Manchester City Thread

City had a really good game - how many teams can go to AWAY to Barca and play how they did. Barcelona had lots of moments of luck (barring the two injuries) and City had none. Another day and I think City take at least a point.
 
I don't think Barça are the same strong squad from the past. There clearly are vulnerabilities . The league their in is much harder or their level has declined. You can not lose the ball on their half MSN will make you wear it!
 
jihado86 said:
I can't believe this is the same City we saw in the start of this season, what the actual fuck? Is this the same team with the amazing tactics of Guardiola? first 3 goals were dumb individual mistakes (i.e : gifts).
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I thought the tactics worked. We don't have MSN but when we didn't have a man less we more than matched Barca in all aspects. Not many teams can say that and we're early in the process of becoming a 'Pep team'

Tactics aren't at fault when your DM slips in the box or your GK makes a bad pass.

The Bravo mistake annoys me because right before that I as very confident of an equaliser and not much less confident of getting another.

We lost 4-0, our worst scoreline against them but it was the opposite of the other games at the Camp Nou where, yes, the scoreline was smaller but the reality was that it should have been larger. Hart stopped it from being humiliating , and he had to. Bravo didn't have to do much at all
 
We had luck in the key moments of the match. I think Guardiola's tactics were superb, but individualities count at the end of the day. That's why under Luis Enrique, and having the MSN, Barcelona has lost some of its compactness, just to favor the 3 men upfront. We don't play as good as we used to, but we score even if we play like sh*t. And that's the only thing missing in City at the moment, make those chances count.
 
IMO City is given way too much credit for their performance in Barcelona.
Yes they looked good, but in the end the 3 first goals where individual mistakes.

With this squad they will never win the CL how much individual brilliance KDB, De Bruyne and Silva show, it will never be enough (very good match from Sterling too, by the way).

The GK, the backline and the DMF are simply not good enough.

Pep should try to sign Luka Modric, the real star of Real Madrid (Real lost la lige during Modric absence from injury last season). He also needs to buy at least 4 good defenders and a better GK (I never saw Hart as a top GK, but he is way better than Bravo and i think he was very important in the dressing room too).

Pep is also overrated, Claude Puell tactically outwitted him...
 
gerd said:
Pep is also overrated
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I am so glad I am not the only person who thinks this...

He has won the League and Champions with teams who were by far the best in the that league and any manager with even a remote bit of tactical knowledge would be able to acheive what he has achieved with the teams he has had.

I will change my stance on him if he wins the Champions League with Man City, but until then he will go down as overated - as anyone should be able to win the Premier League with the squad Man City have.
 
Winning the CL isn't necessarily a solid reason to change your mind about a manager.
What he does in the pitch is what really matters.
for example, Zidane won CL but he's not even an average manager.
Pep has luggage in football, tactically, other aspects of coaching are missing as I still see him immature in communication.
Also tactically you can criticize him despite having a clear and organized philosophy.
He's overrated, yes, not because he didn't win CL with Bayern, but because he's subtle and when he's stuck, he's stuck. Most of the time.
His obsession with his own way made him ignore the fact that he can adapt.
yes he changes tactics, but to serve only for his main theme : possession and numerical superiority in all the pitch situations. Which is good by the way. But he should be more dynamic.

BUT, he really has a respectful philosophy and it's efficient given the right quality of players. Which brings us to another point of why he may be considered overrated, he didn't prove to apply his philosophy with a lesser side, he only coached teams with super stars who are already top class, it's like playing in PES/FIFA with a team of 90+ stats.
 
Winning the Champions League with a team like Man City would change my opinion of him - because all he has done in the past is achieved what was expected with the players he had at Barcelona.

He under achieved at Bayern by not winning the Champions League with the incredible squad they had, he just won the league again and again.

At Man City is expected to win the league time and again given their squad and money - but he needs to win the Champions League,
 
Pep is the only manager in my entire lifetime who is judged on winning or not winning the CL.

That alone says more than any criticism written on this or any forum.

On a side note, his Barca team was very, very different to the Barca team he inherited. And his Barca team is the best team I've seen in my 35 years alive on this floating rock. I've seen top Brazil teams, top Liverpool teams, AC Milan, Ajax, Germany, Spain, Utd, Real, and other Barcas, all with special individuals too, but Pep's Barca was unique, like watching a different sport.
 
Pep is trying to re-invent how football should be played in the EPL. Its just pushing his philosophy into the dressing room then to the pitch.
 
Pep inherited a broken team, that had finished the La Liga 18 points away from Real Madrid. He sacked the 2 best players of the squad, Deco & Ronaldinho, and didn't sign that many players that summer, except Dani Alves who had been signed way before he turned to be the coach.

And with that squad, no one in Spain thought he would even win the league title, as Real was seen as a much better team then. He won the treble. He turned Messi into the player he is now. And he turned a player like Busquets, who wasn't even considered a real promise of the youth team on the 3rd division, into a starter and one of the best DMFs in the world.

