he's an idealist and stubborn in his philosophy
He got slammed by Madrid and ran into the very same situation the year after against Barcelona.
I think this analysis would be better if done by stage. Looking at Heynekes, Simeone, Guardiola, Mourinho, Zidane, Klopp, and Allegri over the last 5 years they have managed. Numbers are below but overall thoughts:
Ditto for Mourinho.
I excluded him in that case because his last five years generally haven't been as strong as his earlier years when his pragmatism actually managed to deliver him CL titles, but yeah, same principle can apply. Ultimately winning the CL is very fecking tough, and so long as you're winning at home then a meddling away record isn't too bad, relatively speaking.
And WBA and Tactics Tim's Tottenham and everyone else
The point is that most of the criticism that people use for Pep is applicable for other top managers too. Jose is called the best manager of this generation by many people too yet the only criticism he seems to face is his style of football when in fact he can be criticised for at last three quarters of the same things as Pep can.
They're not linear. Whataboutism doesn't justify a person's shortcomings. A thief robbing a grocery store isn't okay because there are some people who commit genocide, both things are isolated events, just as Pep and Jose is.
The justification is to compare his record with other top managers to see if it's a problem with Pep or just a statistical trend. If Pep's record was worse than other top managers then it would be a fair conclusion that his record stands out as bad, if it's equal to around the same as other top managers then the fair conclusion is that it's not just Pep but top teams/managers in general who have trouble winning away in CL knockout games.
Not that it changes much but the loss to Sevilla was at home, we drew 0-0 away which should make it 2 wins, 6 draws and 4 losses 14:17 goalsI did it myself.(checking the last 12 games)
Jose Mourinho:
with Real
1:1 FC Barcelona
1:1 CSKA
3:0 Nikosia
1:2 FC Bayern
2:1 United
2:3 Galatasaray
1:4 Dortmund
with Chelsea
1:1 Galatasaray
1:3 PSG
0:0 Atletico M.
1:1 PSG
with United
1:2 Sevilla
So Mourinho´s Record is equally bad, did not expect that.2 Wins, 5 Draws, 5 Losses. 15:19 Goals.
I'd love that at United tbh.
I'm sure many on this forum said the same thing and even many in the media. Nothing new has been exposed to the world.
If you're so worried about the Jose's record then make a thread about that, instead of polluting this thread with "whataboutism" nonsense. It's like people bringing in Ronaldo in Messi threads. It's annoying and it's just an opportunity to score cheap points.
That's not the point though. The point is that if having a poor away record in CL knockout games is the general trend amongst top managers then it would be pointless to just criticise Pep for it instead of looking at why it's the general trend. I compared him to Mourinho because he's a multiple CL winner along with Pep and is considered to be one of the best managers of this generation.
You can't just run around here saying this in 2018 about saint Pep, very brave.
That's because you've got it exactly wrong. It's exactly the other way around.
Exactly. That's why all this 'no plan B' talk is so ignorant.
Absolutely agree with this. I am big fan of his but his biggest failings as a manager always happen when he abandons his principles in order to be more cautious and pragmatic..
That's spot on, imo. His normal approach is good enough to earn his team a scoring draw or a narrow defeat like 3:2 in most big away games. But when he instructs his team to defend py passing it around to waste time and in order to "control" games, things go tits up and rightly so. One of the most tedious things is watching a fantastic group of players recycling the ball in order to control the game. When you have such players and have coached them to toy with defences, go for it from the start, end of.
It’s always funny how these minor adjustment are somehow major interruptions. They are not. His approach is wrong in general. The problem is not playing an inch more defensive in the exact same setup he’s been playing for forever.
Riight.
He’s having an atrocious record away from home internationally and against international top teams in general since 2011 while having two of the best squads of the decade available. I would say he should think about how he approaches CL games some more.
Any approach has its weaknesses. Otherwise, football wouldn't be such a great game. Even the greatest manager won the CL only twice. I don't mean Jose or Guardiola but Fergie. His approach had its weaknesses too. And that was good gor the game too. The huge variety of good and successful styles and tactics is the best testament to the greatness of the game.
re. topic: I mentioned this in regard to his Barca being hailed as the best club side of all-time and it was summarily dismissed because it didn't fit the narrative. Few years on, and absolutely nothing has changed. It was always a clear flaw in his footballing philosophy, and without him compromising or at least having a plan B, it always will be.
Pep's biggest strengths are also his biggest weaknesses, but it's not only him that suffers from it of this generation of managers - they are all damned by their philosophy when things go tits up because they have no other way of playing. It's more important and/or damning for Pep's legacy than others because he veers so wildly from the sublime to a completely baffled figure who suffers some really bad defeats on the contrary side to the showpieces his teams have put on in home ties.
If there's a thread for best Plan B manager, it would be very interesting to see what the thoughts would be in it.
Knock the likes of Zidane all you want, but, over time, he's proving himself to be a very flexible and multi-threaded manager where his opponents are not, and that's giving him an advantage that carries over into the CL especially because he can switch things up if the primary isn't working.
Absolutely. The problem is that tons of people think there is no weakness in his approach and that it’s perfect. It’s happening again, right here, right now.
Your problem is that you're too resentment-driven to be bothering with aligning your opinions with reality.
We're talking about the CL here, Fergie is far from the greatest in that competition and Zidane's form in the league is not relevant to the competition as we're talking about latter stage performance more than anything.
