Yea why not let's add Iniesta and Xavi to the list. I see the pattern here and the question is still; how do you actually decide what a world class player is? How many levels of players do you think are there and do you think it's just a matter of collecting the top tier ones and letting them do their thing? If not, how do you judge who needed more or less coaching, setup, mentoring, etc... to perform? I am curious what do you think about Firmino, Salah and Mane? Do you think the trick was to just identify them and they were going to perform to that level under any coach? Or does Klopp's setup and tactics play a big role in how dominant that trio ended up being?
Is Pep the greatest manager of all time?
- Thread starter Irrational.
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
He needed 4 years to do what he did. That should be mentioned as well. Yes they spent really smart but he even boasted in his third season iirc that “ now I have my dream team.” No one should give him that time in some places. Where he didn’t had less money he had more time.
That’s also important. He does have the opportunity though to prove us all wrong since he can get Liverpool to change their support approach or walk but the idea of “he would have won two more titles” doesn’t work. There was a thread on Pochettino where every one was sure that Poch was the perfect United manager the way City have Pep and Liverpool have Klopp.
Having less to spend gives managers that sort of sympathy and reduces the judgement that would be meted by fans and observers such that even if they cannot qualify for the UCL this year, that can easily get overlooked but if city come second, he’s a failure so the expectations are not the same.
Madrid improved that year though, ronadlo was far better than even the previous season, same with marcelo, ozil, Di Maria, so while barca's team was the same Madrid were a better side that year than they had been previously
I guess I look at which players only performed well under Pep, and which were world class long after he left. And the only one I'd say was solely pep was Pedro who was great under Pep and disappointing afterwards. I think salah is clearly too talented to just be a result of klopp's system. Mane doesn't seem to be doing that well at Bayern, firming certainly strikes me as a player that thrives off Klopp's system.
I can't go over everyone but let's use a simple one, Sergio Aguero.
Aguero came from Atletico Madrid. Before him they had Fernando Torres. Alongside Aguero they had Diego Forlán. Then they had Radamel Falcao. Then they had Diego Costa. Then they had Antoine Griezmann.
They were, quite literally, selling their strikers and replacing them with new ones every few years. Atletico Madrid. Not Manchester City, with millions and millions of euros. Atletico Madrid, a considerably less wealthy club. That is, to me, very solid evidence that these players are, indeed, replaceable.
Is Aguero better than those players? Maybe a little bit, not much more. Certainly had a more stable career. Falcao and Torres had injury struggles, Griezmann a dubious move to Barcelona, Forlan had the weight of his failed stint at United on him so didn't play for big clubs again. But the average football fan who is not committed to this "City world class" idea doesn't think Aguero is in some different universe to these players, they're all comparable.
These are all assumptions. Breaking through at some point is never a given. Players talented have fallen off the cliff before. I wouldn’t remove Messi and co from Pep’s success in Barca just like I wouldn’t remove Gundogan, Lewsndowski, Reus, Sahin, Goetze from Klopp’s success at BVB.
I mean saying he would have won two morr titles isn't that controversial when they were lost by a single point. I don't think it's controversial to say having a bench like City's would have made up that 1 point difference. That's part of the issue as well at city, it isn't just the first xi, pep routinely has players that can come off the bench to make a difference in the way virtually no other pl team does
That’s my point. Football is not a linear graph. He could have brought players from the academy and they’d have done very well and then brought players costing tens of millions that flopped. Naby Keita I hear is being released now but he’s not been great. The caf thought United had lost a gem when he signed from Bundesliga. Klopp stole Darwin Nunez from our grasp and the caf went berserk. How is he doing now?
I would say almost everyone has aguero above those players, maybe torres' peak was higher but over a career certainly not. Same with Falcao, he's never really brought into best striker discussions becusse of how poor he was here and a Chelsea. Griezmann's time at Barca as well hurts him, if he'd stayed at atletico he'd be regarded higher, but aguero didn't have these disappointing periods like these other players.
I'm not saying pep has the greatest players in the world in every position and always has. But he has players in every position who would likely get into the starting xi of 17 or 18 of the other clubs minimum and in most cases all 19. He also has several players on the bench who would also get into the starting xi of every other club in the league.
