“Peak Jose” doesn’t make any sense. He’s still the same manager he’s always been. The only difference is he’s been left behind by the latest tactical revolution, a revolution inspired by Pep’s ideas.
'Pep' Guardiola sack watch
- Thread starter Classical Mechanic
- Start date
Clough's achievements at Forest dwarfs Sir Alex's in Aberdeen though. Winning back to back European Cups (and not a European Cup, the European Cup) with a team that wasn't even in the top division a few years earlier when he took charge is probably the greatest achievement ever in football, unlikely to ever be topped. Sir Alex did incredible in Aberdeen, but his main legacy will of course be what he did with United which obviously was legendary.
It's not that I'm disregarding Cup Winner's Cup, it's just that it is a cup that hasn't existed for the duration of the managers we're comparing him to right now in this thread. Sir Alex comes out on top in every comparision right now anyway as his domestic record trumps every other manager ever. It's also a bit redunant bigging up achievements in a smaller club (or rather because they were in a smaller club), something clearly Pep will never do since he won't have to do it. Anyway, just looking at Sir Alex's United career he's still well ahead and will be at least for a decade yet I'd say.
Last edited:
Unlike Pep, Jose is preparing for a European final this season, soooo yeah.....that is what Jose is doing this season.
You know it’s a shite competition when you have to say “European final” to make it sound better.
I am normally all for piling on Mourinho but this post isn’t even rooted in reality. The bit about Pep reads like a comment from a closet City fan no older than 14 maybe.
Okay.
So with Clough's achievements that could really push Pep further down the ladder, Sir Alex number one, Jose/Don Carlo/Clough all behind him, with Pep further still behind them.
The lack of an accomplishment that matches what Sir Alex did with Aberdeen, Clough with Forest, Jose with Porto really does go against Pep.
It is something that will always be held again, fairly, until he actually goes and proves that he doesn't need the GDP of a large country to win things.
Go and tell or say that to any Aberdeen fan.
Why the need to try and belittle such a huge achievement??
Clough's overall achievement is behind Pep's though. Just as Carlo's and Jose's are.
As for your second part, you can wish all you want that will be held against Pep, that's not gonna happen. He doesn't need to prove himself at small clubs, the only reason to do that is to get to a big club to start with. Pep won the treble with Barcelona in his first season, that's certainly one of the greater achievements in football management as well.
Yes which is why his peak was a while ago, I agree he hasn't adapted, happens to plenty of managers as they get older, and lets not pretend Jose didn't shake up the prem a ton too. You could even argue Jose's ideas esentially did the same thing to fantastic managers like Wenger (did Wenger ever take a point off Jose in the end?)
Both phenomenal managers.
Nope, what Clough achieved at Forest (and perhaps he almost did so before at Derby but for some let's be charitable and say questionable refereeing) was a huge achievement.
I am not sure upon what basis you are suggesting that what Pep has done, as good as it has been, tops what Clough achieved, not once, but twice!
It is already being held against Pep, what exactly is or will his legacy be, as right now, especially at City, it is all a bit hollow, due ti the size of sums involved.
His legacy is tainted by his involvement with City, and the fact that he hasn't had any impact on a club on the up like Clough at Forest, Jose with Porto, or Sir Alex with Aberdeen.
Heck, Don Carlo has bettered his winning league titles in multiple countries niche that he had going for him.
Totally bizarre for anyone to mention Jose’s CL win with Porto in the same breath as Fergie’s at Aberdeen, never mind Clough’s back to back titles at Forest.
It’s as lacking in perspective as those who can’t seem to understand why Pep’s league achievements are less impressive than Fergie’s.
It’s as lacking in perspective as those who can’t seem to understand why Pep’s league achievements are less impressive than Fergie’s.
Well yes I agree, Mourinho brought new ideas to the league and made it much better. That’s one of the reasons he was so great. But now someone better has brought different ideas that Mourinho has failed to adapt to. I don’t see how people can think this isn’t proof Mourinho isn’t on Pep’s level.
Yes, Mourinho reaching the final of the conference league after spending more money than any club in Italy last summer is comparable to Aberdeen. One point to you sir.
Sir Alex never won a Champions League with Aberdeen. He won the cup winners cup.
Too much is made of Mourinho winning the CL at Porto. On paper it’s an insane achievement but it was one of the luckiest wins ever, the only reason they beat us is because Scholes’s goal was disallowed when it should have stood.
Yes. I suppose I should’ve clarified. Clough’s Forest exploits are as good as it gets by a distance. But it’s still a big achievement for SAF at Aberdeen. Either way Jose’s CL win with Porto doesn’t come close to either.
Maybe rewatch the games and check the stats for both games.
