Pep on MNF special

Selective and inaccurate. Also does a good job at pointing out that guardiolas predecessors left a better squad in place, that he then went and spent a further shit tonne on

Can you be specific with the inaccuracies?
Also, i was talking about the quality of signings. Whos first team has had better acquisition post fergie? Do you honestly believe its ours?
 
Okay, firstly, it's 'worshipping'. Sorry, but that continual misspelling is annoying me.

And secondly, someone saying "99% of our fans would swap Mourinho for Pep" ISN'T worshipping him? This person is so enamoured by lord Pep that he feels he speaks for almost our entire fanbase. :lol:
First of all, it is not wrong to spell it with one p. It is one of those words where there is a difference between traditional British spelling and American spelling. I would generally use worshipping myself but my laptop keeps correcting and I just happen to tolerate those pesky red lines less than the missing p.

No, stating that 99% of our fans would take him might be arrogant and presumptuous. But it is by no means worshipping (just so you're happy). It is simply stating the bleeding obvious that the majority of fans would want the best for their club, something far from controversial when talking about Guardiola.
 
This is just laughable! KDB for example was this good before Pep even arrived at City. His figures in Germany are ample proof. Just in an under performing City side it wasn't being seen. Stones is literally the same player he was at Everton. Sane was always this good just at a much, much worse club. Sterling is back to the form he had when he first broke out at Pool after one difficult season when he arrived at City. Otamendi simply re found the form that once made him La liga defender of the year before City got him. Fernandinho has been top class for years and had been City's best CM not named Toure ce he signed. You pep fans simply take your worship of him too far....

Sterling and Sane have definitely improved, agree with you on Stones and Otamendi, didn't see enough of KDB in Germany to have an opinion, Fernandinho has been City's best CM not named Toure but he's still gone up a level this season.
 
Sterling and Sane have definitely improved, agree with you on Stones and Otamendi, didn't see enough of KDB in Germany to have an opinion, Fernandinho has been City's best CM not named Toure but he's still gone up a level this season.
Honestly, Fernandinho really hasn't and neither have any of those kids. All he is doing is performing at optimum capacity like most of City under Pep. Under Pellegrini they rarely kept full pelt all season. That is why they were getting grossly under whelming results relative to the talent on their roster. The one thing Pep gave the City side is no room to slack. But all this talk of massive improvements in players is wide of the mark. He has really had no need to improve what he has. His biggest task was getting them to gel as a team to implement his vision of football for the EPL. The likes of Jesus, Sterling and Sane are just making natural progression.

For me the 3 managers in the league who have repeatedly added value to their playing staff since their arrivals in the EPL have been Pochetino, Dyche and Klopp. Not Pep in his 2 seasons.
 
City had a way more established squad full of quality from money spent over many years. United were a mess when Jose arrived.
Lol, this argument again. We both finished on 66 points the season before Jose and Pep arrived.
 
100 points is stuff to dream about. Thought it would never happen and doubt it will again soon. Not only the style of football but to bring the best out of Sterling, Otamendi, Sane, Delph etc. Great job

It's gonna happen next year and the year after that if he stays, I've no idea how long his contract is mind. If not then it'll be exceptionally close.

Pep comes in, dominates a league totally, then leaves.

The league is effectively a given until he goes, only thing that has any real importance are the cups/Europe.
 
Pep has a good plan A but sometimes you need a plan B to turn around a game or a period in the season when your team are not doing well in a match or you lack the players needed for your system cause of injuries/suspensions.

When your plan A is so effective you don't really need a plan B because you can afford 1 or 2 off days where you don't have it.
 
Can you be specific with the inaccuracies?
Also, i was talking about the quality of signings. Whos first team has had better acquisition post fergie? Do you honestly believe its ours?

Lindelof didn’t cost 40m.

I also never argued the point about acquisitions but you’re still being selective and biased in your opinion. Since Ferguson left city have spent over 200m on mangala, negredo, jovetic, navas, Fernando, Roberts and other utterly dreadful signings. For every sane there’s a failed signing, there’s a myth that city have some sort of fantastic recruitment policy.

