I thought his tactics were spot on against Spurs. I have never seen such a one sided loss in my life it defied belief. Souness got it right when he said, "That's football sometimes it just isn't your day, you have to get out of there and move on."
We massacred Spur's on their own patch and that was down to Pep's tactics. They hardly had a kick until the sending off and even after it and down to ten men we should have scored twice. It isn't Pep's fault a top international can't score with a free shot from 12 yards. It isn't his fault players made the wrong pass at vital moments and missed chance after chance, a few clear cut. It isn't his fault players lost their discipline, got involved in a melee and picked up pointless yellow cards. It isn't his fault Mahrez passed a corner straight to a Spur's player, leaving us horribly exposed, or that Zinchenko, already on a yellow card, then thought he could barge Winks off the ball and get away with it. Totally brain dead the pair of them. It isn't his fault Otamendi inexplicably moved out of position into no man's land leaving Son free to score. As Pep has said all season we need to improve in both boxes and he is right.
His so called tinkering saw us play the rags off the park in the first half at the swamp and again we should have won 5-1 not 3-1. The return leg was the same, should have won at least 3-1 not lost 1-0.
There isn't a lot wrong with our tactics except maybe moving the ball a little faster and shooting first time when in a decent position. Individual errors at both ends of the pitch have cost us this season, some players slow to recover on the turnovers through a lack of pace and the loss of Kompany, Laporte and Mendy never being fit at left back. That's the reason's we have fallen short and hopefully the players will rest, recover and go all out to finish the season on a high by winning a couple of trophies and cementing runner's up while beating Liverpool into the bargain so ensuring they don't go unbeaten all season.
There is much in there that I would agree with. How much responsibility for the mentality of the players resting on the manager's shoulders, is debatable.
It's undeniable that we are still creating enough chances to win against any opposition.
That would suggest that the tactics aren't completely flawed, but the personnel may be.
I think the quality of play in general is below where we were over the previous two seasons.
IMO there are certain players in our squad, that despite having wonderful traits of their own, are not capable of playing the precise quick one touch football that we expect now.
Certain players are too slow, in control or in thought and certain players can't pass accurately never mind weight a pass.
Our stats show we have hundreds of passes a game. What I've noticed more of this season is the sloppiness of our passing even when not under pressure. It slows everything down.
Mahrez, Walker, Zinc,Otter, Mendy for all they give us, cannot pass a ball under pressure. The bread and butter short game pass. Raheem can't do anything right at the moment.
Cancelo and Rodri I'll still give the benefit of the doubt to. Maybe they are still getting up to speed but they are sloppy because they look like they think they have all day.
Even Bernardo, who is wonderfully gifted does not have the deft touch of Silva from a few years back. It'll take time perhaps and he gives us so much more but that level of precision and speed is the mainstay of Pep's way of playing through packed defences.
