'Pep' Guardiola sack watch

Stocar said:
At least have that bit of decency to admit that you made that 2-2 overall xG stat up. It is easy for anyone to look up. Just when you'd think that the level of stupidity reached by the haters crew couldn't possibly be surpassed, there emerges again something so petty and dumb that one simply can't believe what he's reading.
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Tbh, I actually am struggling to find any xG data on that game, and I did post this out of my own memory that the first game was roundabout 1-0 ATL, while the second one was 2-1 for us disregarding the two penalties for both teams. Would you mind help me finding them, Mr Stocar Dali, if it's easy for anyone to look up? I definitely won't be having any problem admitting I was wrong on a stat if indeed my memory was tricking me.

You seem extremely agitated, relax, friggin hell :lol: . I promise not to be petty and insult your intelligence by disagreeing or hating (:lol:) on Pep Guardiola anymore, I'm being 100% serious.
 
PedroMendez said:
For Bayern he consistently changed the line-up/tactics in away knock-out games (especially when the first game was away from home). He usually started with an additional midfielder, stopped pressing high up the pitch and tried to control games. It backfired almost every single time.

Pep's Bayern at its best played gung-ho (e.g. Neuer - Alaba, Badstuber, Boateng, Rafinha - Schweinsteiger - Robben, Ribery, Götze, Müller, Lewandowski started in the home match against Shakhtar) , while accepting some gaps. When you put enough pressure on, the opposition had a hard time exploiting these gaps. He gave all of the attacking threat up for nothing, because the team wasn't any better at defending. Slightly over the top, but to make the point: the team played much closer to what any United fan knows from the time under LvG. Lots of possession with little intent, that allows the opposition to be extremely comfortable without the ball, waiting for a good counter attack.
The games against Porto and Shakhtar are forgotten, because he managed to qualify for the next round. In the second leg, Bayern made both teams look like pub teams and won 7:0/6:1 after messing up the away games badly. Its hard to overstate how different Bayern performed in these games.
He got away with it, when he had much better players, but not against other top teams. You can always lose in cup ties, but he didn't get the best out of the team due to strange tactical decisions (there were other aspects as well).

I haven't paid equal attention to City's away games in the CL, but I know that he used Gündogan as additional midfielder against Pool. I think overall his lineup changes for City were less extreme, but the general theme was the same. Maybe some City fan can comment on that.
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More or less it's been the same throughout his career, he's always tried to play it safe/pragmatic in CL away games, but within the context of possession. A while back someone here reference his Barcelona V Arsenal, when he subbed Villa off for Keita he tried to bring more control and stability which allowed Arsenal to attack and eventually win the game, Villa occupied the Arsenal full backs and kept them deep in their own half, once he was taken off they bombed forward which led to having more bodies and creating more. Against Liverpool he he played Gundo, but put KdB on the wings and played 3 CB at the back with Laporte as the LB, to provide control and defense, likewise against Spurs last year he put Sane and KdB on the bench, Sane wasn't good at tracking back and his work rate was up and down, as well as Sane and KdB were two of City most dispossessed players, hence his line up choices. Mainly since his time at BM and MC his away games line up scream safe, as I mentioned above Muller indicated in a few months back in a interview that Pep never really played to his own strength he was always trying to adapt to his opponents. Until he overcomes this block if he does, I don't feel his teams will do too well in the CL unless he's has a player like Messi who covers this flaw.
 
JDoe said:
You seem extremely agitated, relax, friggin hell :lol: . I promise not to be petty and insult your intelligence by disagreeing or hating (:lol:) on Pep Guardiola anymore, I'm being 100% serious.
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I admit that's my flaw, being allergic to what I perceive as utter stupidity and getting angry in pointless arguments.

But let's suppose you've at least admitted that your memory of those two games is not only a bit inaccurate but completely false. Isn't that telling about how extreme your bias is on this topic? Not to mention painting high scoring attacking football as particularly boring, and other pearls of wisdom seen on this topic.

On the side note, I don't think Guardiola is a football revolutionary or a genius. He's just a very competent manager whose general vision of football (and dedication to it) I am somewhat partial to, as I find it to be rare in elite football.
 
