Stays inside the area though
'Pep' Guardiola sack watch
- Thread starter Classical Mechanic
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In fairness, the footballing landscape is different now than it was in the 90s and before. Now you have about 12 top teams in Europe monetary wise, hence the calls for a European super league, which i doubt will take off, but i can understand the reasons for wanting it. But what Pep is doing is bunny hopping from one big club to next. So next will be PSG or back to Barca or even Juve some time, where he will clean up domestically as he does.
When Pep retires he will probably have won the most trophies as a manager. But being cynical you would have to question the integrity of some of them, especially if he cleans up at PSG or Juve at some stage, on top of what he done with Bayern. I still think he is a terrific manager and would have loved him at United.
The thing as well is that some other manager in twenty years time is just going to mirror his career and dominate again, mainly because you have 12 top teams. Unless something drastic happens.
Messi was a bit part player in 2005-2006. He didn't even play in the CL final.
Having Messi in the team doesn't make it a guarantee you win the Champions League. You just saw a team with Messi last night get embarrassed in the Champions League.
Pep has arguably taken over the strongest teams on the market and very heavy CL favorites since his Barça days. 0 international success. And it’s only him and Tuchel to manage unlimited funds, with only him having the say on extremely large number of issues in a club with virtually no financial limits.
He isn’t the only manager to have managed Messi, but he has taken over him in a great age and he had one of the best players to grace this sport in last decade in his Barça years, Xavi and Iniesta were something other managers could only dream of. His success in transforming Barça to mammoth team is undeniable and he has big influence on that incredible team, but that’s about it. He only succeeded big time with this wonderful generation of players, kudos, but that’s not enough for me to be considered among the best of his era.
Analysis will also say some journalists hover too closely to some anuses...
Seems like he needs a break, but I don't think his ego will let him step away after winning feck all. He must be wishing he took his sabbatical after they won the league last year.
Totally agree. At least for his City spell.
More or less agreed. They needed a refresh for sure when Ronnie and Deco starting the boozing and stuff.... but the only other time I kinda recall them in the doldrums similar to now is post Rivaldo for a bit.... although they were hardly consistently mega with him, his most memorable was only for them to scrape into the CL's.
Fald Braud.
got it wrong in the first half but got it right in the second.
I've cut Pep some slack the last couple of months as he lost his mother to the coronavirus in April, but I have to say that he has to be careful that hubris isn't catching up with him.
If your USP as a manager is that you take a very good team and turn it into an outstanding team, he's beginning to look a bit shaky.
You're not going to win ECL every season, SAF only managed it twice, but losing out this badly to Lyons and missing the EPL to Liverpool by 18 points when your defence looks so suspect and you're constantly redeploying players in different positions points to an overconfidence in your own judgment.
After hubris comes nemesis.
If your USP as a manager is that you take a very good team and turn it into an outstanding team, he's beginning to look a bit shaky.
You're not going to win ECL every season, SAF only managed it twice, but losing out this badly to Lyons and missing the EPL to Liverpool by 18 points when your defence looks so suspect and you're constantly redeploying players in different positions points to an overconfidence in your own judgment.
After hubris comes nemesis.
Pep got rid of one of their greatest ever players in Ronaldinho. That was a brave move for me at the time especially for a rookie manager and history shows he was right as Ronaldinhos poor last season at Barca wasn’t a one off.
He also removed Deco, who was another key player. Yeah he had a lot of good players, but he still had to make quite a few big decisions.
Also am I missing something ? Other then that sterling miss what else did City create tonight despite having a lot of the ball? Bizarre thing to say from Balague
I mean his league records would strongly suggest he is, despite the resources he has had, he has delivered results over 100s of games that are worth that investment. He builds incredibly consistent teams that win a very high percentage of their games.
As a manager he definitely has a very clear weakness though, and that is that he loses his composure in the highest pressure situations. He continues to completely undermine his players by insisting they employ incredibly overthought tactics in crucial European matches. There’s no room for error when coming up against either elite opposition or sides who naturally will be raising their level in the biggest game of their seasons. You look at some of the personnel selections, formations and tactics over the last seven or eight years in the big European games and they are so left field at times.
The point being he took over a top shelf team, albeit one that needed some refreshment, and knew precisely the quality of youth coming through as he was promoted directly from being La Massia youth manager. It wasn't as tough a gig as his fanboys make out.