Look at Jesus and zinchenko now starting xi for the side that finished runner up. I certainly don't think this city team is as good as Barca, Madrid or bayern over the last decade, but they have better players than almost every other team in the league in every position and they have 4 or 5 players on the bench who can come into the first team easily, which is a massive advantage particularly in this era of 5 subs.
No it isn't but having 4 or 5 players on the bench that would get into the first xi of every other side is almost universally considered advantageous over having massive downgrades from the first xi on the bench
Plus Ronaldo and Kaka were the 2 recent Wpoty and Balon dorAgain I counsel you my dear brother/sister to use hindsight sparingly. They had just won the previous two la liga titles. Try and check the names of the players in RM squad then come back to me.
They also weren't at Madrid in pep's first seaosn
Jesus and Zinchenko are not the reason why Arsenal finished second. Martinelli, Saka and Odegaard and even Partey have a bigger shout. How many goals did Jesus score?
Akanji was a joke at Dortmund, many here laughed at the idea of Ake and Stones.
Sane is mediocre for Bayern
Fernandinho was not much different than Matic
Aguero for Rooney
I didn't say they were, but they went from City's bench to the first xi of the side that finished 2nd this year. That should show you the kind of advantage city have
And Liverpool having Gakpo, Jota, Dias, Salah, Firminho and Nunez in attack. With guys in full back positions - Robertson, Tsimikas, TAA and a new guy they just bought can’t recall his name, Keita, Fabinho, a UCL winner in Alcantara, Henderson, etc in midfield then VVD, Matip, Konate as center backs. That’s not also enough to qualify for the UCL?
The four of five players you mention on the bench are Laporte who got displaced due to Akanji’s form. Will Akanji do well with Klopp? I’d never know. Even Laporte - you’d never know whether he’d fit in Klopp’s system therefore assumptions will never cut it.
Because he fails a lot and it's just brushed over.
You keep complaining about Guardiola finishing 3rd with City in his first season. Here in this post you mention Liverpool finishing 6th the season before Klopp took over, but fail to mention that in Klopp's first season, they finished 8th. He was hired when Liverpool were 10th and he was only able to get them two spots higher up the table.
Klopp did an excellent job in building up a better Liverpool squad and winning some titles. But that great team was around and winning for two seasons. They haven't won either major trophy in the last three seasons. With a record like that, you get fired at Chelsea, Real Madrid, Barcelona, and Bayern Munich. Many on the Caf would argue that you should get fired from Manchester United too.
They would get into the first 11 of these squads strictly based on the level they show at City. If they weren't in that setup, they would not necessarily get into those teams. You really seem to imply that a player's level is one constant regardless of where they play which is just ridiculous when you see how much the player's levels fluctuate. Wasn't Ferran Torres and Sterling seen as examples of these City players who can get into any other PL side? How are they doing now? Cancelo was in team of the year last season, why can't he get in the weakest Bayern side in a decade?
I guess it's just a fundamental point of disagreement. You don't seem to acknowledge that the system and setup a coach creates is a big part in a player's performance or at least, in most cases. The argument seems to be that these players' performances would be the same wherever they go or play which I guess is just something we have to agree to disagree on.
That side also had Xhaka, Partey and Gabriel as starters. Do you think those players belong to an elite title challenging side? Would you be happy with them at OT?
Arsenal finishing second and ahead of Liverpool is some miracle that you strangely ignore because nobody predicted it. Just tells you what a system can do. Zinchenko is not starting ahead of Ben Chillwel, Like Shaw or Andy Robertson. Gabriel Jesus wouldn’t start where you have Jota, Firminho, Nunez fighting for a spot. He could start for United but that would be simply because we failed to develop Martial, failed with Ronaldo, failed with Cavani, failed with Lukaku having spent big money and then also failed with Wout.
I don't know why you're looking at this season, when the two seasons Liverpool lost by a point were 18/19 and 21/22.
So here's a link to the most commonly played players in 18/19 and then the bench
https://www.bdfutbol.com/en/t/t2018-192002.html
The average bench for city that year had de bruyne, mahrez, foden, kompany, otamendi, Jesus, zinchenko, claudio bravo, danilo, Delph and mendy.
Now maybe you'd say that isn't that strong a bench, I'd say that's a first xi that would get close to 90 points
For reference the first xi was ederson, walker, stones, laporte, gundogan, David Silva, bernardo Silva, fernandinho, sterling, sane, aguero.