That’s without seeing how the likes of Laporte, Mendy actually perform. 100 m plus right there of players happily given time to improve. Same for lukaku? Let’s see if sterling has another good season. I think you’re guilty of what many on this forum are guilty of and that’s blinded by city at the moment
 
its never seizes to amaze that Pep fan boys believe he has improved any of those players.....
It never seizes to amaze me how simplistic people's minds have to be to A) ignore the irrefutable facts entirely and more importantly B) manage to hastily categorise people without an inkling of sense and with a whole lot of ignorance.
 
Sane one of the most sought after young players in world football
Sterling not long off from being a part of the most lethal attack in Europe at 20 yo
KDB was the best player in Germany
Fernandinho an experienced Brazilian international
Stones who has regressed imo
Otamendi who was considered the best defender in Spain.
These are the examples you use? Not exactly winning the league with Smalling as RB with Young, Cleverly and Welbeck in your first 11!
I didn't say he's the greatest manager of all time (that's obviously SAF).

And those examples make complete sense. Martial was also one of the highest regarded young players in the game. Pogba was/is possibly the most sought after star in his age bracket (other than Neymar?). Look at them for us this season. And when it comes to Sterling it's rather convenient to ignore his last few years. Same with Stones. Fernandino has never reached this level. KdB has always been a few notches below this level for City. Otamendi looked poor last year. And so on.

Hes no SAF and I'll best those claims away all day. But let's not pretend all he's not improved individuals at City and the unit.
 
Lol, this argument again. We both finished on 66 points the season before Jose and Pep arrived.

Yeah lets just remove the context of the years before that season and the fact that you guys stopped playing at the end of Pellegrini’s last season anyway. The two squads are not just defined by the year prior to Jose and Pep arriving.

The same way Chelsea’s squad was not defined by Jose’s last season there. Maybe there are people who suck up to City and Pep who will be fooled by you pointing out the points total, but you know the truth.

Everyone knows City’s squad was stronger.
 
Okay, firstly, it's 'worshipping'. Sorry, but that continual misspelling is annoying me.

And secondly, someone saying "99% of our fans would swap Mourinho for Pep" ISN'T worshipping him? This person is so enamoured by lord Pep that he feels he speaks for almost our entire fanbase. :lol:
Thank you for speaking on my behalf. Couldn't have done it better really. It is clear that some are obsessed with Pep to an unhealthy level.
Like keep talking about the regret of not having him, I mean why even torture yourself like that ?
 
When your plan A is so effective you don't really need a plan B because you can afford 1 or 2 off days where you don't have it.

Maybe thats why he wasnt able to have CL success with Bayern/city? Liverpool scored 5 goals against them over 2 legs. That doesnt sound tactical genius who doesnt need a plan B for me.
 
Thank you for speaking on my behalf. Couldn't have done it better really. It is clear that some are obsessed with Pep to an unhealthy level.
Like keep talking about the regret of not having him, I mean why even torture yourself like that ?

Pep was NEVER going to come to United.
He would have had to completely strip our team within a budget. He wanted the steady team that had infinite spending. It’s the only way he can apply his Harlem Globetrotters style.
 
Lindelof didn’t cost 40m.

I also never argued the point about acquisitions but you’re still being selective and biased in your opinion. Since Ferguson left city have spent over 200m on mangala, negredo, jovetic, navas, Fernando, Roberts and other utterly dreadful signings. For every sane there’s a failed signing, there’s a myth that city have some sort of fantastic recruitment policy.

That’s without seeing how the likes of Laporte, Mendy actually perform. 100 m plus right there of players happily given time to improve. Same for lukaku? Let’s see if sterling has another good season. I think you’re guilty of what many on this forum are guilty of and that’s blinded by city at the moment

Oh no not at all. Overall i'm pleased with the progress we've made this season. I still think cities squad is better than ours, and overall their recruitment has been as well. They've had some duds, absolutely, but they've had far more hits than we have and you can see what they're trying to achieve with the players they've bought it. That was pre pep and has been continued by him. Our policy feels much more scattergun to me.