JDoe said:
First time I've heard that we "dominated" Madrid and Barca when they bashed us, and also that City "dominated" Liverpool and Monaco honestly.
The other guy was saying that I've not watched the game, to what I replied to that I did. What's wrong with that? I wasn't talking about the home game which we dominated obviously btw, but the whole leg.

One thing I've always been asking myself is why so many of Pep's "admirers" would always get so insanely defensive, almost feeling personally attacked, when there are people having different opinions than them. While Pep had his teams play an insanely high level league football and would consistently crush minor teams like very few did, there just had been undeniable consistency in failing every time his team plays a formidable opponent in the CL, hasn't it? What's wrong saying he has been underachieving with the squads he had in the CL, you do not necessarily have to agree albeit that's definitely not too farfetched, isn't it?

I'm out of this thread too, apparently it is blasphemy when daring to say anything against him, look at those responses :lol:. Guess I do not possess the superior intellectual capacities to discuss with a fine arts, politics and sports connoisseur such as @Stocar, yikes!
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With Bayern, against Madrid, the defeat was deserved (not because Madrid dominated but because they were more consistent) but the score didn't reflect the tie. Against Barca, the tie was decided in the away game by Messi when he just decided to turn it up. Bayern was confortable up until that moment and had more of the ball (though both teams had some goal occasions with Barca's being earlier in the game).
With City, against Liverpool at Anfield, they conceeded and offside goal (City also scored one that was wrongly ruled offside) and then Liverpool proceeded to score from every occasion they had. Actually that has often been the story of Pep's City and Klopp's Liverpool, City dominate and create more but Liverpool players are always more clinical and tend to score from almost every occasion they get. Against Monaco, no need to go into details because they dominated Monaco by every possible metrics, they messed up by not scoring more than they did in the 1st leg despite having the goal occasions and by also conceeding as much as they did.
Then there're also the defeats against Athletico (with Bayern) and Tottenham (with City) which you didn't mention, so i won't go into those games...

You're saying his teams play high level football only against minors which simply isn't true.
 
Stocar said:
I admit that's my flaw, being allergic to what I perceive as utter stupidity and getting angry in pointless arguments.

But let's suppose you've at least admitted that your memory of those two games is not only a bit inaccurate but completely false. Isn't that telling about how extreme your bias is on this topic? Not to mention painting high scoring attacking football as particularly boring, and other pearls of wisdom seen on this topic.

On the side note, I don't think Guardiola is a football revolutionary or a genius. He's just a very competent manager whose general vision of football (and dedication to it) I am somewhat partial to, as I find it to be rare in elite football.
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Err what? I have never actually admitted that my memory was flawed. Still waiting for those various xG maps that you supposedly seem to own that shows this apparent immense superiority.

You seem insanely insecure to actually in need to boast about your allegedly superior taste and intellectual capacities in various topics IF someone is not of you opinion though, which I admittedly find incredibly cringey, no offense (actually bursted out laughing after reading that post about "poor taste" :lol: ).
 
footballistic orgasm said:
With Bayern, against Madrid, the defeat was deserved (not because Madrid dominated but because they were more consistent) but the score didn't reflect the tie. Against Barca, the tie was decided in the away game by Messi when he just decided to turn it up. Bayern was confortable up until that moment and had more of the ball (though both teams had some goal occasions with Barca's being earlier in the game).
With City, against Liverpool at Anfield, they conceeded and offside goal (City also scored one that was wrongly ruled offside) and then Liverpool proceeded to score from every occasion they had. Actually that has often been the story of Pep's City and Klopp's Liverpool, City dominate and create more but Liverpool players are always more clinical and tend to score from almost every occasion they get. Against Monaco, no need to go into details because they dominated Monaco by every possible metrics, they messed up by not scoring more than they did in the 1st leg despite having the goal occasions and by also conceeding as much as they did.
Then there're also the defeats against Athletico (with Bayern) and Tottenham (with City) which you didn't mention, so i won't go into those games...