Now OK that isn't the first xi it's the 11 players who played the most games. But if you can look at that and say that isn't strength in depth or a significant advantage then there's no point having this debate because you'd clearly argue black is white if it pep look better
No I don't the point is that City's reaerve players can go straight into the first xi of others, look at the post I just made, in 18/19 city had the best side in the league and a second xi that would likely have finished 3rd in the league
And I just told you that some managers can finish very well in a season spending less and then get access to the purse and finish worse off meaning that football is not a computer program. There was every chance that with getting more funds he’d do better but there is every chance that he’d also do worse under pressure to win immediately. I wouldn’t give him the benefit of the doubt yet because he can make that move and prove us all wrong.I don't know why you're looking at this season, when the two seasons Liverpool lost by a point were 18/19 and 21/22.
So here's a link to the most commonly played players in 18/19 and then the bench
https://www.bdfutbol.com/en/t/t2018-192002.html
The average bench for city that year had de bruyne, mahrez, foden, kompany, otamendi, Jesus, zinchenko, claudio bravo, danilo, Delph and mendy.
Now maybe you'd say that isn't that strong a bench, I'd say that's a first xi that would get close to 90 points
For reference the first xi was ederson, walker, stones, laporte, gundogan, David Silva, bernardo Silva, fernandinho, sterling, sane, aguero.
Now OK that isn't the first xi it's the 11 players who played the most games. But if you can look at that and say that isn't strength in depth or a significant advantage then there's no point having this debate because you'd clearly argue black is white if it pep look better
The average bench for City that year did not have De Bruyne. He was injured. The same with Benjamin Mendy. They were literally not on the bench.
The point is just because you start for a team that finishes second, it doesn't mean you're a top player providing luxuary bench for City. If you agree that the players are mentioned are not top tier, you seem to agree that you don't have to be, to start for a title challenging side. Yet when it's City's rejects, you use it to point out how their bench is good enough to start for a title challenging side. How come Sané, Sterling, Cancelo and Ferran Torres are not doing well after City? Why aren't they starting for their new teams?
I see the 18/19 team and again why do you think those are all world class players? Many of them at some point were performing to similar levels of players found at United or Chelsea or many others, yet at City they reached a higher level, why do you think that is?
I do understand that, but the point is that the squad was so stacked, that one of those first xi players would have been on the bench, they came in for an injured de bruyne, most teams can't lose a player like de bruyne and have mahrez, or bernardo Silva or some other 50m player take his place. The point of the post was that city had two xi'a on their books that were quality players, other teams had nothing like that
Mahrez won the league at Leicester, foden is cleanly an enormous talent, kompany was great at city before Pep joined, de bruyne is a world class player.
Seriously I feel like I'm arguing with a brick wall, who can look at a squad with 22 players who would basically all have gotten into the starting 11 of every side apart from City and pool and not conclude that's a massive advantage for any manager. I could kind of understand it if you were defending a united legend but even then not really, but trying to argue that the city manager who had two first xi's worth of talent didn't have any advantage, I'm struggling to comprehend that one
Sterling also left City's bench straight into the first XI of a side that finished 12th. Cancels out, no?
In all seriousness: bench players leave City, Chelsea, RM, Barcelona, etc. to start somewhere else. You don't leave to be in someone else's bench, it's logical. Some manage to start, some don't.
Most teams have 1 or 2 bench players that would start at other top sides and usually becusse that top side has an obvious weakness, like say us with striker. Look at the 18/19 squad. There's 11 bench players, swap de bruyne for bernanrdo Silva and mendy for gundogan, and I'd say other than Delph, and maybe claudio bravo the other 9 players would have gotten into the first 11 of 18 other premier league clubs, with Liverpool as the exception, you must recognise that isn't normal
Kante won the league with Leicester and even went on to win the UCL. Ziyech is a similar player to Mahrez and was a UCL semi finalist. Rashford and Saka start ahead of Foden in England. Kompany was crocked for the most part. You mention KDB being world class but forget players of ours that could have easily entered that bracket like Di Maria, Pogba, CR7 all marquee signings. Talent is not enough.
Come off it. You know what there's no point in continuing this if you're going to say signing a 36 year old Ronaldo is the same as having prime de bruyne. Rashtord and Saka might start ahead of foden, but they're also the key men for their clubs not a fecking bench option.