Negredo was essential to one of their league wins before in injury in a nothing game at west ham if i remember so calling him a flop is a bit harsh.
 
It never seizes to amaze me how simplistic people's minds have to be to A) ignore the irrefutable facts entirely....
Says the master of ignoring irrefutable facts about the players Pep has inherited and bought. How ironic

and more importantly B) manage to hastily categorise people without an inkling of sense and with a whole lot of ignorance.
There is nothing hasty about how people like you are categorized. The fact you imagine its also done from a point of ignorance simply confirms how deluded your kind really are
 
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This forum cried into their Fred the Red pillow cases when City signed him, your lot tried your best as well.
Sane wasn't a secret ffs
Sure he had done well in the Bundesliga, but he also was a teenager with no experience outside his home club. Basically a less proven Mkhitaryan.
 
Pep was NEVER going to come to United.
He would have had to completely strip our team within a budget. He wanted the steady team that had infinite spending. It’s the only way he can apply his Harlem Globetrotters style.
Exactly so it's even more pointless to talk about what Guardiola would have been here.
 
I mean, it's undeniably impressive from a technical standpoint watching what his players do. He clearly obsesses over every little detail so much that it washes off on the players, everything is as planned and when it comes off it looks spectacular.

But the novelty would wear off after a while, even as a fan. For the first season perhaps you'd absolutely love winning at a canter but then it'd quickly turn into groundhog day.

Any team under Pep turns a game into a boring training match. It's not a competition when only one side plays. His fans will say that's not his fault and it's on the competitors to find a way to beat it which is fair enough but my word are any games he's involved in utter borefests.

A huge part of the joy of watching United under SAF was that we usually made it hard for ourselves resulting in many a heart palpitation but some amazing matches and wins. We took for granted the dull, boring easy ones because we had the amazing dramatic wins to make up for them. Imagine a season of never being challenged? feck that.

I wonder if City fans would rather win a game 5-0 with 91% possession or win it in the last minute like the Aguero title win?
Were you really paying attention to City's games this season?
Late wins Vs Bournemouth, Huddersfield, Southampton (X2), West Ham. Thrillers at Burnley, Bristol C Wigan and Palace. High scoring defeats vs Pool and United.
Penalty shootout wins vs Leicester and Wolves, 100+ goals and points and a partridge in a pear tree.
Whatever this season was to City fans it certainly was not boring.
 
Were you really paying attention to City's games this season?
Late wins Vs Bournemouth, Huddersfield, Southampton (X2), West Ham. Thrillers at Burnley, Bristol C Wigan and Palace. High scoring defeats vs Pool and United.
Penalty shootout wins vs Leicester and Wolves, 100+ goals and points and a partridge in a pear tree.
Whatever this season was to City fans it certainly was not boring.
True and besides in what world is winning comfortably by 5 goals boring ? The things we wanna convince ourselves of can be ridiculous at times
 
Oh no not at all. Overall i'm pleased with the progress we've made this season. I still think cities squad is better than ours, and overall their recruitment has been as well. They've had some duds, absolutely, but they've had far more hits than we have and you can see what they're trying to achieve with the players they've bought it. That was pre pep and has been continued by him. Our policy feels much more scattergun to me.

Negredo was essential to one of their league wins before in injury in a nothing game at west ham if i remember so calling him a flop is a bit harsh.

I agree absolutely that our own approach to signings was hugely flawed in moyes and van gaal years. I think mourinho has bought the kind of players you expect him to and after this window should have something close to a team in his image- so it will be time to seriously challenge. Some of citys signings have worked better but i wouldn't feel there is anyg clear system that's superior.

As for negredo I think flop is fair considering he ended up on loan at Middlesbrough. In a world where people call lindelof, martial, anderson and even berbatov flops or poor signings, the bar should be same for city. A single season striker with 9 league goas for around 25m would be classed as a flop by united fans.
 
I agree absolutely that our own approach to signings was hugely flawed in moyes and van gaal years. I think mourinho has bought the kind of players you expect him to and after this window should have something close to a team in his image- so it will be time to seriously challenge. Some of citys signings have worked better but i wouldn't feel there is anyg clear system that's superior.

