Manchester City under Pep Guardiola | Pep on City v Liverpool ref: "He likes to be special"

I think that unfair for Saturday, Pep can't be blamed because Sterling shit himself thrice on Saturday. In reality he can't sub himself on and take shots when Sterling is 1 on 1 with the keeper from 12-15 yards. We paid the price for our rather inexperienced front 3 shitting the bed for lack of a better word in the last 3 games. If we're 4-0 up vs United, no way they comeback like they did. If we gotta outta Anfield with a goal, no way would we buckle like second half today.

In the two legs vs Liverpool we had 31 shots at their goal of which we got 3 on target (2 of them shitty ones from KDB), in the derby we had 20 shots or which 6 were on target. We hit the post twice through Gundogan and Bernardo.
That means we've had 9 of our last 51 shots on target and scored 3 goals. We need 17 shots to a goal at the minute.

Had the front 3's been swapped for the Liverpool tie we'd probably have hammered them, but ours (who are excellent, just young and inexperienced) shit themselves when it counted.

Atm, Aguero is literally our only real goal threat and its last season all over again, bossing games, creating chances, fluffing our lines and getting punished. The first game at Anfield was the only one where we shouldn't have been out of sight at half time and we've paid the price for it along with having some horrendous bad luck (post twice, goal disallowed tonight, Young's potential pen in the derby, Salah offside for Liverpools first, Sane possibly on for the disallowed goal in the 1st leg).

Every single thing was falling our way early in the season, a ball breaks in the box, always landed at our feet (see the OT derby), right now the opposite is happening, ball missing players by a yard, bouncing balls bouncing to defenders. Cutbacks that we were always on the end of early in the season now missing the target. We got more than our fair share of things going our way early on and right now, we're getting less than our fair share. It's football.

No real excuses but its hard to blame the manager when his team hit the target with 1/10th of their efforts on goal. Sterling and Sane have imploded at the worst possible time.

Gotta agree, a lot of our players are still young with plenty of room for improvement. Sometimes you have good weeks sometimes bad. The team isn't suddenly shit because we lost 3 games in a week. Against pretty decent teams. There might be a question about their mentality, but again thats something that comes with experience. If from here we manage to lose the league thats one thing, but not quite managing to win it in record time isn't the end of the world. I'm certainly not going to call the league cup and the league a bad season.
 
The thing I would worry about if I were a City fan is, how do we improve? The team has such class in all positions, yes they had a few injuries along the way like with Mendy. But for the most part they were a full strength team and looked a finished article. Who do they buy or what do they tweak to actually improve this team. They are good and have been excellent but this week as washed away some of their shine and just like with Chelsea 16-17 people stop being afraid of you and start figuring out how to play you.

Or, maybe I'm being hasty......


They can’t improve if they have a manager who believes in his hype so much and doesn’t ever mix things up. So long as they only play one way they’ll eventually get sussed. This is the problem Conte is having at Chelsea at the moment.
 
If Spurs hand them their 4th consecutive defeat, they will be a bunch of wet hens when they finally lift the premier league trophy after beating one of the lesser teams. I'll take that scant consolation.
 
I think that unfair for Saturday, Pep can't be blamed because Sterling shit himself thrice on Saturday. In reality he can't sub himself on and take shots when Sterling is 1 on 1 with the keeper from 12-15 yards. We paid the price for our rather inexperienced front 3 shitting the bed for lack of a better word in the last 3 games. If we're 4-0 up vs United, no way they comeback like they did. If we gotta outta Anfield with a goal, no way would we buckle like second half today.

In the two legs vs Liverpool we had 31 shots at their goal of which we got 3 on target (2 of them shitty ones from KDB), in the derby we had 20 shots or which 6 were on target. We hit the post twice through Gundogan and Bernardo.
That means we've had 9 of our last 51 shots on target and scored 3 goals. We need 17 shots to a goal at the minute.

Had the front 3's been swapped for the Liverpool tie we'd probably have hammered them, but ours (who are excellent, just young and inexperienced) shit themselves when it counted.

Atm, Aguero is literally our only real goal threat and its last season all over again, bossing games, creating chances, fluffing our lines and getting punished. The first game at Anfield was the only one where we shouldn't have been out of sight at half time and we've paid the price for it along with having some horrendous bad luck (post twice, goal disallowed tonight, Young's potential pen in the derby, Salah offside for Liverpools first, Sane possibly on for the disallowed goal in the 1st leg).

Every single thing was falling our way early in the season, a ball breaks in the box, always landed at our feet (see the OT derby), right now the opposite is happening, ball missing players by a yard, bouncing balls bouncing to defenders. Cutbacks that we were always on the end of early in the season now missing the target. We got more than our fair share of things going our way early on and right now, we're getting less than our fair share. It's football.

