For me, it's simple, more trophies, less resources. I think Pep will eventually pass Sir Alex but not in PL's but right now it's Sir Alex, he took United from a much lower place than Pep took Barca. Not Peps fault but still true
'Pep' Guardiola sack watch
- Thread starter Classical Mechanic
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For me, it's simple, more trophies, less resources. I think Pep will eventually pass Sir Alex but not in PL's but right now it's Sir Alex, he took United from a much lower place than Pep took Barca. Not Peps fault but still true
Right now he's the best manager in the world and I cant wait for him to feck off from City. Sadly, it won't happen anytime soon 
Why not being meaningful? Building a team starting from scratch and limited resources, to multiple teams achieving domination across different eras, and singlehandedly elevating the club to one of greatest club in past 30 years with long lasting influence. This requires all of the “qualities” above, which Fergie is better at. IMO this is by far the hardest things to achieve in football world. Imagine turning Spur or Leicester City into Bayern Munich and keep it up for 30 years without any oil money to back it up (ok this is random). Pep would never be able to match this feat, no matter how many trophies he won in future with oil money.
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Let's not forget what he done at Aberdeen too. He made them the best team in Scotland, and won a European competition beating Bayern and Real Madrid along the way.
I might not be getting your point, but when Fergie took over United they didn't have limited resources and you weren't on anything like the same level of Spurs or Leicester.
Fair comment
I mean you only have to compare the position of the two clubs and you will have your answer:
When Fergie joined United how many years hadn‘t they won the league title? And the answer is not 2 and also not 2 in last 4 years. Obviously Spurs is not the best example but the point still stands.
And that’s before I even mention the well documented drinking culture and fitness issues he found at United when he joined the club.
We could never get the best players from abroad in our early day's because of our strict wage structure. He took a core of young English lads and won the European cup and dominated England, then the big money followed. Pep while a great manager has only been at the top clubs in each country with the biggest budgets available.
that's fair enough but football has changed so much since the 80's, biggest difference between Ferguson and Guardiola is that Ferguson was a true manager, that's now a rare breed in modern day football it's probably closer to DoF role now, wheras Guardiola is a true coach, he has input into buying players but that's alongside the DoF and other football people within the club, against popular belief Guardiola doesn't go to Mansour and says I want him and he's £70m and he gets him.
Fergie wasn’t just a DoF, he was the manager who was also doing the DoF job at the same time.
that was my point, he probably wouldn't be doing that now, football has moved on. I may be wrong but at the end of his career he did very little coaching so was more of a DoF in the modern game.
Well yeah because at a club like United he can’t be involved in everything at the age of 70. But he was an extremely successful manager for 30 years, not just from 2010 - 2013.
And no he wasn’t a DoF even at the end of his career, a DoF isn’t involved in tactics and game plan, whereas Fergie was involved in everything until the end. He was just less hands on in his last couple of years.
David Gill was there after all, partly taking care of the DoF stuff (but not doing a great job tbh).
Well it’s just an random example. When Fergie took over United, we haven’t win a single league title or European trophy for around 2 decades. After Fergie took over, we have won 13 league titles and 3 European trophies. We are also going from a top 6 club with limited resources/budget to most successful in England in 90s/00s and wealthiest club in world which spans for another 2 decades. We are also growing into club with most followers in the world too. This all happens solely because of Fergie, the greatest manager of all time.
Good old times.
Right now he's the best manager in the world and I cant wait for him to feck off from City. Sadly, it won't happen anytime soon
He will. And it won't be to go and find a new challenge. It will be to go back home and reconnect with his family & homeland again. He's been away from Spain since 2012. His Mum died last year of Covid, so his Dad is on his own now. He has enough money to buy his own football club, al la Beckham.
I think he won't. PL is the best league in the world right now, City chairman is backing him up with unlimited resources, he is earning alot of money here, and he is on course to challenge Ferige as most successful manager of all time if he stays for another 10-15 years.. Why would he go? Unless he no longer has the hungry to achieve more.
Hats off to Pep, never reverts to different way of playing football. His teams keep to the same style of play and its a joy to watch. Even when they have a bad day at the office they still play same way. He doesn't need to revert to defensive style systems to get a result. He does it his way and is winning something every season. The chap set his team up for a champions league semi final vs PSG without a centre forward and they made it look easy.
With some shrewd signings and a bit of hard work I really can see Ole doing what Pep did at Barcelona. He just needs a bit of time, some cash to splash and he'd be right up there.
He's proved this season he can mix it with the best, next year he needs to go all out and let the handbrake off.
He's proved this season he can mix it with the best, next year he needs to go all out and let the handbrake off.
Surely a bigger difference between the two would be Fergie's first three jobs being the manager of East Stirlingshire, St Mirren and Aberdeen.
Pep's first 3 jobs have been a little different I'd say.
It then took 12 years before he got the United job. 12 years before he got a chance comparable with Peps first job.
I say comparable. He didn't inherit Messi, Xavi etc. He got Duxbury, Davenport, Albiston, Hogg.
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He excelled in his short spell with Barcelona B and prior to that he travelled the world meeting up with and getting ideas and inspiration from many of the world’s most innovative Coaches in football and other fields.
