and first '4-peat' in English football history. He couldn't even really speak English when he left Spain.

Fergie, for example, never managed outside the UK, in a totally different culture, with a different language, whereas the likes of Carlo, Pep and Mourinho have been all over the shop. Does that matter? Only if you are actively looking to pick holes in Fergie's resume.
 
Think Pep's biggest failure as a manager was not winning Champions League in his 3 seasons at Bayern. No real failures in his career besides that until these last 2 months but we're yet to see how their season goes.
 
kaiser1 said:
Pep won 2 CL in 4 seasons for Barcelona
Post Pep Barcelona has won 1 CL title in the last 12 seasons. which they had great All timers like Xavi Iniesta Messi Suarez Neymar Busquets
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Very different team by the time Enrique left, with key parts past their best
 
Bayern is the only period where he hasn’t had serious controversy tied to him (even as a player). And what he did there was what the majority have done until recently.

There are major question marks over the majority of his career, and he can’t be the best based on that alone.
 
Kwabs said:
I agree with what you are saying generally, but it's worth pointing out that Ancelotti did win promotion with a Serie B club.
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Point taken.
Gabriel Djemba-Bebe said:
We finished the season on 89 points. Do you think City will get close to that this season?
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Different season. That was in 2005/06, United finished with 89 points in 2011/12 after going out in a group to Benfica, Basel and Oțelul Galați. We got 83 points in 2005/06, which doesn't seem likely City will get now. But I don't see how that's relevant.
 
njred said:
Oh. I see. As long as we’re in agreement that Ferguson had his pick of players with united with no limitations. Pep never coached a team like an Aberdeen so how would we know how successful he would have been. The thing is most coaches if not all are financially strained. Just boggles the mind that people are burying the guy for having one bad year out of what,15?
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A bad year out of 15, need i remind you he didn't come close once to bringing the Champions League to Bayern.

He took how many years to get the Champions League for City. All the money spent at 2 clubs in Europe and only 1 Champions league to show for it.

Like why aren't we calling Zidane a GOAT? He won how many European and domestic titles in how many years?
 
CoopersDream said:
Not really. People are literally in this very thread holding City's current form against Pep in any such manager rankings. If you can do that, you can certainly point out holes in other managers resumes. Also, putting Klopp ahead of Pep must be what this forum would call being a WUM. Klopp would be the first to admit that he's nowhere near Pep.
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This imaginary opinion that you say Klopp would have about Pep being better than him is interesting...but i gaurantee you that Klopp would bet on himself to win even more than Pep did with that barcelona side,more than what pep won at bayern,and with man citys spending power(even ignoring the cheating) just as much,if not more than pep if he were at man city instead.And he would be right aswell.

Pep massively outspent klopp in the prem,he never had to sell any of his best players to finance other signings like klopp did with coutinho,mane,wjinaldum.Part of the reason klopp had less impressive seasons were due to the injuries and fatigue that came with competing with a cheating oil club that had a deeper and more talented squad squad than anything that came before in the prem.

Multiple prem titles that pep 'won' were robbed from klopp.The highest ever points per game ratio over a two year period in the prem,belongs to klopp.Without man citys cheating,klopp would be on atleast 3 prem titles.(This is undeniable because of the 97 and 91 points totals.)

Klopp in charge of man city and their massive spending,even without cheating, wins atleast as many titles,and most likely more ucl trophies.He already got to more ucl finals,and by rights,should been on 3 prem titles,despite being easily outspent by multiple prem clubs.

He is the only manager who could,and has,overcome an oil club,cheating and pep all at once.If you disagree that klopp was robbed of titles,you are either in denial and/or condone cheating.
 
I'd love if he had a messy divorce with them and hits out at the club reminding them of the only reason they are significant.

Their greatest manager ever saying they are a small club would really funny as hell
 
I’ve never thought that he was a greater manager than Fergie, even before this crisis. I also think there are cases to argue that Ancelotti and Mourinho are greater than him (and vice versa).

Still he is one of the greatest ever managers at least since I’ve been alive (I’m not overly confident making comparisons with managers from before my time), which is incredible as it is.

Ancelotti and Guardiola in many ways belong in a different category than Fergie and Mourinho, in terms of overall football ‘greatness’. They both followed up illustrious and trophy laden playing careers, that more than 99% of people with ambitions of establishing a pro career including the likes of Fergie and Mourinho could only have dreamed about emulating, with legendary managerial careers. They are part of the very small club, I think which only has 7 members, of people to win European Cups / Champions Leagues as both a player and manager.
 
CoopersDream said:
Different season. That was in 2005/06, United finished with 89 points in 2011/12 after going out in a group to Benfica, Basel and Oțelul Galați. We got 83 points in 2005/06, which doesn't seem likely City will get now. But I don't see how that's relevant.
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My bad re the specific season. My point still stands that Fergie's underwhelming seasons were nowhere near on the same scale as what we're currently seeing with Pep.
 
Gabriel Djemba-Bebe said:
My bad re the specific season. My point still stands that Fergie's underwhelming seasons were nowhere near on the same scale as what we're currently seeing with Pep.
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Yeah generally United would get embarrassed every so often, 5-0 Newcastle, 5-0 Chelsea, 6-1 Man City, 6-3 Southampton. Lose a few games in a row sometimes too. But then there would generally be some sort of reckoning and back to the fundamentals and often won 6 or 7 games in a row after that embarrassing moment. It helped because there were characters like Roy Keane in the team, I don't see City as having much of that sort of character and Rodri plus Dias are injured.

Man City have plenty of great players but they've rarely needed to be that resilient. Coming back on the last day of the season through Gundogan that time was a rare example. Various times in Europe where they've played someone their level and the game has gone the other way and they looked completely lost.
 
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