'Pep' Guardiola sack watch

PepG

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Fergie, Wenger, Mourinho... all won multiple PL titles and had discernible personality, in different ways. Pep is enormously successful and a football great, but he isn't fun or interesting to listen to, imo.
Wow. Quite the opposite. I find Guardiola the most interesting to hear manager of all times haha. Every comment is a pure gold from him. Especially when the things are not going the way he wants. His deep irony is really great and he is quite intelligent for a football manager.
 

DJ_21

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Dropped points today will really make him lose the plot. It’s funny when things aren’t going the way he wants. He’s so arrogant and sarcastic. He thinks he has the right win win absolutely every game and every trophy. And to be fair they should with the squad they’ve got and they’ve just signed the best ST in Europe… he can get over 50 goals this season but it means absolutely nothing if they don’t win anything :lol:
 

Gazza

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Wow. Quite the opposite. I find Guardiola the most interesting to hear manager of all times haha. Every comment is a pure gold from him. Especially when the things are not going the way he wants. His deep irony is really great and he is quite intelligent for a football manager.
Intelligence is one thing, personality is another, and Pep has very little charm or charisma in regard to the latter.
 

cyberman

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You have to wonder what Liverpool would have won if Klopp didn’t want to be best friends with Pep. Jose made him crack in Spain while SAF would have shredded him if he came to England at the same time
 

SER19

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Xavi was about to be shipped out by Barcelona before Pep joined for being too small after Pep Xavi is being discussed among the Goats of midfield. Same with Iniesta and Busquets they are now being discussed among the greatest in their position
Top players are sold all the time. My initial post remains absolutely true
 

cyberman

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Xavi was about to be shipped out by Barcelona before Pep joined for being too small after Pep Xavi is being discussed among the Goats of midfield. Same with Iniesta and Busquets they are now being discussed among the greatest in their position
The players who won the Euros for Spain before he took over?!
 

Olecurls99

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The players who won the Euros for Spain before he took over?!
Sweet Jesus, there are still people trying to make out he brought Barca from the depths, transforming football nobodies like Messi, Xavi and Iniesta into great players.

He's the luckiest manager of all time. Falling into that job at that time, then Bayern and Cheaty.
 

Righteous Steps

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You have to wonder what Liverpool would have won if Klopp didn’t want to be best friends with Pep. Jose made him crack in Spain while SAF would have shredded him if he came to England at the same time
Mourning only took one title from him, no? Pep is a great manager regardless I think we put to much credence into managers ‘cracking’ and the affect it has on their teams.
 

cyberman

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Mourning only took one title from him, no? Pep is a great manager regardless I think we put to much credence into managers ‘cracking’ and the affect it has on their teams.
Yeah but Pep cracked, he got him in the end to the point Pep had to take a break from football, it was the league and cup of I remember and Jose was starting to get the best of him head to head.
There was excuses about Pep wanting to take breaks in between jobs, not wanting to stay so long at a club but that’s the only break he had in his career and he’s staying a lot longer at City. God knows how long he’d stay at City if it wasn’t for this scandal.
If Jose wasn’t there imo you’d have seen Pep stay a lot longer at Barca. Why wouldn’t he stay at his boyhood club?
Pep left and there were a lot of excuses that haven’t come out in the wash.
 

Righteous Steps

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Yeah but Pep cracked, he got him in the end to the point Pep had to take a break from football, it was the league and cup of I remember and Jose was starting to get the best of him head to head.
There was excuses about Pep wanting to take breaks in between jobs, not wanting to stay so long at a club but that’s the only break he had in his career and he’s staying a lot longer at City. God knows how long he’d stay at City if it wasn’t for this scandal.
If Jose wasn’t there imo you’d have seen Pep stay a lot longer at Barca. Why wouldn’t he stay at his boyhood club?
Pep left and there were a lot of excuses that haven’t come out in the wash.
True.
 

rajds89

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Deserves sacking for not being able to win the league with a freak who shits goals in his side AND for allowing his wannabe decibel win the league ahead of him.

Pep Guardiola is my idol.
 

Samid

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Deserves sacking for not being able to win the league with a freak who shits goals in his side AND for allowing his wannabe decibel win the league ahead of him.

Pep Guardiola is my idol.
Why do you want your idol sacked?
 

Chairman Steve

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Absolute fraud! :p

Wonder if he’s focusing on winning the CL over the PL, because I guarantee he’s cashing out with immediate effect if they win the CL.
 

padr81

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He got everything right today, weird opinions in here. Badly let down by KDB, Foden and Haaland errors.