As a Barcelona fan, I can guarantee you that people at Barcelona didn't trust at all in a midfield with Xavi and Iniesta at the same time. In fact, they had never been solid regular starters at midfield for years. People expected to have a midfield with a blend of muscle and stamina with skill, that's why Deco was the starter and Iniesta came from the bench up to then.

Guardiola completely changed this mentality and the players in the squad and turned all of them into world stars and probably one of the best teams ever. If people don't give credit to this, I don't know who will be credited and for what.

Compare Pep to Sacchi, who is regarded as one of the best coaches ever. Sacchi only won silverware with Milan, and much less silverware and during a lot less time than Guardiola. He also had in his hands one of the best squads ever, with probably the best 3 european players at the time (Van Basten, Rijkaard, Gullit). Pep has delivered a lot more than Sacchi in terms of results. There's the romantic idea that a manager who achieves something big with a smaller side is a better coach, but that's not true. Managing a big team is way more difficult due to a number of reasons: expectations are higher, fans are a lot more demanding, every loss counts more than 5 wins, etc... There's a reason why many of those coaches who achieve something with a lesser side won't succeed in a big team. Last year Leicester did a miracle. Rainieri made it possible, but even though we all absolutely love and respect him for that, do this make him a stellar coach, a genius? I don't think so. He's got my utmost respect and admiration but Rainieri is a good coach while Pep, to me, is a genius. With all the good and bad things that come with it. Pep has changed the mentality of a whole generation, like Sacchi did back in the 90s or Cruyff did during his whole life.

Just don't expect him to win everythig all the time.
 
I believe Pep is solely responsible for Spain's short glorious reign imo. I admit I despised Pep's Barça (envy) even Wenger tried to emulate Pep's Barça. They were that bloke that had a hot wife n even a hotter side chick . I think Ronaldinho was a distraction that cause his own down fall at the end.
 
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I'm surprised how a top professional football team allows players to drink coke and soda .. These drinks are enemies for the athletes.
 
Yea thought it odd when I saw it.

He has just won the league tho and is basically in his close-season. Better than getting bladdered till 5am lol
 
Not even half a toe off

Wenger should be embarrassed to whine about that.

Good to see some of our pressure tell. Chelsea defeat was hard to take. Should have had the game well won before they even turned up.
 
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It is very understandable that a lines man doesn't notice such a marginal off-side. There is no discussion about that.
But the fact remains that Sane was off-side.

Not even half a toe, i agree. But when does it start to be off-side: 3/4 toe, a whole toe, an elbow, .... ???

Off-side is off-side.

I'm with Wenger here: City (althought tbe better team in the scond half and imo logical winners) scored two goals in an off-side position, half a toe or not...

By the way: that second goal was a beauty: phenomenal pass by Kevin and very good goal by Sterling, marvelous finish!
 
When watching I didn't notice either of the offsides, so I can't blame the linesman at all for giving both goals.

On replays IMO the 2nd should not of counted as although not interferring with play Silva made an attempt to play or touch the ball - even if it was disallowed Man City would of still gone on and won the game as Arsenal were dire in the 2nd half.
 
gerd said:
It is very understandable that a lines man doesn't notice such a marginal off-side. There is no discussion about that.
But the fact remains that Sane was off-side.

Not even half a toe, i agree. But when does it start to be off-side: 3/4 toe, a whole toe, an elbow, .... ???

Off-side is off-side.

I'm with Wenger here: City (althought tbe better team in the scond half and imo logical winners) scored two goals in an off-side position, half a toe or not...

By the way: that second goal was a beauty: phenomenal pass by Kevin and very good goal by Sterling, marvelous finish!
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An elbow can't be offside, but, yea, technically if one atom (from a valid goalscoring part of the body) is ahead it's offside.
But I've always had a rule (which I have expressed on here for ages - not a convenient one I've just made up :) )) that I'll only moan about (or admit to) an offside if it's outside of a certain small grey area. Sane wasn't even close to breaking that grey area. The linesman has the toughest job in football so I find it pretty pathetic for any fan of any team, nvm a manager, to moan about an inch here or there. Sane-like calls are constantly 'wrongly' called off/onside and no-one brings them up simply because a goal didn't occur (and even when they do end up in a goal it's often - unless a manager brings it up). Infact, Walcott was further offside in the 1st half when he volleyed over the bar but his miss meant that the officials favoured City over Arsenal, apparently.

The Silva one, I don't think he's close enough or in Cech's eyeline to make it an obvious call. Cech admitted as much himself when he said it went in because he couldn't see the ball (due to his own players). I could understand if the linesman had raised his flag tho.

And, yea, De Bruyne's assist was brilliant. He's so good at weighting his passes. hate seeing him being pushed out wide - even if his crossing is sublime. We were much better in the 2nd half when he was put in a no.10 position alongside Silva, Kosc, Gabriel, Xhaka & Coq didn't know who should pick up who.
Since the start of 14/15 KDB has the most league assists in Europe (38), 1 more than Messi.
 
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