How can you be arguing a bench like the 18/19 one (as well as the first xi) isn't an enormous advantage over every other club in the league?
I recall Barcelona journalists saying the 2008 league was won by the least bad team (that Madrid team). I agree with them.
In 2008/09 Sneijder was missing every two games, Van Nistelrooy got injured, Raul was way past his best and so was Michel Salgado. Many thought Robben was too injury prone as he was not available in 40% of games in his two seasons at Madrid.
And let's not forget Madrid were disastrous in Europe those years.
I mean, there is a reason why half those players were gone under Florentino.
City wanted to sign him though and we got one over them so at the time it was considered as a very strategic move. It had every potential of delivering to us another dimension as CR7 was brilliant in his first few months here. What about Pogba? Would you say De Bruyne was clear of the World Cup holder? Okay shall we talk about Sancho or Christian Pulisic or Mason Mount or Felix Joao. Point is there are similar talents across the board especially among ourselves, City and Chelsea but if these players were doing well at Chelsea you’d also suggest that City are stacked and no one else is close whereas what we have many times here is wasted talents and unfulfilled potential.
I think de bruyne is a better player than Pogba, but it isn't about any individual player, it's abiut having a first 11 that is all the best or second best in their position, then a bench that are likely the third best player in that position in the league at worst.
Chelsea have spent 600m and I would expect poch to get a decent tune out of those players, they've also sacked two managers during this season and tried to bed in 600m of signings in a single season.
Do you think pep, as city manager has had any advantage over the rest of the league? Or is it solely his management and he'd have won 5 titles and a champions league if he came to united at the start of 16 /17 and had Ed Woodward in charge of Transfers?
Hand on heart did you think Barca were going to win the league by the start of the season especially when you look at their first two games?
It's not non-compatible to think Barcelona were magnificent and Madrid were far from great that season.
The problem in your post is that you mentioned many good players who were not great that particular season for different reasons, or that you forgot to mention very mediocre ones like Gago, Lass Diarra or Drenthe.
As I said before, there is a reason Florentino got rid of so many of them. And he would have gotten rid of Raul way before if he didn't have the status he had.
As for your question, the only thing I remember was that the league was lost when Van Nistelrooy got injured for the rest of the season in November.
Let’s not do extremes. There is the talent part as well as the coaching part. I’m saying to you that most of the players they have are good but have comparable players in the bigger English clubs. The reason why we envy their bench sometimes is that players largely fulfill their potential. When that happens you will have a strong first 11 and a good bench as well.
Martial was a very good prospect when he came here and I recall I said I was going to cry if we lost him. Nomore today. Lukaku went for big monet, we spent on Sanchez beating City in the process, we signed Darmian, Pogba, Antony, Jadon, Maguire, etc. If these have worked would we be crying that our bench doesn’t compare to City’s?
Chelsea recently won the UCL with players like Havertz, Ziyech, Mount, Pulisic, Kovacic, Kante, Azpi, Chilwell, Reece James, Jorginho etc not to mention the ones they just added recently including Cucurella beating City to that signing. So when we look at the talent available at City we must be objective to also look at other clubs. I wouldn’t begrudge them just yet.
The reason we envy their bench is befause mahrez and grelaish two players signed for 160m who would have walked into our side from Leicester and villa sit on their bench. Of course every team in the top 4 has talented players, they don't tend to have as much talent as city. I mean this is ridiculous, you're trying to argue that barcelona weren't as good as Madrid in 08/09, that city having two first 11s better than ours didn't contribute to their success, what next? Let me guess the bayern team that won the treble wasn't that good, and pep had an uphill struggle to win 3 Bundesligas?
I think there's quite a bit of hindsight here.
Real Madrid won the league in 2008 with 85 points which I think was the highest tally of the decade at the time, hardly 'the least bad team.' They had failed to make it past R16 of the CL, which is not great, but most of those eliminations were against quality teams and not particularly lopsided. The defensive record in the previous two seasons was 36 and 40, not wonderful but nothing too bad.
In 08/09 the form collapsed into 52 goals conceded in the league and a 5-0 elimination to Liverpool in the CL.
If Jadon was tearing it up every other week we wouldn’t have to envy. Mahrez sits on their bench but Grealish is a starter. I’m just saying that if we use our resources well we would compete favorably. Even now many of us are having doubts about Antony. I believe he’ll do well but I have made my point.