His high level playing experience coupled with his innovation persuaded Barca to pass over such as Mou, Valverde and others and take a high risk/high reward gamble on Pep.
Pep wasn’t just handed the reins of Barcelona.
He excelled in his short spell with Barcelona B and prior to that he travelled the world meeting up with and getting ideas and inspiration from many of the world’s most innovative Coaches in football and other fields.
His high level playing experience coupled with his innovation persuaded Barca to pass over such as Mou, Valverde and others and take a high risk/high reward gamble on Pep.
He has the best squad in the league but you could argue he has that every season he's been at City.
I still rank Klopp's achievement higher than Pep's with the relative resources. And if Klopp, Tuchel or Ole runs him close next season he'll get tetchy and crack.
Personally I think if he wins the CL he'll commit to another season and then leave. He isn't going to break Fergie's record and City bent backward to get him by remodelling its infrastructure so he isn't going to do a Wenger.
Pep is an Enigma to me.
Is a manager who needs the perfect conditions to succeed really a good manager. Managers in any walk of life have to deal with issues as that's the nature of the job. The issues a business manager encounters are much the same as most football manager encounter. They must work to budgets, resolve staffing issues/conflicts, run the business in an efficient manner while continually improving. Pep has yet to prove he can do any of this
Is a manager who needs the perfect conditions to succeed really a good manager. Managers in any walk of life have to deal with issues as that's the nature of the job. The issues a business manager encounters are much the same as most football manager encounter. They must work to budgets, resolve staffing issues/conflicts, run the business in an efficient manner while continually improving. Pep has yet to prove he can do any of this
Others might say it's rubbish but I really like your user name
Most of the top managers have had the opportunity to work with superior talent and massive resources but why have they not had the same longevity? A top manager going from big club to average club is not an achievement and should not be lauded over and above staying at the top consistently.
I didn't say he was just handed the reins.
But you're not saying a year with the B team is anywhere near comparable with 12 years managing small Scottish clubs?
Fergie had already managed as long as Pep currently has before he got a shot at a big club.
Pep has been in top level management for 11 years. This is not really a long time in itself. In this time he has managed Barcelona with Messi. Then Bayern the biggest club in Germany, in what is a 1 team league. He has then gone onto City who have the richest owner in world football & unlimited resources. It's not been difficult work. He has under performed in regards Bayern & City. He didn't achieve his goal at Bayern. He may achieve his goal at City but it's took 5 years & a near £1 Billion outlay which has luckily coincided with the big European clubs being at their weakest for the last decade.
It would have been very interesting to see where he would have ended up after Bayern if the State Funded clubs hadn't existed. The only big club who could have given him the working conditions he needed would have been Juventus as they were already dominating the Italian League. If he had gone there his remit would have been to win the CL. He had the same remit & Bayern & failed. It's highly likely he would have failed at Juventus too. How would his career be viewed with these 2 failures on his resume.
Except Bayern management wanted to keep him as far as I can recall, he decided to go on his own volition. It seems they didn't agree with your assessment that winning the CL was his remit. Anyways actually demanding that someone wins that competition is ludicrous, too many factors are involved. I guess as long as coach X is performing credibly in Europe and keeps sweeping up domestic trophies he is not going to be sacked. To Guardiola's credit, whatever one thinks about him he is yet to have a truly bad season the likes of Klopp and Mourinho for example have once in a while.
Lives in a flat in town. Don't think he's putting down any permanent roots.
But where would he go? There’s no money outside PL, Barca and Real can’t back him up financially, Juventus and Italy is not really attractive, I am not sure he would want to go back to Bayern after spending some unhappy years there, while PSG is playing in farmers league. Man City is currently the best team in the world, chairman supports him. Unless he plan to retire early or stay out of football for a while, I just don’t see him going anywhere else
It might just be that he'll take a sabbatical.
Pep is the best coach right now but there is no point to compare him to Ferguson, they doesn’t even have the same job.
Ferguson was a manager. He totally rebuilt the club when he arrived. He changed the culture, restructured it from top to bottom, to begin with the academy. He gave this club his former glory and much more. No other job is comparable to what he did, or maybe a long time ago, as Sir Matt Busby did.
Pep is a fantastic coach but let’s be honest, he had everything on the plate coming to City. Everything was organized to his arrival, including the big fat brown envelope.
And I think that is why he was not interested coming to United, he saw it was a big mess and choose the easy way. That is not criticism by the way, he is just no manager and has no interest in it, he just want to coach and win trophies and not run a club.
Ferguson was a manager. He totally rebuilt the club when he arrived. He changed the culture, restructured it from top to bottom, to begin with the academy. He gave this club his former glory and much more. No other job is comparable to what he did, or maybe a long time ago, as Sir Matt Busby did.
Pep is a fantastic coach but let’s be honest, he had everything on the plate coming to City. Everything was organized to his arrival, including the big fat brown envelope.
And I think that is why he was not interested coming to United, he saw it was a big mess and choose the easy way. That is not criticism by the way, he is just no manager and has no interest in it, he just want to coach and win trophies and not run a club.