You're saying his teams play high level football only against minors which simply isn't true.
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I disagree wholeheartedly regarding the Barcelona match. Watch it again, Pep decided to try playing possession with a 3 man back line and it completely failed. Barca had 3! 1v1s in the first 25 minutes that were blocked by Neuer and sheer luck alone, until Pep decided to revert back to a more traditional 4 man backline and it didn't look like slaughter of the lambs anymore, but they were still vastly superior and by some miracle did not score.



The home game was pretty much a farce btw. They took it so seriously that they decided to sub Suarez during half time to rest him because the game was over, pretty much gifting us a win because they were on cruise mode.

Regarding the Monaco game, they surely did dominate the game so much that this is the xG map



Monaco had actually higher xG if counting in the pen.

Against Pool, City got a goal wrongly disallowed and maybe the game would've turned, but to claim that City was better in that leg is just not true, I am sorry.
 
Conclusion
Despite getting a goal back, Bayern were unable to find the winner as Atlético held on impressively. Whilst Simeone’s team were extremely stable in the quarter final match against Barcelona, their stability was not seen at similar levels in the semi-finals. Quite often relying on poor finishing from Bayern and some heroics by Oblak, the Spanish side rode their luck on a number of occasions. They controlled the first half of the match at the Calderon, which was in many ways a result of Bayern’s poor possession game, whilst they were dominated for large spells of the second leg.

Expected goals is a strong barometer of performances and in every model, Bayern were shown to be the superior team over the two legs. Despite dominating the majority of the second leg they were unable to convert chances and ultimately, Pep’s Bavarian tenure will be wrongly deemed a failure by many.

https://spielverlagerung.com/2016/05/04/bayern-munich-atletico-madrid-21-22/
 
JDoe said:
Err what? I have never actually admitted that my memory was flawed. Still waiting for those various xG maps that you supposedly seem to own that shows this apparent immense superiority.
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As typing "Bayern Atletico xG" is apparently beyond your capabilities, here's one for the second leg:

Edit: Not sure about how penalties are calculated in different models, but that's beside the point, anyway. Goodbye, I've wasted enough time discussing with you.
 
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Stocar said:
As typing "Bayern Atletico xG" is apparently beyond your capabilities, here's one for the second leg:

Also, in the other post when refering to City - Monaco tie you have noted how there wouldn't be any difference in xG if Monaco's penalty was calculated in. Although it is perfectly obvious that penalties are always calculated in those estimates, and you probably know it. But that's just your mode of discussion, it seems. I think I've wasted enough time arguing with you, bye.
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Tbh, I was expecting a larger margin as "dominating" when you are trailing by one goal and playing a side like Atletico at home, but I stand corrected, we should have won by 3.6-2.6 apparently. And no, penalties are not calculated in those estimates. Still, no one is criticizing him for that loss, but for the poor record in Europe against formidable teams. We were favorites against Madrid, got smashed, underdogs against Barca, got smashed, favorites against Atletico, lost quite unluckily. City were favorites against Monaco, lost, favorites against Pool, got smashed, favorites against Spurs, lost. If you're counting those high wins against Donezk, Basel and Porto as impressive, well I guess we have different views. :angel:
 
Rado_N said:
Wtf is going on in here
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rimzy said:
Wonder if he will fancy a second go at Barca
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Interesting thought. I'm honestly getting a bit bored with him at City. It doesn't look like he is going to dominate, and they have bought their squad already. Surely they can't sell Mahrez and Mendy already? Aguero, Fernandinho and Silva is getting older. Maybe pretty much done like Kompany. Their defence suck with the exception of Laporte. I think this would be a good time for City to get rid of Pep, at least for a United fan like me. Pep to Barca, Klopp to Real. There we go :lol:
 
I thought the mental gymnastics of denial about prime Jose's greatness was as ridiculous a thing as i'd ever see but this is truly something else.
 
kaiser1 said:
If Pep had lost in the same manner, would this excuse be given?
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Instead of coming up with excuses or blindly defending someone like Pep; people should actually work out what exactly went wrong and what they should have done to prevent it. Which is what I have been trying to do on this thread.

kaiser1 said:
When Pep at Bayern lost to peak MSN Barcelona without his key players, and to Atletico on away goals with Muller missing a penalty in a game Simeone admitted was the toughest he ever played, everyone claimed it was a failure yet this below par Atletico who was 6th in la liga at that time they beat Liverpool home and away is now being made better than they are
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It's performances against the like of Atletico that makes one question if the current Liverpool Squad is actually "The Best Premier League Team of all time".