On Pep vs other managers, swap their squads and think what the outcome would be.
Well it does..
Regarding Mourinho, I've always been amazed by his work in Portugal.
At Leiria he barely had a cent to spend, and led them to 5th place their best ever league finish at the time in 2000/2001 (ahead of Benfica who he'd left earlier that season), and then to 3rd place midway through 2001/2002 (ahead of both Porto and Benfica I think), before leaving to take the Porto job.
I think that his time in charge at Porto coincided with the building of their new stadium (which I've been to many times - it has the best club museum I've ever seen bar none) ahead of Euro 2004, and so money was very tight. During his 2.5 years there, the transfer fees on player sales clearly exceeded those on player purchases (I avoiding using the word profit as a sizeable % of the transfer fees on player sales probably didn't go to the club). I think his most expensive signing was Benni McCarthy during the summer of 2003, as a replacement for Postiga who was sold for around double that amount to Tottenham (the text-book definition of a mid-table club at the time).
And as I've said many times, at the time of the 2003 UEFA Cup final, Martin O'Neill's Celtic team cost approximately twice as much money in transfer fees to assemble compared to his Porto team, and had a significantly higher wage bill. That's before we even get to the CL win the following season.
At Leiria he barely had a cent to spend, and led them to 5th place their best ever league finish at the time in 2000/2001 (ahead of Benfica who he'd left earlier that season), and then to 3rd place midway through 2001/2002 (ahead of both Porto and Benfica I think), before leaving to take the Porto job.
I think that his time in charge at Porto coincided with the building of their new stadium (which I've been to many times - it has the best club museum I've ever seen bar none) ahead of Euro 2004, and so money was very tight. During his 2.5 years there, the transfer fees on player sales clearly exceeded those on player purchases (I avoiding using the word profit as a sizeable % of the transfer fees on player sales probably didn't go to the club). I think his most expensive signing was Benni McCarthy during the summer of 2003, as a replacement for Postiga who was sold for around double that amount to Tottenham (the text-book definition of a mid-table club at the time).
And as I've said many times, at the time of the 2003 UEFA Cup final, Martin O'Neill's Celtic team cost approximately twice as much money in transfer fees to assemble compared to his Porto team, and had a significantly higher wage bill. That's before we even get to the CL win the following season.
It doesn’t. Not remotely.
Thank you for saying all of this, and putting Jose's time in Portugal into a fair bit of context.
It is due to this that I rate him far higher than Pep.
Pep has been on easy Street in comparison to what other top class managers have achieved.
A £50 million CB not working out, nevermind, City will just buy him another one.
He wants Grealish as a sub for £100 million, he gets him.
Others have not had anywhere near the same or similar options in terms of cash to buy their way to success as he has.
Clough, Sir Alex, & Jose, heck even Paisley, all have achieved success on small budgets, which makes their success all the greater and far more impactful.
Let's put this in context please.
It is only being held against Pep on the internet by nerds who compare real life management and coaching to playing FM on hard mode and winning the treble with Accrington Stanley.
No one who is important (club directors, club owners) would look at Pep and go "yeah we have serious doubts about his ability to coach a team, he's had it easy all his life"
Okay......first of all, I didn't know that there were different settings in FM, such as presumably, easy, medium or hard, so I thank you for such knowledge, I can't quite find where they are in the settings menu, but perhaps I an not looking in the right place, ahh well....
As for your second point not sure what that has got to do with the discussion at hand here....
We are talking about Pep’s career in comparison to other top managers, & when you do that, you will see there is a glaring hole or two for Pep, in comparison to the others.
That is what we are talking about.
Pep is great at coaching, I mean teaching players how to play well with the ball. He is not that good at matchday tactics though. Conte, Klopp and even Mourinho have beaten him many times. That's the reason he is so good in leagues but not as good in cups. His teams play High level football but they usually show no idea of what to do when things aren't going his way.
What he was saying is that those so called glaring holes don't exist for other professionals (club owners, other great coaches and players) when they talk about Pep, they only do for armchair experts who are trying their best to convince themselves that a coach who has influenced the way the game is been played and had created what a lot of people consider the best team ever, isn't one of the greatest coaches ever.
He wins leagues because he has the superior squad. He fails in cups because the opposition is at his level. That and / or he decides to wow everyone with his weirdo hipster tactical genius nunchucks only to slam himself in the face with them.
I think hes a better league than cup manager personally. I guess i should clarify that i think hes one of the best coaches ever but I'm still often critical of him but i'm not trying to be with that comment. I think how he goes about winning leagues is pretty impressive.