No real excuses but its hard to blame the manager when his team hit the target with 1/10th of their efforts on goal. Sterling and Sane have imploded at the worst possible time.

Agree that a lot of it is due to sterling and sane currently not good enough. But then it's on Pep for playing Jesus ahead of Aguero, no?
 
All well and good moaning at the ref but they played terribly. Everything was being done in a panic and the decision making that they're usually so good at was non existent.

De Bruyne must have had about 30 shots and not one from a position where it was the correct choice to take one on. Sane spent the whole game either being offside or panicking with the ball. Jesus I'm pretty sure didn't touch the ball between scoring and in about the 75th minute when he ran with it a bit then fell over.

I think what the last week or so has shown is this team isn't all it's cracked up to be. They've been led to believe they're the greatest team on the planet and then the second that's been challenged they've not been able to handle it at all. Don't think it was even particularly close over the two legs...and I don't think Liverpool even played particularly brilliantly for three quarters of the tie. Just like United weren't particularly briiliant for at least half the game on Saturday.

Spot on
 
They have lost their last 3 games at Home.

In last 10 games they have lost 5 and won 5.
 
For a great attacking side they are lacking great attackers. Sterling, Jesus and B.Silva really aren't much to write home about. Outside of their normal attacking pattern you wont see Sterling and Jesus doing anything useful while B.Silva lacks the effectiveness for the highest level of club football. I know, i know, someone will tell me they are all young and are to develop but i don't really see them as players with huge upside, unlike Sane who if he isn't a great player, it's almost guaranteed that one day he will be one. I'd package them in a deal and send them away if i were them.
 
For all the flack Jose's taken for his CL results after Inter(and I've criticized him too tbf).

Pep has notoriously failed in the CL since his 2011 triumph. Albeit to a lesser level, but still a failure nonetheless.

Is it to a lesser level though? I mean he usually gets trashed, 5-1 aggregate is a spanking
 
Pep really likes to whine and make excuses doesn’t he?

Surely a 5-1 aggregate loss wasn’t the refs fault. That or he’s delusional.
 
Is it to a lesser level though? I mean he usually gets trashed, 5-1 aggregate is a spanking

He does get trashed more often, but he loses vs better teams.

I guess it's pick your poison. His biggest embarrassment to me was that 4-0 drubbing at the Alianz.

Whereas with Jose, I thought it was losing and getting outclassed by 10 man PSG at the Bridge.
 
For a great attacking side they are lacking great attackers. Sterling, Jesus and B.Silva really aren't much to write home about. Outside of their normal attacking pattern you wont see Sterling and Jesus doing anything useful while B.Silva lacks the effectiveness for the highest level of club football. I know, i know, someone will tell me they are all young and are to develop but i don't really see them as players with huge upside, unlike Sane who if he isn't a great player, it's almost guaranteed that one day he will be one. I'd package them in a deal and send them away if i were them.
To be honest I thought b.Silva looked quality last night.
 
:lol:. And the Liverpool tie was a dead rubber too. That's why they held back players for the Spurs match. Makes a lot of sense. I guess plastic is a kind of dead rubber.
puhlease. They played their strongest possible XI for the game last night for the formation the used in first half. There us no way in hell they took the derby as seriously as last nights tie
 
Sometimes I wonder about mental health of Pep. He goes totally nuts on losing. Most of the top managers are bad losers but he reaches a different level of craziness when that happens.
 
The thing I would worry about if I were a City fan is, how do we improve? The team has such class in all positions, yes they had a few injuries along the way like with Mendy. But for the most part they were a full strength team and looked a finished article. Who do they buy or what do they tweak to actually improve this team. They are good and have been excellent but this week as washed away some of their shine and just like with Chelsea 16-17 people stop being afraid of you and start figuring out how to play you.

Or, maybe I'm being hasty......
Yes. Only Klopp and possibly Mourinho have the know how to combat City. The rest of the league cant and next year it will get worse. City simply need to keep replacing old squad members and signing quality back up for squad members without any. Experience will just make them continue to improve
 
puhlease. They played their strongest possible XI for the game last night for the formation the used in first half. There us no way in hell they took the derby as seriously as last nights tie

They didn't take as seriously but they took it very seriously.

They played Otamendi, Fernandinho, D.Silva, B.Silva, Sane, Sterling, Ederson that's 7 players who played in both games.

Then around 70 min mark the brought on Aguero, Jesus, KdB who all played against Liverpool too. They also brought on Gundogon on 70 min mark.

The players who played against us but didn't play vs Liverpool: Kompany, Delph, Danilo. You can make a very good argument that Kompany and Delph are first choice players. Delph didn't play as they wanted to overload with attacking players and maybe Kompany because his fitness record is questionable.
 