JDoe said:
Pretty much the first time Liverpool lost a knockout tie while being the favorite, no? Not even adding the fact that their goalkeeper had an insane brainfart AND the opposition's keeper was MOTM by a distance.
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I feel that Adrian was unfairly blamed (despite being well below his best) for causing Liverpool to get themselves knocked out of the CL; especially when many overlook the fact that Liverpool played their Strongest XI in both Legs (Minus Allison in the 2nd Leg of course), the fact Robertson, VVD, Gomez, TAA and even Henderson allowed a Real Madrid reject & a man with no self-confidence to walk past their defence and score 3 goals in the 2nd Leg, the fact Salah, Mane & Firmino all played as if they had the finishing skills of Benteke, Solanke & Gayle and the fact Origi got found out in both legs.

So really the ultimate blame has to go to both Klopp & FSG (1) for failing to build upon the 2018-2019 side (2) despite the fact they had a lot of money in the bank during this season. I mean how can a side that is aiming to win trophies only sign Harvey Elliot, the Dutch Mustafi, Minamino, Adrian & a Championship Reject GK as their signings? With signings like that no wonder they have only been good in the League.

Thus, had they instead accepted some hard truths & signed Leno, Tierney, Koulibaly (To replace Matip), De Ligt (To replace Lovern) Fabian (To replace Lallana), Sancho & Kane alongside Adrian (3), Minamino & Harvey Elliot (4); they would still be favourates to retain the Champions League and do far better in the Domestic Cups as well.

(1) Remember this is the same Liverpool side that had got the most Broadcast Revenue out of any Premier League Club last season & won the Champions League as well. So they clearly had a lot of cash to spend this season, which they didn't use.

(2) Despite the fact (last season) they lost the League thanks to yet another stupid mistake by Lovern & where forced to play the kids in the Cups thanks to a dire lack of squad depth.

(3) He would have been perfect as a 3rd Choice GK, so I would still signed him if I was Klopp.

(4) In other words 10 Players In (Leno, Adrian, Tierney, Koulibaly, De Ligt, Fabian, Sancho, Minamino, Harvey Elliot & Kane) & 11 Players Out (Mignolet, Bogdán, Moreno, Camacho, Randall, Matip, Lovern, Lallana, Kent, Sturridge & Ings)

JDoe said:
At Bayern -> crushed against Madrid (and almost went out against Juventus in the very last minute by two last-minute equalizers, who got a goal wrongly disallowed btw.), crushed against Barca, lost against Atletico (Müller missed a penalty, but Atletico also missed one, and xG for both games was a tied 2-2 btw.)
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As I stated in Posts #1223 & #1226 (I am only repeating this because you are a Bayern Munich fan, so I wanted to see what you thought about it), I have explained why Guardiola is far from the main reason why Bayern failed to win any Champions Leagues under Pep:
Red Keane said:
The Bayern Munich side that Pep took on might have had a very good Starting XI; but once you look past the fact that Dante was a Starting CB (1), there a lack of World Class Strength in Depth outside of the Midfield positions. Something that might have been good enough to dominate the German Club Game, but was most definately not good enough to dominate both in Germany & in Europe. A problem that was never really addressed during Guardiola's time at the club (2).

The funny thing is though; while many criticise Bayern for rading other German Clubs of their best talent (including Dortmund); what they actually needed to do (to assemble a squad that could Dominate Europe as well as Germany) was actually go even further with this policy. For example if Bayern Munich (in Guardiola's first season) signed Weidenfeller, Schmelzer, Piszczek, Hummels, Gündoğan, Reus & Lewandowski (A year earlier than Bayern actually signed him) off Dortmund (3), that would have make a significant difference in securing another Champions League for Bayern in 2014.

(1) Still don't get why Bayern never signed Hummels back in 2013 rather than in 2016, because signing him after Guardiola came would have helped address the biggest weak spot in the Starting XI.