As for negredo I think flop is fair considering he ended up on loan at Middlesbrough. In a world where people call lindelof, martial, anderson and even berbatov flops or poor signings, the bar should be same for city. A single season striker with 9 league goas for around 25m would be classed as a flop by united fans.

tbf he scored 23 goals in 49 appearances in all comps. Think it was his injury then shagging about that caused him to leave. We also made £4m quid on him so it wasn't such a big deal.
 
Lol, this argument again. We both finished on 66 points the season before Jose and Pep arrived.

Yes but you did have KdB, Silva and Aguero when he arrived. We had no one in the squad near them. Clear that Pep is the better manager but I'm sorry but if you're judging squads by points earned then you're doing it wrong.
 
Him scoring with the exact move Pep coached does not equate to improving him. People on here have short memories. Sterling at 17/18 years alongside Suarez and a then fit Sturridge spent a season running rings around the entire league till Gerard's slip cost them a league title.

The way people talk of Sterling one would think he was a nothing player before Pep got a hold of him

He wasn't a nothing player but he's clearly gotten better. You can argue it's natural progression or you can credit better coaching. For me it's a bit of both.

He scored double the amount of goals this season than he did the season you mention. He also has more than double the assists.
 
tbf he scored 23 goals in 49 appearances in all comps. Think it was his injury then shagging about that caused him to leave. We also made £4m quid on him so it wasn't such a big deal.

Not disastrous by any means but still a "failed signing. The type that would be pointed to had it been us , by people suggesting city have some sort of fantastic transfer model when a year ago were saying they needed lots of work. City have just as many duds as us- to be honest I think both have overspent and would like a world where there's a transfer and wage cap.
 
He wasn't a nothing player but he's clearly gotten better. You can argue it's natural progression or you can credit better coaching. For me it's a bit of both.

He scored double the amount of goals this season than he did the season you mention. He also has more than double the assists.
Yes he has. That's fair enough
But City as a team has also go on up in terms of consistently playing at optimum capacity. Why for me its natural progression he hasn't produced a quantum leap like say how Salah's goal scoring suddenly went through the roof. So to me its a reach to credit Pep as "massively improving him' as some have tried to claim. Pep for me is developing him as he should. Rather than bringing out what no one expected to see at this stage in development.
 
Not disastrous by any means but still a "failed signing. The type that would be pointed to had it been us , by people suggesting city have some sort of fantastic transfer model when a year ago were saying they needed lots of work. City have just as many duds as us- to be honest I think both have overspent and would like a world where there's a transfer and wage cap.

totally agree we've had a load of duds but over the last 2/3 seasons it's got better and most of the players we've signed for the first team have been decent additions to the squad bar probably Nolito (lunatic) and Bravo (struggles with the league). One thing I think we do better now and it's in part because we can afford to, is we get rid of players who are not working out for whatever reason pretty quickly instead of stinking out the dressing room and will take a hit on what we purchased them for.
 
Yes he has. That's fair enough
But City as a team has also go on up in terms of consistently playing at optimum capacity. Why for me its natural progression he hasn't produced a quantum leap like say how Salah's goal scoring suddenly went through the roof. So to me its a reach to credit Pep as "massively improving him' as some have tried to claim. Pep for me is developing him as he should. Rather than bringing out what no one expected to see at this stage in development.

Pep gave credit to the players for working on their game after training and to Arteta on what he wants them to work on, so yeah they're progressing naturally but also with coaching and hard work.



 
totally agree we've had a load of duds but over the last 2/3 seasons it's got better and most of the players we've signed for the first team have been decent additions to the squad bar probably Nolito (lunatic) and Bravo (struggles with the league). One thing I think we do better now and it's in part because we can afford to, is we get rid of players who are not working out for whatever reason pretty quickly instead of stinking out the dressing room and will take a hit on what we purchased them for.