Who remembers when city were going to go the whole season undefeated?
Was it before or after they were going to win the quadruple?

Or when Real fecking Madrid were going to chase shadows without touching the ball vs them?

I'm not even making it up, some crazy guy actually said this.
 
This. Nobody said it's an underachievement.
It's a good season but that's it, all those millions and no CL and out of FA cup too.
They have had a good season, they will break records, but it is still only a league title. Other managers have won that for them. Pep was brought in to win the CL, end of and again he has failed. Goodness knows how much money they will spend in the summer again and that surely will start undermining the rest of his squad. Somebody is going to be shoved out of that team.
 
They've got it all technically and tactically.

They're mental weaklings though. A team of mercenaries, and it shows.

They can spend a billion more and that won't change.
 
Who remembers when city were going to go the whole season undefeated?

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If you look at their squad now how would They improve? They look like a finished product. Spending few hundred millions while selling some of their existing players can make them worse, it's a big gamble. You can hardly say the same with any other PL team.
 
For all the grief Mourinho gets for being defensive against half decent opponents Guardiola seems to suffer from same problem against opponents in knock out rounds in Champions league had he trusted his players more rather than setup his team defensively to counter Liverpool strengths in away leg they might still be in Champions league .
 
If you look at their squad now how would They improve? They look like a finished product. Spending few hundred millions while selling some of their existing players could make them worse, you can hardly say the same with any other PL team.
I could see them going for Messi or Neymar. Really that's the only kind of player that will improve them.
 
I'm wondering what the reaction would be if the United manager got thumped at Anfield and then also lost at home?

Would he get excuses like bad officiating or being unlucky?

Pitchforks, angry mob, 6/7 threads on the main page all to the same effect etc.
 
If you look at their squad now how would They improve? They look like a finished product. Spending few hundred millions while selling some of their existing players can make them worse, it's a big gamble. You can hardly say the same with any other PL team.

A Striker and a back up for Fernandinho. Or a real back up left back, our only left back has been injured all season, its been surprising to everyone how well Delph has done but he does take away from the attack on that side.
 
I didn't expect them to win anything this season and predicted so in one of the locked Guardiola threads ("At what point...") after their win at Chelsea. Because their squad is relatively small, albeit they have several high-quality players on the bench. They overperformed in the league but their small squad meant that they would be gassed come the business end of the season. They visibly got tired in the second half of last two games. They are quite ambitious though and will have a better squad next season.

Both they and Barca are walking the best leagues in the world but have crashed out of the CL. Because there isn't enough energy in the tank. E.g., Otamendi went from one of the best CBs in the league to a clown within weeks. If they had difficult league fixtures, they would fear for the title.

@Treble i think Jose has a much smaller squad to choose from.

Carrick, Zlatan, Herrera, Rojo, Shaw, Blind, Darmain, Fellaini have all been passengers to a different degree or another this season (different reasons). So Jose’s squad has been depleted yet Pep can afford the luxury of having a £50m player not even stripped when fit? I have no sympathy for Pep his spending is unprecedented in world football. He has won the league with over 15 points with 6 games to go, maybe he should have rotated better during the season and been only 10 points clear but his main men like KDB and D Silva fitter and fresher. (All part of management for me).
 
Eh.. hate to break the news but draws are perfectly fine, United 6 wins, 89 points, City 6 draws 90 points.

6 draws would be perfectly fine, infact 5 will get the job done, unless you guys score 100000000000000 goals (may not be the legitimate number of goals you need to score.).

May not be the right number but at least it would make sure, we all remember 2012 :(
 



Can’t buy passion hahah


The tunnel club thing with all this is so odd. A couple of people from one of the local pubs have done it. Grown men they are and they were praising how “amazing” it is being so close to players and all this. It really seems like something that should be targeted at kids not grown men. City really did sell their soul with this takeover over time. They have become everything their fans hated about United really and they can do nothing about it but pretend it’s fine for them and they never said any of the stuff they did.

I think if they as a club are to improve their underwhelming record in the CL they have to come to terms with it not being some huge corrupt competition. Again they’ve created this weird narrative the world is against them. Uefa, the media, the FA. They are adamant they are all biased and don’t want city in the elite. When questioned why that is they don’t have an answer it’s just accepted that’s what football is like. If you criticize them they dismiss it as a wind up or get really defensive yet they are open to giving comment on United and we have to listen to that. They honestly are the oddest bunch of fans I think.