(2) Not helped by the fact Bayern only had a net spend of about £25 Million during Pep's first 2 seasons, while having a net spend of £51 Million during Pep's last season. Figures that where pretty small compared to what the likes of Real Madrid, Barcelona & even Manchester United where spending at the same time, despite the fact Bayern Munich has long been one of the biggest clubs in Europe.

(3) Thus creating a Bayern Squad that not only had a Starting XI with 11 World Class Players, but also had real strength in depth across mutiple areas of the squad.
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Red Keane said:
One of the biggest mistakes any Title Winning Side (Domestically or in Europe) can ever make is by resting on their laurels. Thus Bayern Munich's failure to build upon their Treble Winning success ultimately meant that while they continued to Dominate Domestically, they ended up falling further behind both Real Madrid & Barcelona while Guardiola was at Bayern. Which in turn ultimately explains why they have failed to win another Champions League since 2013, be it under Guardiola or under any of his sucessors.
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I would also add that Bayern Munich should have signed Aubameyang from Dortmund after Mario Mandžukić left the club in 2014 or even during any season after the 2014-2015 one; mainly because he would have provided good competition to Lewandowski (who needs it judging by his poor record in the CL while at Bayern) and would have been especially good off the bench.

JDoe said:
at City -> lost against Monaco, crushed against Liverpool, lost against Spurs.
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These 4 posts (#1081, #1082, #1085 & #1185) explain why I feel that it was mainly Begiristain's biggest mistake when it comes to Transfers (his serious underestimating of how hard it is to win the Premier League & the Champions League in a single season) that has prevented Manchester City winning a Champions League, among other reasons...
Red Keane said:
When Guardiola took over at Manchester City, that "best squad in the league" has all but reached its final legs (1) and needed a considerable rebuild, so most the money that was spent under Pep was to more or less replace that entire squad (2). Likewise it has to be said that for all the huge amounts of spending at City, the squad building & management was pretty poor during the Mancini/Pellegrini era to say the least (3). So if the Sheikh's where actually planning for Guardiola to arrive; other than getting KDB & Sterling, they did a pretty poor job of it.

(1) Why else is City finish behind Leicester, Arsenal & Tottenham the season before, as well as end up with the same number of points as United that season? All this despite spending money on both KDB & Sterling that season.

(2) By the 2018-2019 Season, only Kompany, Otamendi, Fernandinho, D.Silva & Aguero had remained from the Mancini/Pellegrini era. The rest had all left...

(3) As shown by their abject failure to properly build up their squads after winning the League in both 2012 & 2014.
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Red Keane said:
It's more of a reflection of todays Transfer Market that in an age where £80 Million is considered the bare minimum for good players (with £100+ million transfer values being very commonplace at this level & above), it has to take £600 Million (1) to assemble a squad to merely dominate English Football for 2-3 seasons. So if one wants to Dominate the Champions League as well, they will have to spend even more than that (2). Likewise (3), can anyone really say that the likes of Mourinho (Post-Real Madrid), Mancini, Pellegrini would have done any better had they have given £600 Million to spend between 2016-2019?

(1) Manchester City's 2016-2019 Transfer Spending + the Earlier Signings of KDB & Sterling.

(2) Since the only way to secure both a Domestic League & a Champions League (within a single season) in this day & age is by having the ability to form 2 Strong XI's out of your squad; Real Madrid had this the only time they won a European Double since the 1950s (back in 2017-2018), neither Manchester City under Pep nor Liverpool under Kloop have ever been in that position, hence their collective failure to win a European Double to date.

(3) I would argue that while Pep's European Record can be questioned (although as I stated earlier, its mainly due to the fact you cannot dominate both Domestically & in Europe without spending even more than £600 Million), the spending has very much been reflected in the amount of Domestic Success they have had under Pep.
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Red Keane said:
Only Kompany, Fernandinho, D.Silva & Aguero where good enough (in 2016) to have a place in a Premier League Challenging Squad out of that 2015-2016 Manchester City Squad. The rest where either on their last legs, where never good enough in the first place or where nowhere near as good as they are now (KDB & Sterling). That more than anything was the main reason why City finished behind Leicester, Arsenal & Tottenham, as well as end up on the same level of points as a Manchester United side that was was suffering from the after-effects of being vandalised by the Glazers, Woodwood, Moyes & LVG.
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Red Keane said:
He didn't have the best squad when he started back in 2016, in fact it wasn't until the 2017-2018 Season that Man City could actually boast the title of "Best Squad in the Premier League". Regardless my point was that while having "Best Squad in the Premier League" might be enough to dominate domestically (1), its does not mean that said squad necessarily dominates Europe as well (2) as Celtic, Juventus, Bayern Munich, PSG & even Barcelona will tell you