He managed Barca with Messi yes and we all know that Messi is a once in a generation talent but there have been hundreds of “next Messis” on world football meaning that there have been so many outstanding talents that never progressed. Pep played a major part in making Messi who he is today by his work on and off the pitch and reducing the importance of that is akin to saying that the treble winning United team that the great SAF built should be asterisked because the great man had Ronaldo to work with even though we all know the impact of SAF in that boy’s career. Are you going to downplay SAF’s treble win because he had a golden player?
Bayern were really struggling to win Buli year on year before Pep and it was only when he came it became a normalcy for them to do it. He failed in UCL yes just like everyone manager before and after him have one failure story and another including the man that won the treble - Jupp Heynkes who needed 3 years to win the league before he got the treble.
My point stands that if it was easy to stay in a big/wealthy club and continue to win things consistently, every manager that you rank above Pep would easily have done it but there is none. Usually when a manager doesn’t live up to expectations of his employer, he is removed and so if that manager goes to a lower profile club and does relatively well, this is not a greater achievement.
Winning a trophy is not as important for me as staying at the competitive top for longer than anyone else. Di Matteo won the UCL but what happened next? There’s so many stories of managers that won something but couldn’t sustain that level in the medium to long term. If it was so easy to go to a rich club and win all there is to be won, why has nobody done it consistently in the last decade?
Correct, you didn't say that but the inference was clear that Ferguson's hard apprenticeship in Scottish Football is somehow more valid than the path that Pep took.
It's not better or worse, they both have their own challenges.
The end product is 2 Managers who excelled and will be long remembered after they retire as the best around during their era.
If someone challenged me to split the two and choose one of them as "the best" I would currently say Ferguson but Pep is still a work in progress and if he continues as he is he may supercede him one day.
Or not.
Before Roman came, Fergie had the most resources in the league every single year. It’s true that United had not won the league for 20 something years prior to his arrival, but they were still the biggest and richest club in the country by far. Fergie was given the luxury of rebuilding the entire club from the ground up: a manager simply wouldn’t be given that kind of time these days.
See that’s why you are getting it wrong here. The very reason why United become by far the biggest and richest club, is basically because of Fergie. He is the reason why we become so successful and rich, not the other way round. Yes there was still money for him to rebuild the squad, but it’s nothing if compare to today’s oil money Pep or other top managers are spending. Yeh there are some expensive signings at that time, but many of those are regarded as bargain buy too.
Point being, success generated income for us, building teams and developed new stars players are another source of income. I’d say these are all down to Fergie.
Thing is, we don’t have oil money to buy whoever we want to, we need to start everything from scratch and work with budget, and limited resources, step and step, and then grow into biggest club in the world. It’s all operated in self-sustained way, building from our very own foundation of success, which we never had for decades before Fergie arrived.
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No you’re getting it wrong because you don’t know the history. Man United were the biggest club in England for a long time before Fergie took over. Biggest stadium, most fans etc. They just hadn’t been successful for a period.
His predecessor Atkinson spent a fortune (including breaking the transfer record to sign Bryan Robson) without much tangible return. A couple of FA Cups (and the FA Cup was a much bigger deal then than it is now) but no leagues, which is really what the fans wanted, in the light of Liverpool’s dominance.
You don’t know what you are talking about. It’s peanuts if compared to Pep’s money. I am not saying Man Utd was poor, they surely have money to spend to stay competitive among top 4 or 5, but the amount of money no one expect could go on dominate the league for 2 decades. Fergie makes United super rich, not the other way round.
Also, Atkinson was a failure, we were almost in danger of relegation before Fergie arrived. So don’t count those money Atkinson had spend on Fergie’s head. We basically changed our whole squad with nothing to do with Atkinson spending.
He was brought to Bayern to emulate what he did at Barca. This is an official Bayern statement.
He left Bayern as they wouldn't give him the funds he felt he needed to win the CL. Bayern are a well run club & couldn't agree to this kind of expenditure. Who can blame them. The previous manager had just won a Treble without having to spend a fortune. They had already guaranteed him domestic dominance by decimating their closest challengers by taking their best players.
In his 5 seasons at City he has finished 2 seasons winning 1 trophy in the League Cup & failed to get past the QF of the CL in 4 seasons. With the amount of funding he's received this is largely underwhelming. This is comparable to the bad seasons of Klopp & Mourinho when resources are taken into account.
We'll never really know how good Pep is until he takes a job with finite resources in a competitive league. Nobody is expecting him to win the CL with Scunthorpe as it's an impossible job.
Some people get easier starts than others. Be it in football or life in general. We all know this. Pep has made the most of it no doubt but I don't think its outrageous to say it's better to begin with with Barcelona and that group of players as opposed to East Stirlingshire.
To get that group of players in your first job is pretty unique. I think most new managers would love that opportunity.
Not sure that selecting two (comparatively) bad seasons strenghtens your point much, he's not gonna win everything obviously. And to the point regarding Klopp and Mourinho. What you are trying to imply is that everyone is shit, basically? Because undermining Guardiola's achievements and then say it is comparable to them means that... Is everyone underarchieving? Is this even technically possible while someone will have to win something come the end of the season?