Thats one of those games where the loser is "in crisis".
'Pep' Guardiola sack watch
- Thread starter Classical Mechanic
- Start date
He remained at the top in England. Yeah, he's Scottish, but Scottish players and managers have been operating successfully in England since the beginning of time.
What Pep is doing is the equivalent of Fergie learning Spanish and winning 20 odd trophies in a 10 year period in Spain.
Well done theyre 13
It's very early to write them off but I'd have Liverpool as favorites anyway. Maybe he should had left after winning the treble but decided to stay so not sure if he will try to persist until he wins another league with City.
Don't forget the cheating part. Fergie would have to cheat to truly replicate Pep.
Crazy how things have gone awry over there, given that he's the same manager who took them to the very top, and they've completely dodged any consequences of their wanton cheating. There isn't any obvious reason why they'd plummet like this. No new manager, no tightening of the purse strings, no sign of them getting made an example of by the FA. It's not as if anyone can really say that Pep has been found out and his style is no longer valid, because football hasn't really evolved past him in any noticeable way. They just don't perform, for whatever reason.
Maybe putting all their chips on a tap-in merchant who can do nothing else was short-sighted. While Haaland scored a lot of goals for a while, they are effectively playing with 10 men when he's there; so when he doesn't bang in one or more goals per game, they're at a constant disadvantage.
Maybe putting all their chips on a tap-in merchant who can do nothing else was short-sighted. While Haaland scored a lot of goals for a while, they are effectively playing with 10 men when he's there; so when he doesn't bang in one or more goals per game, they're at a constant disadvantage.
And Aberdeen was the bestest club of the world when they beat Real Madrid. Messi got nothing on those players, they were footballing cyborgs designed in a lab to destroy european football.
Considering the vast amounts of money spent, that squad doesn’t look very impressive. The somehow bought a bunch of good players those last years, who are all a step or two away from being world class.
it’s time for him to taste the sweet taste of sacking. And get even richer in the process.
He really only had 1 down period when Chelsea got rich and spent a pile of money on anything that moved. From 93 - 2013 Utd finshed outside the top 2 only 3 times?
Only 2 wins away from winning the first 9 PL titles in a row, losing out by 1pt twice. When you look back that's incredible consistency over that period.
The following years from 02-06 - 3rd, 1st, 3rd, 3rd, 2nd. We all know this was the worst of the PL seasons under him, but it took a few years to fully rebuild the team following some high profile exits.
Then won 5 of the next 7, losing out by 1 point to Chelsea in 2010 and goal difference to City in 2012.
Looks like Pep could be in his Djemba Djemba / Kleberson phase.
They haven't really recruited that well in attack and MF. They have had successes in Haaland, Rodri and Marmoush, Reijnders, Ait Nouri are not bad but lots of downgrades.
Doku, Savinho, Grealish in place of Mahrez, prime Sterling, Sane.
Kovacic, Nico in place of Silva, Gundogan
Reijnders in place of De Bruyne?
Doku, Savinho, Grealish in place of Mahrez, prime Sterling, Sane.
Kovacic, Nico in place of Silva, Gundogan
Reijnders in place of De Bruyne?
Fergie did have favourable treatment from the FA and PL and referees. United didn’t have to play the 99/00 FA cup for example, got a nice holiday in Brazil from it.
He’s leaving end of season. He must be bored there now, and I think the owners probably are too
Weird how no one in the media is bothering Pep considering his start to the season, add to them getting knocked out by a Saudi team in that stupid Cup earlier in the summer and that they weren't looking so good last season either.
But no it's all MU and Amorim... Saw some pundits calling the celebration vs Burnley embarrassing.
If City lose against MU there will one headline maybe. If MU lose, Amorim will probably have to give 15 interviews.
But no it's all MU and Amorim... Saw some pundits calling the celebration vs Burnley embarrassing.
If City lose against MU there will one headline maybe. If MU lose, Amorim will probably have to give 15 interviews.
Hated, adored, never ignored.
It's not weird. It's just that nobody cares about City and the media make money out of stuff people care about.
No I know.. but it's so annoying. Even Villa/Emery aren't getting any mention. Guess I should just ignore it. Not like I'm looking for it either, I see it because MU fans keep calling them out on it on social media.
It's definitely a factor that we are the much bigger club and so it benefits the media circus to focus more on us.
But also I think there is less of a mystery about what's wrong at City. They have a great manager and two great players, but the rest of the squad has declined significantly in the last couple of years. Doku, Nunes, Kovacic, Savinho, Khusanov, Ait Nouri, Gonzalez, Lewis etc.. wouldn't get near the Liverpool or Arsenal teams. Basically City have, at best, the third strongest squad in the league right now - and they finished third. Perhaps at his best Guardiola could have got more out of them and maybe he could come under more scrutiny, but it seems to be far more a failure in recruitment. It's not really comparable to a new manager coming into the league and finishing 15th with one of the biggest clubs in the world.
Nothing proven. Yet.
My hot take. He goes to Saudi next
Yeah, the blood doping and referee payments were well buried by the Spanish system, we're just waiting for the outcome City's cheating now.
Or maybe there wasn't enough actual evidence to prove the things asserted? That's also a possibility.
Honestly I thought him and PSG were an inevitability, but it looks like Enrique is going to be there for the foreseeable.
Still might be a little too early for him to retire into the Saudi sunset, he probably reckons he has one more big club stint in him, obviously one with deep pockets too. So in all honesty I just see him taking another sabbatical until the PSG job frees up.