(1) Which it did, hence why it took Begiristain's own foolishness to not replace Kompany & Otamendi that finally enabled City to lose their grip on the PL Title.

(2) As I have said previously you need to have a squad that has enough quality players to create 2 seperate Strong XI's; Real Madrid had exactly that in 2017-2018 (when they won a European Double) while City have never been in that siutation under Pep.
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Red Keane said:
If you don't have a good Defence, you can forget winning Premier League Titles, let alone Champions League Titles. A fact both Fergie & Mourinho accepted early on, a fact Klopp had to learn the hard way and a fact Arsenal have clearly forgotten since the Invincibles era (hence why they compete with the likes of Crystal Palace these days). So the fact Manchester City didn't have even have a good Starting Back 4 (alongside eveyone else in the Top 6) this season and Liverpool did indeed a good Starting Back 4 goes a long way to explain why they have been so dominant in the Premier League this season.
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Red Keane said:
If you want to win the Premier League (or another Top 5 Domestic League) & the Champions League in a single season, you need to have 2 World Class players in every position (or something close to it). Hence why Real Madrid managed to win a European Double when their squad was in such a position.
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Red Keane said:
While Klopp should take a lot of credit for winning the Champions League & Premier League with Liverpool (especially considering the squad he has had); it cannot be forgotten that in the case of the 2018 CL & 2019 CL, they where massively helped by the fact City didn't have a Back 4 that was good enough to win the PL & CL (in one season) on either of those occasions, hence why Liverpool where able to knock them out in 2018 (1) & Tottenham where able to knock them out in 2019 (before gettng defeated by Liverpool in the Final) (2). Had Manchester City instead had Back 4 that was good enough to win the PL & CL (in one season) however; Liverpool would have been knocked out of the QF's in 2018 & lost the final in 2019, in both cases to Man City.

Likewise the pretty poor squad depth that Klopp's Liverpool's has been lumbered with has cost them when it comes to Trophies; hence why they lost the Premier League last season because Lovern (as expected) failed to clear a shot from Aguero, why they have resorted to playing the kids in the Cups (hence why they got outplayed by a Scottish Teenager when they got knocked out of the FA Cup by Chelsea, almost got knocked out of the League Cup by a Arsenal side featuring Mustafi & finanally got knocked out of the League Cup by an Aston Villa B side) and why they got knocked out of the Champions League this season by one of the worst Atletico Madrid sides in recent years, with the goals being scored by a Real Madrid reject and a guy with no self-confidence.

So while Klopp has done well with the Liverpool side that he has currently got & has indeed taken them up several levels (at our expense); it remains a fact that had Manchester City built (under Guardiola) a side that was designed to achieve both Domestic & European Dominance (3), Klopp would have failed to win anything up to this point. The fact that Manchester City have failed to do this has instead enabled Klopp to capitalise on this fact and thus has been sucessful in building a side that can not only beat Manchester City on its day, but win trophies due to City's own transfer-related mistakes.

In other words Guardiola's Manchester City does have transfer spending & squad advantages that are big enough to Dominate the Premier League unchallenged, but are not quite big enough to also Dominate Europe nor guarantee said Premier League dominance would survive any serious challenge.

(1) Would Liverpool have still been able to overcome City had the latter had a Back 4 of Alaba - Laporte - VVD - Walker?

(2) Would Tottenham (and in turn Liverpool) have still been able to overcome City had the latter had a Back 4 of Alaba - Koulibaly - VVD - Walker?