Needs to cool it on the touchline, deserved yellow, was a clear dive by Erling.
 

jm99

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Absolute fraud! :p

Wonder if he’s focusing on winning the CL over the PL, because I guarantee he’s cashing out with immediate effect if they win the CL.
See idk, I used to think that, but apart from psg or back to Barca where else can he really go. Xavi is doing well enough at Barca that I'd say the job isn't avaliable. Maybe PSG, but that seems like he'd get bored quickly. Man city has a great board structure, has the type of players he wants and doesn't seem to interfere on the football side of things, I can't imagine all the egos at psg would fit him well. Granted, if all this ffp stuff has serious consequences i think he'll go to psg but I think all things considered he'd rather stay at City for the long term
 

CloneMC16

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Didn't watch the game, but based on the highlights, they had plenty of chances to win. Bad finishing cost them. He was let down by his players.
 

bosskeano

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City are struggling right now not the results per say but just struggling in matches to play that style you're used to seeing from Pep teams....and now he's getting a bit agitated on the sidelines. he must have been watching Arteta mocking the ref today with the ball rolling gesture
 

padr81

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City are struggling right now not the results per say but just struggling in matches to play that style you're used to seeing from Pep teams....and now he's getting a bit agitated on the sidelines. he must have been watching Arteta mocking the ref today with the ball rolling gesture
Today was the most City like performance we've put in all season.
 

tentan

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City desperately want Arsenal to win the title. They're just gifting them it.
 

gredanica

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He got everything right today, weird opinions in here. Badly let down by KDB, Foden and Haaland errors.

Needs to cool it on the touchline, deserved yellow, was a clear dive by Erling.
Well those are the players which he bought, using essentially infinite money, and the ones who he has coached for years while being given complete autonomy by the upper management when it comes to coaching style, bringing in his own people, etc. So that's hardly an excuse. If his players lack character when things turn against them, then this is surely a reflection of Pep's preference for buying "characterless" robots who are amazing while playing in a well-defined system, but not so great as mavericks who can show up when the chips are down (see also: his Barcelona side).

No-one sane would claim that Pep should be sacked since he's obviously the best manager in the world (despite repeated UCL failure), however the two question marks over him which prevent him from automatically being the best manager of all time are 1) could he do it without money? and 2) can he stick around and rebuild a team which has won everything and needs to be re-motivated?.

The latter is the ability that defines Alex Ferguson's career -- not just being able to build a winning team, but being able to keep them on top and rebuild after his team has declined. Thats why Ferguson is better than (e.g.) Brian Clough or Arsene Wenger, who were both able to build great teams but had no idea what to do once the decline started. This is maybe Pep's first time where one of his great teams has got complacent and started declining. So what will he do? If he can turn things around, then he must surely be in contention for best manager of all time. If he runs away (like he did at Barca) then surely that reflects badly on his legacy
 
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simonhch

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He's an incredibly shady individual.

- Two failed drug tests as a player.
- Was in charge during the rampant doping phase going on in Spanish football, that the Spanish FA swept under the rug.
- Was in charge at Barca during their "pay the head referee" emerging scandal.
- Has been in charge at City while they have broken, and been charged, with every financial rule in the book, and then some.

About his only managerial stint that isn't shrouded in controversy and cheating scandals, is his time at Bayern; where he did the base minimum of win the league every year. And not much else.

He was somewhat of a tactical innovator, and he's racked up some impressive statistics with his teams; but the guy has been a massive cheat since he was a player, and I personally find it impossible to put any respect or admiration under his name. If he hadn't been an active part of two of the most corrupt clubs in modern football history, and inherited the core of what might be the best club side in history.....he'd be a nobody.
 

MassVolto

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About his only managerial stint that isn't shrouded in controversy and cheating scandals, is his time at Bayern; where he did the base minimum of win the league every year. And not much else.
There were also some drama going on there between him and their top doctor.
 

Dansk

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He was somewhat of a tactical innovator, and he's racked up some impressive statistics with his teams; but the guy has been a massive cheat since he was a player, and I personally find it impossible to put any respect or admiration under his name. If he hadn't been an active part of two of the most corrupt clubs in modern football history, and inherited the core of what might be the best club side in history.....he'd be a nobody.
Was he even? I guess he could be considered the main purveyor of "Tiki-taka," but that had a shelf life of like a decade at most and can't exactly be considered a staple tactic of the sport. It was quite effective (and soulcrushingly boring) when nobody had any experience facing it, but once teams learned how to counter it, it largely fell to the wayside as a go-to style of play. If that's innovation, it isn't exactly the pinnacle of it. It was a fleeting gimmick that came and went in a single-digit number of years.

Beyond that, Pep is known for repeatedly botching it big-time in important games as his tactical decisions are routinely bizarre and ineffective. It's like he has this conceited need to tinker with formations and selections just to seem like he knows more than everyone else, and it tends to backfire, which is a large part of why he has failed so spectacularly in the CL since he left Barcelona.

While I wouldn't go so far as to call him a poor manager, he has only ever accomplished as much as you would expect anyone to accomplish with the strongest squad in the land; and quite often less, given that he has only ever won a European trophy when he had the strongest squad in the history of football at his disposal. And it's looking quite a lot like most of what he has accomplished was through cheating, so there's that. Financial and, possibly, literal doping is a shadow over his career.

He's a manager who has spent every day of his career working with the strongest squad of whatever league he was in, usually spending the most money, and with the easiest route to success. In light of that, I don't think he has done any more than the expected amount. His success in Spain can largely be attributed to Barcelona's golden generation, his success in Germany was automatic and hardly above and beyond, and his success in England has been in an era where absolutely all the other big teams were in a slump, a rebuilding phase, a recent revival, or some other period of less-than-stellar competitive capability.