He has yet to take a job, where he doesn’t have a big advantage in terms of player material and/or money relative to the domestic competition. Would he find that in Saudi Arabia? And would he want to coach a bunch of has-beens and D-tier players?
Barcelona. He had no advantage over Real Madrid in terms of player material or money when he took the job, and yet won 3 straight titles and 2 CLs. For context, this marked the only time in Barcelona's history that the club won 3 straight titles and even one European Cup, apart from under Cruyff. Who is also one of the greatest managers of all time.
City were found guilty in February 2020 of self-financing their sponsorship income following a UEFA investigation.
They were fined £25M and given a 2 season ban from the Champions League.
City appealed, dragged out the proceedings until the UEFA specified time limit was exceeded, and the case and judgement lapsed.
The UEFA investigation concerned itself with allegations of sponsorship irregularities and false accounting, intending to pursue the alleged tax-free salary payments at a later date.
Some of the hacked e-mails and accounting documents published by Der Spiegel showed Citys owner, Sheikh Mansour, was funding £68M of annual sponsorship income via Etihad Airline and the clubs holding company Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG) after the introduction of FFP in 2011. The Sheikh owns both the airline and ADUG.
The hacked e-mails included memos from Citys chief financial officer headed, “Cash Flow”, which stated sponsorship income for 2013/14 would consist of£8M from the airline and, "a direct contribution to the 13/14 sponsorship fee of £57M" from ADUG.
Another e-mail revealed the financial officer prepared an invoice amounting to £68M for 2015/16 of which £8M was to be paid by the airline and £60M by ADUG.
City denied the allegations, claiming the financial officer and the City executives to whom the e-mail was sent misunderstood the nature of the invoice and subsequent payments without offering any explanation of the misunderstanding. In addition to the denial, City executives expressed scorn and outrage at both the investigation and the finding claiming they would prove the allegations were “entirely false" before accusing UEFA of being biased and running, “a wholly unsatisfactory, curtailed, and hostile process”. City then launched an appeal.
The appeal was considered by a panel comprising of a former Prime Minister of Belgium, a Portuguese judge at the European Court of Justice and leading British barrister and QC.
The panel found in favour of UEFA which resulted in Citys chief executive, al-Mubarak, stating he would not accept any sanctions and, “he would rather spend £30 million on the best 50 lawyers in the world to sue UEFA over the next 10 years.”
The time limit for concluding the investigation was exceeded, the case dropped and the punishments unenforced.
The current investigation by the Premier League has no time constraints but is investigating both the sponsorship revenue and the alleged tax-free payments to City employees for the period from 2009 to 2018, the date the the hacked e-mails related to. In addition they are seeking to determine if these practices continued after 2018 until 2023.
My response to your comment is; City were proved to be guilty but have not been punished. Yet.
Well, you're clearly wrong. The previous verdict was overturned and we are awaiting a new one, which will come later this year. So again, nothing has been proven. Both sides would have presented evidence, you are just focusing on the case against them, for obvious reasons.
If they are found guilty and punished, then the matter will be settled. Same as if they are exonerated.
which is dumb because Reijnders is nothing like De Bruyne. He's a goalscoring midfielder in McTominay mould
You have to be wilfully ignorant or a completely enamoured with Pep to the point of being blind, to think City have not systemically cheated since Abu Dhabi has taken over. Everyone and their dog knows it, whether or not they're convicted is irrelevent at this point.
I wonder if they're going easy on him after that time he came out looking like he'd lost a fight with his shaving kit.
Hang on, you're not sneaking this nonsense in pal.
He had Messi, Xavi, Iniesta, Henry, Busquets, Eto against a Madrid past their galactico era with arguably a 31 year Raul as their top player.
A genius to win a title with such a weak squad eh.
If he walks in as our head coach tomorrow, do you guys think he will be able to get a tune out of the present squad and get good results or just crash and burn?
He's not doing that well with the squad he has, which his club have spent an insane amount of money on. Plus he seems to be losing his edge a bit.
He'd crash and burn horrendously with us.
City's case with UEFA was delayed, picked off on technicalities and eventually time barred.
Spainsh authorities made sure the blood doping investigation was delayed, thrown out on technicalities. It was ultimately pushed past the statute of limitations and the evidence ordered to be destroyed. Which meant that none of the athletes across several sports could be named.
As regards the referees, again, thrown out on a technicality so far. A Barcelona court ruled that officials at Barcelona could never have bribed a referee born in Barcelona because he was not a public official. But there is still an ongoing investigation into sports corruption.
Yeah, let's just apply this mode of thinking to life generally, shall we? 'Whether or not someone is convicted is irrelevant.'
The issue that you are going to have to deal with, is if they are not convicted and punished, the titles stand and the achievements stand. And what you feel about what you 'know' is in fact what is irrelevant, to posterity. Same thing with any team in history that has been accused of 'cheating', going back to Argentina '78, Germany '54 etc.
It's only nonsense if you have no clue whatsoever about the team at that time and the fact that he actually helped to develop and/or signed/brought through a bunch of the players that you just listed.
Good for you. It's nice that your devotion to a football manager enables you to ignore what's out in the public domain.
You seem very ignorant of the City court cases, by the way. You should actually read up on them instead of coming up with platitudes like "they're not convicted".
Great. So no punishment, no stripping of titles, fines, relegation etc. Good to know. All the achievements stand as of today, and will stand for the rest of time unless future sanctions are levied.
Donnarumma will make a difference at the back. They haven't managed to replace KDB.
Jimmy Saville never faced any punishment but we all know what he did.
Same will be said for City and Pep.