For relativity, if Pep left tonight and a new manager was appointed at City, that job would be the equivalent of the role Pep took over at Barcelona. He certainly wasn't being brave like Arteta taking over Arsenal with zero funds as his first managerial gig!
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He also wanted Eto'o gone in his first year - let's not make him out to be perfect out of the bat here, in his second year - the loss of Eto'o showed. He did for Inter exactly what he would of switched too in Barca's second season to fully allow Messi's transition into the dominating central figure - which clashed with Zlatan only knowing that dominating central figure.
I'm all for having a laugh at Guardiola - and he does have a weird habit of overthinking his tactics in big games - but there's some revisionist nonsense going on in this thread.
This is the absolute worst take
To be fair, he’s had by far the strongest (or most expensive) team in the league throughout his entire career. That won’t change much when he heads over to Juve or PSG next.
Terrible line-up deserves much of the blame but he did remedy that. He is not responsible for Sterling’s miss, Laporte’s error, Ederson’s error. Laporte’s errors last season, Aguero’s penalty miss etc.
Pep is as responsible as anyone for City’s pathetic CL campaigns, but the issues run far deeper. It’s a mentality problem. We have never had a campaign where we have played with the confidence that we can actually win it.
Pep is as responsible as anyone for City’s pathetic CL campaigns, but the issues run far deeper. It’s a mentality problem. We have never had a campaign where we have played with the confidence that we can actually win it.
The net result is that he got it wrong. He’s done a bang average job given the budget involved. In terms of trophy success, he’s roughly on par with Pellegrini.
The squad has declined in defense with no Kompany. D Silva, Fernandinho and Aguero getting older too. That is why I think they have declined. Should not have let Sane go either.
Rodri is also not that amazing and Gundogan is pretty average.
Rodri is also not that amazing and Gundogan is pretty average.
This is totally natural. You’re a small, nothing club that won the lottery.
No he's not to be on a par with Pellegrini he'd have to leave with 4 league Cups and 2 league titles in 6 years.
Lets no exaggerate. Pep has won 2 league titles, 1 FA Cup and 3 league Cups in his 4 seasons. He's averaging almost double the yearly silverware.
Again he's a victim of being Pep Guardiola and anything less than winning a quadruple every season see's him called a failure.
Balague is an embarrassment, he really is. You could literally break down any game like this and get the result you want. I used to really respect him on the La Liga shows but he is among the very worst in the game now. Really awful and terribly bias.
That’s because Eto wasn’t always keen on playing out wide. He refused to play there when Benitez replaced Mourinho. Him and Pep didn’t get along.
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Second season they got record 99 points in the league and reached the semi finals, so no the loss of Eto didn’t show. You can’t win the champions league every year. Before that only one team retained it in the last 20 years. He won two champions league at Barca, they only won 2 before he arrived in their history and they only won 1 since he has left despite having one of the greatest footballers in history.
You can criticise his champions league record at City or Bayern as he should be reaching a final with both those teams. But his record at Barca was phenomenal.
Had the mentality to finish above your team for a good seven years now though.
Having been financially doped up to the eye balls. You’re a fake club.
Pep might be the best league manager ever. However: He just isn't a graet tournament manager. And I don't completely understand how and why.
Yawn. Asterisk next to the trophies, no soul etc etc. Please be a bit more original.
And you're an angry man over football. Well named for a troll.
It seems that quite a lot of his sides have that mentality problem though. What was the excuse with Bayern?
Or with Barcelona against ten men Chelsea?
I do not understand how people still cannot see that what he does works only when he has vastly better players. He had a once in a lifetime team at Barcelona ten years ago and it was the only way it would work.
And not sure how winning with vastly better players makes one a genius.
Why are you getting angry with me? I know you’re annoyed after another CL knock out defeat but there’s no need to be confrontational.
Overthinking. Simple answer. Focuses far too much on mitigating against the opposition’s threats in the CL, when he’d be better off focusing on making his team do what they do best. If you look at him in big league games, that’s what he does, and any tweaks he does make are far more subtle.
Also, a question for City fans: when he was appointed, was this what you were hoping for? 2 league titles in 4 years and no Champions Leagues?
There's actually a word for what he really is: hagiographer.
His writing is only interesting to worshippers.
He needs to stop tinkering his tactics for the sake of it the absolute mentalist.
Should sniff around the PSG job and take Messi with him.
Should sniff around the PSG job and take Messi with him.
What part of that post comes across as angry? It’s boredom.
The stars have aligned, Barca bound!