In fact, it seems as if anytime another club has a really good season, City don't win. It's just that there has only been a couple of those. His teams aren't greater than the sum of their parts, he has just had the freedom to buy great parts, or inherited them in the first place. There's no doubt that he's a competent manager, but I've never seen anything more than that in him. If anything, he's just really good at landing the jobs that are most likely to offer the path of least resistance.
 
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PepG

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Was he even? I guess he could be considered the main purveyor of "Tiki-taka," but that had a shelf life of like a decade at most and can't exactly be considered a staple tactic of the sport. It was quite effective (and soulcrushingly boring) when nobody had any experience facing it, but once teams learned how to counter it, it largely fell to the wayside as a go-to style of play. If that's innovation, it isn't exactly the pinnacle of it. It was a fleeting gimmick that came and went in a single-digit number of years.

Beyond that, Pep is known for repeatedly botching it big-time in important games as his tactical decisions are routinely bizarre and ineffective. It's like he has this conceited need to tinker with formations and selections just to seem like he knows more than everyone else, and it tends to backfire, which is a large part of why he has failed so spectacularly in the CL since he left Barcelona.

While I wouldn't go so far as to call him a poor manager, he has only ever accomplished as much as you would expect anyone to accomplish with the strongest squad in the land; and quite often less, given that he has only ever won a European trophy when he had the strongest squad in the history of football at his disposal. And it's looking quite a lot like most of what he has accomplished was through cheating, so there's that. Financial and, possibly, literal doping is a shadow over his career.

He's a manager who has spent every day of his career working with the strongest squad of whatever league he was in, usually spending the most money, and with the easiest route to success. In light of that, I don't think he has done any more than the expected amount. His success in Spain can largely be attributed to Barcelona's golden generation, his success in Germany was automatic and hardly above and beyond, and his success in England has been in an era where absolutely all the other big teams were in a slump, a rebuilding phase, a recent revival, or some other period of less-than-stellar competitive capability.

In fact, it seems as if anytime another club has a really good season, City don't win. It's just that there has only been a couple of those. His teams aren't greater than the sum of their parts, he has just had the freedom to buy great parts, or inherited them in the first place. There's no doubt that he's a competent manager, but I've never seen anything more than that in him. If anything, he's just really good at landing the jobs that are most likely to offer the path of least resistance.
 

Amar__

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Not a single sub last night, and no doubt he will be the first one to complain about English football and fixture congestion, doubting if people care about players' careers, etc.
 

InfiniteBoredom

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Not a single sub last night, and no doubt he will be the first one to complain about English football and fixture congestion, doubting if people care about players' careers, etc.
Tbf I looked at their bench last night and while Foden and Alvarez are good options, the names there hardly scream super squad.

That’s one thing that has gone a bit under the radar for City. Letting go of Ferran Torres, Sterling, Zinchenko and Jesus has hurt their strength in depth quite a lot, when replacement aren’t up to speed yet and even some previous key performers like Foden and Cancelo (now gone) nosedived in form. You look at their squad now and I don’t think anybody can really say they can field two first XI of similar quality anymore.
 

adexkola

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Tbf I looked at their bench last night and while Foden and Alvarez are good options, the names there hardly scream super squad.

That’s one thing that has gone a bit under the radar for City. Letting go of Ferran Torres, Sterling, Zinchenko and Jesus has hurt their strength in depth quite a lot, when replacement aren’t up to speed yet and even some previous key performers like Foden and Cancelo (now gone) nosedived in form. You look at their squad now and I don’t think anybody can really say they can field two first XI of similar quality anymore.
They never could
 

AndySmith1990

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Tbf I looked at their bench last night and while Foden and Alvarez are good options, the names there hardly scream super squad.

That’s one thing that has gone a bit under the radar for City. Letting go of Ferran Torres, Sterling, Zinchenko and Jesus has hurt their strength in depth quite a lot, when replacement aren’t up to speed yet and even some previous key performers like Foden and Cancelo (now gone) nosedived in form. You look at their squad now and I don’t think anybody can really say they can field two first XI of similar quality anymore.
Unless you're secretly paying those squad players obscene amounts of money in offshore accounts to keep them happy, it's just not going to be feasible in the long term to have squad players of that quality. The likes of Grealish and Kelvin Philips may be happy to sit on the bench, but Torres, Jesus etc. are far too good for that
 

CM

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Not a single sub last night, and no doubt he will be the first one to complain about English football and fixture congestion, doubting if people care about players' careers, etc.
This would frustrate me beyond belief if I was a City fan. It's a bit of a theme this season - if things aren't going well, he doesn’t know how to respond in game.

I still can't believe he left Mahrez on the bench last weekend when they were chasing a goal.
 

InfiniteBoredom

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They never could
The names I mentioned + anyone between Stones/Diaz/Laporte add up to 7 outfield players. While the ‘two first XI’ is a bit of an exaggeration, if you can change so many starters with minimal drop in quality, it’s not that far away from the truth.

Pep must thank his lucky star that Barca couldn’t scrape together enough money for Bilva. Had he been let go as well they would really be in the shit.