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

Their players don't seem 100% behind him. He's a dickhead and quite a few of them probably don't like him already. The mistrust is growing.
 
Be interesting to see how many mistakes Stones has made that has led to a goal / goal scoring opportunity while on the ball..
Must be top of the league for that.
 
There are too many extreme stances in here. Guardiola is a top manager, not God's gift to football but also not just a product of his players, just a really good manager.
 
Actually yes it is 'this'...but our manager isn't in the media....he's being judged right now, every match.....so....fair's fair.

Part of the reason for that is Guardiola comes with a football philosophy. There's probably some expectation that given time, he'll get Manchester City playing the way he wants them to.

Mourinho's philosophy is to park the bus and doesn't come with any known footballing style. When he gets bad results, it's easier to jump on him. That doesn't mean that the media are correct. It's just that it's not immediately obvious what the long term plan is.
 
Let's see if Pep gets questioned like Mourinho did, eh? City have had a lot of sub-par performances this season, which have been more or less totally ignored. Its mostly Pep's fault too. Cladio Bravo is an awful goalie. Pep's choice. Stones? If not Pep's choice, the choice of his bestie Txiki. Soriano and Txiki were brought in years ago specially to build a squad for Pep. This is the result? United get hammered for splashing the cash without a plan. People seem to forget City spent more than us in the summer, supposedly according to some long-term identity building blueprint. Where's the scrutiny?

The only reason they were ignored was that they did just enough to get the goals/penalties to secure the three points. If our draws had been wins, Mourinho would be getting the plaudits. But at least we're playing better than the Berties at the moment,
 
Part of the reason for that is Guardiola comes with a football philosophy. There's probably some expectation that given time, he'll get Manchester City playing the way he wants them to.

Mourinho's philosophy is to park the bus and doesn't come with any known footballing style. When he gets bad results, it's easier to jump on him. That doesn't mean that the media are correct. It's just that it's not immediately obvious what the long term plan is.

Not true. But you are probably correct in the sense that it's the narrative perpetrated by the talking heads.
 
Pep will come good I think, but his arrogance will be a huge stumbling block for him. What's worrying for them though is that they started well and now are going downhill. Is it the tactics? Or the players?

The opposite is true for us except we just aren't getting the results.
 
He's really underestimated the premier league, turning up at the champions and within a few minutes of the game having a high line and being so exposed at the back was asking for trouble

Teams may have stood off him in the Bundesliga but in the premier league they will soak up the pressure, play it direct and cut you open

Getting rid of Hart, an experienced player in this league, and replacing him with a newcomer has backfired too
 
Still think he will come good. City have an aging squad with not enough threat when Aguero isn't playing + terrible defenders - which people mentioned would be an issue for him. It will take time. All this 'fraud' stuff is pretty strange seeing as we haven't even reached half way through his first season yet.
 
He's really underestimated the premier league, turning up at the champions and within a few minutes of the game having a high line and being so exposed at the back was asking for trouble

Teams may have stood off him in the Bundesliga but in the premier league they will soak up the pressure, play it direct and cut you open

Getting rid of Hart, an experienced player in this league, and replacing him with a newcomer has backfired too

Getting rid of Hart probably was the right decision, however Bravo wasn't the right goalkeeper to bring in. Hart has made a couple of mistakes in Serie A too.
 
In the second half, and i think that was down to barcelona not coming out of the locker room than with city being really good(which they were). They were getting played out of the park on the first half.


Actually he did. It's the whole point of his football, if i have the ball 70% of the time and my players are always in the right position to win it back, the only way my opponents can create chances is either through an individual mistake by one of my players, or by a truly great offensive play. Their defence was consistently among the best in the world in terms of goals conceded. Same thing happened with Spain NT. It was down to the Busquets-Xavi-Iniesta trio rather than Messi


That midfield was unreal and it was nearly impossible to get the ball from them. Spain had quality all over the because of their quality academies. I think that Barcelona defense in any other club team would be found out. I accept your point about the whole team pressing well because of coaching. I'm not saying he's a bad coach but I do think he's slightly over rated. This is his greatest test anyway. He has unlimited resources like all the big clubs so if he truly makes that big of a difference then city will become a massive force. I'm just not seeing that yet.
 


Balague :lol:

Him and Duncan Castles are great fun

Basically the process is that Pep needs to buy a whole new defence at the very least. He's a chequebook manager like almost everyone else.
 
I said it in the summer, when he was at Barca he took over the best team in the world, as did he at Bayern. This is a real test for him, and it's not looking to good atm.
 
Easily our worst performance and while I didn't blame Pep for previous losses today is firmly down to his tactical choice.

Chelsea was a case of us not putting them away and imploding, this was the first time we've been beaten soundly purely for tactical reasons.
So naive and without Fernandinho our whole gameplan is nothing. If we play the same against Arsenal without Fern we're going to get a hiding. The closest I can put today attacking wise is LVG's United but at least they could defend.
We've been struggling for form but today was the first time we've been shown to have hit rock bottom. No belief in our team going forward and our defence were like rabbits in the headlights.
Pep said he had to abandon the high press already because of the english game but refuses to leave more than 2 players in our own half against a pacey Leicester team. 2 man defence with no press on the guy belting the ball forward to the league fastest front line was asking for disaster.

KDB, Gundo and Silva looked completely at sea and imho one of them has to go. Our start to the season was strong because we played only 2 of those and 2 actual wide players. Having Silva or KDB outwide slow us down.
At the seasons start we played something like
------Fern----Silva----
Sterling---KDB---Nolito
--------Aguero--------
Width, creativity and pace and a nice midfield blend.

Than Gundo came in and it became
------Fern--Gundo---
Sterling--KDB---Silva
---------Kun--------

which was ok but than it became
----------Fern----------
Sterling-KdB-Gundo-Silva
---------Aguero--------
and we stated to find it harder but did roughly ok.

today was a similar approach and we simply weren't good enough and played into Leicesters hands.
---------Fern2--------
Navas-Silva-Gundo-KDB
------Iheanacho-------

I'm not awfully worried quite yet but I hope Pep is either going to reinstate the high press or play a deeper line and less risky game against the faster teams.
 
Didn't Xabi Alonso say something similar recently, that they don't train in tackling in Spain, or words to that effect?

Said it a while ago. He was praising Carrick.

"I remember reading an interview with a player from Liverpool's academy. 'What are your strengths?' 'My strength is tackling.' That hurts me. As a midfielder it hurts. I love a good tackle - but it shouldn't be your strength."
 
Said that tackling is not a skill, it's a last resort approach once you're out of position. So basically having to tackle means that you're out of position

That would explain why people can pick up the ball 50 yards from goal and run right through us.
 
He took over two amazing squads which it would have been criminal to have success with. Yes, what he achieved with Barcelona was exceptional, but I think Messi made a lot of that possible.

City is a huge task, I just hope to god he falls flat on his face.
 
He's fast becoming the worst kind of manager and football coach, not admitting anything he possibly did wrong, keps bangin on it was all all right. I don't know if he was like that in Bayern, haven't kept track but he comes across as very arrogant. Yet only our manager gets the flak for being arrogant.
 
Maldini said: "If I have to make a tackle then I have already made a mistake."
In itself it's not an unreasonable point. Rio, for example, rarely needed to make a tackle.

The issue is that when needed to he could, and he wasn't stupid and arrogant enough to operate on the assumption that he'd never need to.