One of the two teams contesting the final.
Allegri is leaving Juventus
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Not the only successful managers, but the most successful? I would say so. Doesn’t make the other achievements at these clubs worthless, but at the same time you can’t look at their performances and say that they’ve done anything outstanding. Note this is for the leagues where teams go into the season expecting to win the league by default, not in a league like say the PL. For example it’s ridiculous that people say Pep has failed considering he hasn’t won the CL, when you look at what he’s done in a league like ours, but the PL is the exception rather than the norm these days. In other leagues the CL is much more important as a metric of a managers performance in my opinion.
Sorry mate, but I don’t think you and I are going to get very far in this discussion. I remember your views quite clearly as it’s one of the most memorable things I’ve read on here, CL is the Fa cup with a nice song, whereas I view it as the pinnacle of club competition, and yes the best measure of quality, and far more valuable than a league title, so I don’t think we’re gonna accomplish much here if our starting points are so far apart
You know me well.
Mourinho would have them winning CL's I reckon. Still a top manager, especially in Serie A where his tactics are made for the Italian game. Him and Ronaldo was such a great team at Real Madrid getting Real Madrid's highest points tally.
They will probably go for the vanilla option in Conte though.
They will probably go for the vanilla option in Conte though.
Yeah I read a lot of stuff on here and not much of it sticks, but there have been a few memorable posts that I can never forget
You know me well.
You’re in some distinguished company 
I'm honored!Yeah I read a lot of stuff on here and not much of it sticks, but there have been a few memorable posts that I can never forget
Currently, if you take only this season into account, Barcelona.
Short-term, let's say 3-5 years, Madrid, Barca, Juve and perhaps Bayern are better
Long-term there's no discussion, they've been irrelevant
What?
City are clearly the best side in Europe. Don't think there can be any argument about it.
Had it not been for their profligacy and cowardice of Valverde, they'd be looking at a treble now. You won against them and fair enough, as you were the better team over two legs, but it was a freak game at Anfield and I don't think any other team would've eliminated Barca.What?
Had it not been for a few inches, City would've eliminated Spurs and would probably be facing Liverpool in the final now, looking at a quadruple. They've been by far better and more dominant than Barcelona this season. Liverpool arguably as well, assembled more points domestically and went further in the most important cup competition.
Other than the fact that they've never been in a European final? On paper, maybe, as a team, definitely not, don't think there can be any argument about it.
I'm surprised there's any argument that they haven't been by far the best team in the world this season. Sometimes you just don't get that little slice of luck in cup competitions, doesn't mean they weren't the best over the course of the season.
Cup competitions always have a huge element of luck, to discount them on that basis is ridiculous. I mean Spurs are in the european final do you suddenly think they're one of the best in europe?
A huge part of being a great team is having the bottle to pull it all off. They don't have it.
No you're right, they only had the bottle and consistency to win their last 17 games in the league under immense pressure. Bunch of losers
Fair enough, although City crashed in QF against Spurs and Barca in SF against arguably stronger team and I still hold my opinion. Had they faced each other in a two-leg CL game or even a final, I'd fancy Barca to win it, even though Valverde is nowhere close to Guardiola.
This is utter nonsense.
Fair play to them. Winning the league is nothing that wasn't done before Pep. The squad is possibly the strongest in league history, so I expect them to win the league.No you're right, they only had the bottle and consistency to win their last 17 games in the league under immense pressure. Bunch of losers
And considerably stronger and better than Barça's at the moment, who are pretty average apart from Messi and were lucky that Atlético and Real were far worse than they usually are this season.
We're discussing output here not output relative to input. They were expected to win the league because they are clearly the best team. And I don't see any other team in Europe that is better. Individual games are irrelevant as they are influenced by all sorts of variance. Over the course of a fictitious European Super League season City would be favourites to win it at this point with Liverpool possibly second favourites.
Well, if you consider the best team to be the the squad with the best players on paper, fair enough. I'm saying that they should be doing better in Europe, and are underachieving as a result.
Yeah right, so Spurs have the bottle. Cup competitions are very different and usually unpredictable. City are the best team in the world right now, the argument against that they have never been in the CL final is a bit weird.