Regarding Pep I think the media got way to carried away with them (as did the fans bit that is normal in fairness) and they won’t admit they’re wrong now. They will win a Prem whilst having no proper competition really, they have constantly said united are awful and we’re their nearest rivals. They’re no way near the best ever prem teams. Next season will be interesting as they should have some proper competition and there’s no doubt they have to improve on their CL performances.
 
A Striker and a back up for Fernandinho. Or a real back up left back, our only left back has been injured all season, its been surprising to everyone how well Delph has done but he does take away from the attack on that side.

Danilo was bought as a back up full back?
 
Was it before or after they were going to win the quadruple?

Or when Real fecking Madrid were going to chase shadows without touching the ball vs them?

I'm not even making it up, some crazy guy actually said this.

I remember that.

Imagine thinking that :lol:

Ronaldo would have had a field day with that City defense.
 
Guardiola's biggest blunder was Gundogan for Sterling/Bernardo in the first leg with Liverpool. It's partly due to his fondness of Gundogan and desire to give him the platform to impress in big games. It was a wrong formation to start such a game at Anfield because Gundogan is slow and cannot offer much against firece pressing. The worst part is that City played a similar formation in the first half vs Arsenal in the cup final and looked poor. That was stupid form Guardiola.

Another thing is that some of the key players were overpayed and lost form, especially Otamendi and KDB. He has some excuses for it because Kompany and Stones missed too many games due to injuries and David Silva wasn't available for 8-10 games.

There were also things out of his control like referee decisions, Aguero's injury, and the inexperience of the front three. It's still amaizing that they can break the record for most PL goals given that the average age of Sane, Sterling, Jesus and Bernardo over the course of the season is 22 y.o. The average age of Liverpool's attacking trio is 26 y.o. In hindsight, City missed Aguero in these 3 games a lot.
 
They didn't take as seriously but they took it very seriously.

They played Otamendi, Fernandinho, D.Silva, B.Silva, Sane, Sterling, Ederson that's 7 players who played in both games.

Then around 70 min mark the brought on Aguero, Jesus, KdB who all played against Liverpool too. They also brought on Gundogon on 70 min mark.

The players who played against us but didn't play vs Liverpool: Kompany, Delph, Danilo. You can make a very good argument that Kompany and Delph are first choice players. Delph didn't play as they wanted to overload with attacking players and maybe Kompany because his fitness record is questionable.
They put both their main strikers, one of the starting center backs, started Gundogan instead of KDB on midfield and played B. Silva upfront. You seriously cant deny this points to them having bigger fish to fry. It was pretty much a dead rubber to them. The likes of KDB and Aguero were turned to just to salvage derby pride and their unbeaten home record. But their real focus was last night. And Spurs will feel the full fury of the pain of last night's exit. I'm close to certain about that
 
Guardiola's biggest blunder was Gundogan for Sterling/Bernardo in the first leg with Liverpool. It's partly due to his fondness of Gundogan and desire to give him the platform to impress in big games. It was a wrong formation to start such a game at Anfield because Gundogan is slow and cannot offer much against firece pressing. The worst part is that City played a similar formation in the first half vs Arsenal in the cup final and looked poor. That was stupid form Guardiola.

Another thing is that some of the key players were overpayed and lost form, especially Otamendi and KDB. He has some excuses for it because Kompany and Stones missed too many games due to injuries and David Silva wasn't available for 8-10 games.

There were also things out of his control like referee decisions, Aguero's injury, and the inexperience of the front three. It's still amaizing that they can break the record for most PL goals given that the average age of Sane, Sterling, Jesus and Bernardo over the course of the season is 22 y.o. The average age of Liverpool's attacking trio is 26 y.o. In hindsight, City missed Aguero in these 3 games a lot.

David Silva, Aguero are part of their attack. Aguero is the striker who played most mins, Silva is the attacking mid who played second most mins after KdB.
 
@Treble i think Jose has a much smaller squad to choose from.

Carrick, Zlatan, Herrera, Rojo, Shaw, Blind, Darmain, Fellaini have all been passengers to a different degree or another this season (different reasons). So Jose’s squad has been depleted yet Pep can afford the luxury of having a £50m player not even stripped when fit? I have no sympathy for Pep his spending is unprecedented in world football. He has won the league with over 15 points with 6 games to go, maybe he should have rotated better during the season and been only 10 points clear but his main men like KDB and D Silva fitter and fresher. (All part of management for me).

Agreed. The fear that Jose could somehow catch them forced them to play their strongest available team too often. It was probably irrational but it would have been a colossal feckup to lose the league from the position in which they were in December. Another thing is that they wanted to win the league while breaking all records and it cost them a lot. When Barca and Madrid broke the records for most points in La Liga, they failed in the CL. It's one or the other. To win the CL while breaking multiple league records would take a superhuman team, arguably the greatest ever. This one is far from it.