I just think he makes every bit of quality at his disposal count and he plays at a level and a speed that only the absolute best can live with or stand a chance against. Weaker teams barely get a kick and if they dont score on the counter they dont seem to score at all. I think his game plan suffers a bit more against similar level opposition and i think all things being equal Mourinho, Ancelotti, Benitez or Emery are more flexible and better able to exploit weak points in one off cup games. I think they all start falling off when they have to beat west ham with 10 defenders in the league and do it every single week without fail to keep up.
I'm coming around to the idea that he hasn't failed with City in the champions league and they're just a hard team to win with too. They just seem bred to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Bayern is another story, his record was ok but thats not really good enough for the team he had.
I just think he makes every bit of quality at his disposal count and he plays at a level and a speed that only the absolute best can live with or stand a chance against. Weaker teams barely get a kick and if they dont score on the counter they dont seem to score at all. I think his game plan suffers a bit more against similar level opposition and i think all things being equal Mourinho, Ancelotti, Benitez or Emery are more flexible and better able to exploit weak points in one off cup games. I think they all start falling off when they have to beat west ham with 10 defenders in the league and do it every single week without fail to keep up.
I'm coming around to the idea that he hasn't failed with City in the champions league and they're just a hard team to win with too. They just seem bred to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Bayern is another story, his record was ok but thats not really good enough for the team he had.
He's also beaten them several times. Klopp for example hadn't beat Pep in over 2 years before the cup semi final this season in which City didn't play their first team.
As for your last sentence, unless you can post a stat showing that his teams loses the game in most cases when they conceed first, then that makes absolutely no sense. Saying he isn't good at match day tactics, is simply false.
As for him not being good at cups, that's also funny given the number of cups he's won. Or i guess you're talking about the CL ? That's a competition where only Carlo and Zidane have more CL trophies than he does, with him still being the coach with the highest victory percentage in the competition. So saying he isn't good at cup competitions is also false.
All great coaches also tell you that winning the league (especially one as competitive as the PL) is more difficult than winning cup competitions as it requires regularity and consistency, a lot factors come into play in a one off tie in cup competitions.
Yep. Just relentless. Now I feel a bit sick, please excuse me
Oh for sure. If our recruitment department gets it right though (and ETH succeeds), I'm confident that we can challenge. Spending for us is not an issue, just need to spend right.
Winning trophies is the expectation with the teams hes coached. Having a high win percentage coaching the barcelona, bayern and city teams he's had just isn't that notable. I'm not even saying emery is a better cup manager than him, hes not, more that his approach probably fares better in a cup setting.
You can poke holes in any manager's resume. This is a United forum so obviously people will be reluctant to give Pep his due, but he's the best manager in the world (along with Klopp) and already one of the greatest of all time. There's no getting around this.
I’d argue it’s just bitterness to not rate him as one of the best of all time. His Barca team was arguably the best ever club side, and it featured a bunch of academy products that Pep got the best of. Yeah he’s spent a lot at City, but so have United, Liverpool and Chelsea, yet he’s replicating Fergie for league success right now.
Its just a shame we didn’t get him, the idea that he isn’t rated as one of the best because he didn’t have success with a supposed small club is nonsense.
Its just a shame we didn’t get him, the idea that he isn’t rated as one of the best because he didn’t have success with a supposed small club is nonsense.
Pep is definitely one of the best of all time as a manager, no doubt about that, however we are talking about the VERY best here, Sir Alex, Clough, Jose and Don Carlo, what each of them have achieved dwarfs what Pep has done in his career.
Klopp if he wins in the final (hopefully, and obviously not!!) will have usurped what Pep has achieved in this country.
Jose has been the best non UK manager that has been in this country, with Klopp & Pep fighting it out for positions behind him.
I won’t respect Guardiola unless he wins Ligue 1 with PSG.
You’d have though the whole “he wins because he spends a lot” shite wouldn’t appear on a United forum because we know first hand spending loads of money means feck all. We spend almost as much as City and have nowhere near the success to show for it.
Can he do it on a cold Tuesday night in Rennes?
Only if he is permitted to spend 100 million on a couple of backup fullbacks.
Disagree. SAF is obviously the GOAT so let's take him out of it. I wouldn't put Clough or Jose above Pep. I don't think I'd put Carlo above him either. If Klopp wins the final, he may have bettered Pep in this country (debatable though, cos Liverpool have only one title), but it's still 2-2 in career CLs.
Jose is not the best non UK manager IMO. He was successful for a short time only and his defensive style of football is horrible and now outdated. He didn't adapt.
Just because Utd are ....*don't want to be banned* ... with spending doesn't change what City have spent and what they should be showing for it.
If Pep wins the league next season but losses focus yet again in the CL as a result is he lauded as a genius again despite having spent another £200m (Haaland + FBs) this summer?