In what way? It's usually the best teams in Europe in the final or semi finals. There are of course outliers, such as Chelsea in 2012, but usually the best teams make it deep into the competition, which city have failed to do.
Whatever. I think that if we had an european superleague of 20 or so best teams, they would win it.
But we don't, so it's a pointless discussion.
Edit: City will be remembered as a dominant domestic team, much like Chelsea 04-06 or Arsenal's invincible. Until they win the CL they won't be in the same conversation as United 99 or 08-11. Nor the great Barca teams, etc. They don't haven't displayed the bottle required for that level of football.
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So in your opinion, City are worse then Tottenham, who they've beaten 3 times this season (knocked out due to the away goal rule), and Liverpool, who've they've beaten once and Drew once with this season, because they "lack bottle", despite winning their last 14 games of the season to win the league, and the domestic cups this season?
Anyway, the fact that you used the word "bottle" automatically renders your argument useless.
depends what the manager prefers, City's team for the first leg was probably one of the weakest teams City put out over the last 6-8 weeks of the season, then look at the team he put out at Palace a few days later, you can blame Guardiola for that but then Aguero's penalty miss was probably a bigger factor on City going out then the team Guardiola put out.
Crikey, that's obnoxiously arrogant.
We will have to agree to disagree and it's the wrong thread about it. I think the fact that they failed to reach the CL final in 2 years while winning 198 points in the best league in the world combined with 3 domestic cups, makes them "not have bottle" is very strange. CL is a difficult competition to win.
I'm in sales so I'm consistently working towards targets, which is difficult, and pressurised, with a huge number of variables in play. However if I miss my target, there is only one person getting the blame. In a results driven industry, of course Pep and the team should get the blame.
I actually thought (for some reason) this was a city thread, didn't mean to be derailing it.
Yep, that was the point. There are better arguments than resorting to a term only used in armchair psychology.
I don't think it's clear cut who the top side in Europe is. It could be Liverpool, City, Juventus or Barcelona IMO.
He's absolutely right, though. What you fail to understand is that the better doesn't win every single game against an inferior opponent. Liverpool right now are 65% favourites versus Spurs. That means over 100 games they will win 65 times. If the upcoming final is one of the other 35 cases you will presumably label them bottlers. One individual game is statistically irrelevant though. City played Spurs four times this season and won three times. Which is pretty close to what I expect the outcome over a large sample of simulated matches between these two sides to be, i.e. City winning 75% of them. Unfortuntely for them the one defeat put them out of the competition. That does not change the relative strengths of the two sides. City are clearly a better side than Tottenham even if the latter win the Champions League.
The other question is of course who you think is better than City, meaning who would come up on top over a large enough number of games to ensure variance isn't an issue. The only teams you could possibly defend as having a chance are Barcelona, Liverpool and Juventus. And I'm almost 100% certain City would beat all of them.
So, we're in agreement then. The only argument I was making was that there are certainly arguments against City being the best team in Europe.
He hasn't done too bad but I meant compared to how they were progressing before. After winning the league title in the same year he also reached the final in the Champions League. A couple of years later reaching another Champion League final, he was starting to build a formidable team. Feared by many. They were the hardest team to play against, their organisation and determination was on another level. Big money signings like Diego Costa and Lemar to add to Griezmann, Saul Niquez and Godin and I felt they would get even stronger.
I know they are competing with Barca and Real so you have to take that in consideration. However this year their final league points was their lowest in 7 years. Add getting knocked out in the Champions League by Juve with a humiliating 3-0 defeat which was so unlike what we have come to associate with Simeone's Atletico. In my opinion that can be described as not kicking on.
Spot on.
What's this about Pep to juve? I remember he said he's going to stick with Man City for the term of this contract.
Either them or Liverpool, not much between them, as the league clearly shows.
One is the most dominant tactical and technical side, the other is the most physically dominant side.
I know, I think a lot of people here have a very hard time admitting that Liverpool - especially if they win the CL - have a very strong claim to being the outstanding team in Europe by a margin. 2 CL finals in a row, lost the league by one point, had one loss in the league throughout the season, and by a very fine margin (11mm was it?).What?
I wouldn't begrudge Spurs winning though, especially with the transfer window they had!
Manchester City dont have the bottled required for the level of football that Spurs play