That’s true. Since guardiola arrived he has spent 280m on goalkeepers and defenders (440m total). While losing kolarov, zabaleta, and clichy for about 5m. A 275m net spend on defenders in 18 months. (Uniteds entire net spend in 3 years is 256m)

That’s a complete defensive overhaul achievable only with a truly unlimited budget. It has the knock on effect of inflating the price of similar players (eg a talented premier league full back would previously never have fetched that and people laughed at the Walker fee, now Danny rose would probably cost similar.) I don’t believe a single other club in the world could do it.
 
That’s true. Since guardiola arrived he has spent 280m on goalkeepers and defenders (440m total). While losing kolarov, zabaleta, and clichy for about 5m. A 275m net spend on defenders in 18 months. That’s a complete defensive overhaul achievable only with a truly unlimited budget. It has the knock on effect of inflating the price of similar players (eg a talented premier league full back would previously never have fetched that and people laughed at the Walker fee, now Danny rose would probably cost similar.) I don’t believe a single other club in the world could do it.

come on, PSG, Real and Barca could do that if required. Be interesting to see how much we spend this season and on how many players, he reckons we'll sign 1 or 2, I reckon it'll be 4 or 5 but with 1 or 2 off to Girona, but if Ederson, Laporte, Stones and Mendy are around for the next 6 or 7 years it will have been a worthwhile investment.

I think the inflation of defenders started when Luiz went for £50m to PSG and good full backs have really started to make a name for themselves over the last 5 years or so, hence United paying £27m for Shaw a few season ago, that was astronomical then for a teenage full back.
 
Not disastrous by any means but still a "failed signing. The type that would be pointed to had it been us , by people suggesting city have some sort of fantastic transfer model when a year ago were saying they needed lots of work. City have just as many duds as us- to be honest I think both have overspent and would like a world where there's a transfer and wage cap.

I think every sensible fan would like a transfer and wage cap. At the moment, there’s no correlation with the real world and it cheapens real success.
Can’t see caps happening, unfortunately. There’s too much in it for the authorities to cream off the top. Shame.
 
come on, PSG, Real and Barca could do that if required. Be interesting to see how much we spend this season and on how many players, he reckons we'll sign 1 or 2, I reckon it'll be 4 or 5 but with 1 or 2 off to Girona, but if Ederson, Laporte, Stones and Mendy are around for the next 6 or 7 years it will have been a worthwhile investment.

I think the inflation of defenders started when Luiz went for £50m to PSG and good full backs have really started to make a name for themselves over the last 5 years or so, hence United paying £27m for Shaw a few season ago, that was astronomical then for a teenage full back.

I think the migrating factor for PSG is that while financially will equal city, being in Ligue 1 will always make them less desirable. The likely ultimate failure of the neymar saga will prove this point, but I don’t see many of Walker, Laporte, Danilo, stones, ederson, Mendy etc choosing Ligue 1 over the premier league. They woud quite possibly choose la Liga but even that said I don’t think these teams can match city financially, they are in a league of their own when combining money and the premier league. For context, city have signed 6 defenders out of the 11 most expensive defenders of all time.

Agree, prices were on the up but signings like Luiz and shaw raised eyebrows, Walker caused jaws to drop but was then followed by two more 50m + defenders. If united were to sign Sandro for 50m I’m not sure many would bat an eye now. 1 year ago we’d have questioned our sanity
 
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True and besides in what world is winning comfortably by 5 goals boring ? The things we wanna convince ourselves of can be ridiculous at times

Winning 5-0 isn't boring when it happens once or twice. When it happens repeatedly you get used to it and then it does get boring.

Familiarity breeds contempt.
 
Winning 5-0 isn't boring when it happens once or twice. When it happens repeatedly you get used to it and then it does get boring.

Familiarity breeds contempt.
I can tell you I'm friends with fans of PSG, fans of a team who dominate teams in their league in the fashion we're talking about and he's loving every second of it. I know I would feel the same, you don't know how good it is until it's gone. "Familiarity bring contempt" ? Nah, not for me
 
Winning 5-0 isn't boring when it happens once or twice. When it happens repeatedly you get used to it and then it does get boring.

Familiarity breeds contempt.

I can't envision a reality where United are winning 5-0 on the regular and it becomes boring. Can't fathom that.

There again, i can't envision a future where man utd win by 5-0. But that's another issue....