(3) Rather than just the former. In other words ditching Bravo in favour of Allison, ditching Delph in favour of Alaba, ditching Otamendi in favour of VVD, replacing Kompany with Koulibaly, adding Kimmich in 2017, replacing Yaya Toure in 2018 rather than 2019 (with Rodri), adding another CM to compete with KDB, D.Silva & B.Silva in 2018 and adding both Neymar & Mbappe in 2017 (alongside the signings they actually did between 2016-2019). Which is what they needed to do to extended their Domestic Dominance to Europe.

In other words, 5 more signings in 2017 (Alaba, VVD, Kimmich, Neymar & Mbappe), 3 more signings in 2018 (Allison, Addtional DM & Addtional CM) & only 1 signing needed in 2019 (Replacing Kompany with Koulibaly).
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Red Keane said:
As I explained in previous posts (#1081 & #1085); Manchester City have never used that financial advatage to build a squad that could Dominate both Domestically & in Europe at any point that Guardiola has managed City. Had they used that financial advantage to do exactly that; they would have also signed Alaba, Kimmich, VVD, Neymar & Mbappe back in 2017 (Alongside Ederson, Mendy, Walker, Danilo, Laporte & B.Silva, with Delph & Otamendi also leaving the club at the same time) as well as Allison, Kante & Erriksen back in 2018 (Alongside Mahrez, with Bravo joining Toure in leaving the club).

In other words; had they got those 8 additional players into the club; they would have likely won the Champions League alongside their Premier League titles in both 2017-2018 & 2018-2019, as well as likely prevent Liverpool from winning the League this season. The fact they didn't goes a long way to explain why they only Dominated Domestically.
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Guardiola's biggest mistake was his failure to understand this and in turn his failure to notify Begiristain about this problem.
 
Should walk at the end of the season, unless the owners give him a transfer kitty of 500m to buy a new squad.
 
Lost more league games than us this season now! Shocker!

With Aguero out, there's no way they're winning the Champions league.
And hopefully they keep displays like this up in the FA cup.

Huge job in the summer.

Needs a "Jose special", as in a starting CB, CM and CF.

Pep has got away without having to go big in those latter two, having inherited their stand out players.
 
van der star said:
Should walk at the end of the season, unless the owners give him a transfer kitty of 500m to buy a new squad.
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Probably waiting for the decision on the 13th. A two year ban upheld is his alibi to get away.

It'll be 1 year though, so he's stuck.
 
Sandikan said:
Probably waiting for the decision on the 13th. A two year ban upheld is his alibi to get away.

It'll be 1 year though, so he's stuck.
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If the ban is upheld, even for just one season, I think they will be a bit of an exodus. There’s been a very non-commital vibe coming from City’s players with the prospect of no CL football but hey, that’s what plastic and mercenaries gets you.
 
Mogget said:
Are you talking about Liverpool here? I would be surprised if most neutrals think Liverpool's constant crossing style of play is better to watch than City's possession. Definitely more effective this season, but the football they play is quite functional.
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Pep's brand of possession play is the most entertaining style of football for me.
 
Zen86 said:
If the ban is upheld, even for just one season, I think they will be a bit of an exodus. There’s been a very non-commital vibe coming from City’s players with the prospect of no CL football but hey, that’s what plastic and mercenaries gets you.
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De Bruyne is the big risk if it is 2 years. I think he'll stay at 1 year though.

A ban might be just what they need to get their Premier league eye back in.
 
Still the best team in the country on their day. I fancy them to win the CL
 
He's now dropped more points this season (33) than his previous two seasons combined (30)
 
There season is over. They pissed over Liverpool just a few days ago, as a token reminder that they're not going anywhere next season.
 
Zen86 said:
If the ban is upheld, even for just one season, I think they will be a bit of an exodus. There’s been a very non-commital vibe coming from City’s players with the prospect of no CL football but hey, that’s what plastic and mercenaries gets you.
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I don't think there will be a mass exodus if it's just one season. We've heard KDB suggest he will consider leaving if it's two years, but if it's just one then it's ok, the others will follow the same lead. This is why for me as a pool fan I hope the ban sticks to two year or not at all, because one year with the same team and couple of new additions they can solely concentrate on winning back the league. Two, we can watch the drama unfold, team and manager..
 
Might as well go to Juve when they both flop in the CL this year. Match made in heaven.
 
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