Champions League Final | Post-Match Thread

Marvin said:
I think he must have realised that Chelsea would break on us. I think he had some crazy idea that OK this will happen, but they will be out of position and my team will kill them on the transition. There must have been some rationale to it.

It annoys me that whatever the plan was it was clear that Chelsea were looking very likely to score and we had Rodri and Fernandinho on the bench and we didn't do anything.

We are never going to understand this.

I hope Pep recovers from this. It is very very damaging. A coaching failure if ever there was one.

But on the other hand the league season was a personal Pep triumph. I think we have to accept that our coach is a genius but he makes mistakes like us all.

I don't understand where the criticism of certain players is coming from. Those who question Sterling are being very unreasonable. I thought he was OK.

There are times when an extra defensive player adds coherence to your attack. We were so open we allowed Chelsea to get to 50-50 possession in the first half. Did we play a really bad offensive game? I don't think so. When you play against a 5-2-3 you are not going to slice through them. You are looking for 3-4 moments in a game, an you restrict their breaks. We totally lost control of that 1st half and it stemmed entirely from the tactical decision.

To be honest I don't know where Gundogan played. Did he play in the position where Rodri/Fernandinho would have played? We needed cover. If he was playing that role then why would you choose him over Rodri, or Fernandinho. Gundogan is not particularly good at defensive cover.

There is no point trying to 2nd guess what Pep was doing. I just hope he recovers.

At least we wont have to worry about complacency next season.
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It may well rekindle the fires for next season. Always a danger when you scoop it all. We still have something to prove. And being optimistic, another go at the full sweep.
 
best team won, we have to suck that up, as everyone has said a tactical fuck up,
tbf to raz i didn't think he did too badly, it was a good battle with james
but we were too loose at the back with no protection of ferna or rodri

we go again as ever
 
Marvin said:
Ego. He has faced question marks over over-thinking and he wanted a personal triumph against his critics?

Very damaging for coach and club and players and fans. We all paid for this weakness. He does though have strengths so it would be stupid to hand him his P45.

One might ask Pep, look what went wrong? How can we help you not to do this stuff but it would be a very difficult conversation and would possibly lead to resignation. We just have to accept him as he is.
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Prior to the match the team selection for last nights game was the last thing I was worried about. I thought after the Lyon backlash and his consistent team selection this season that these overthinking tendencies were finished with.

But now we’ve just got to realise he’s always going to do something like this. To find a winning formula that comes back from behind to beat Dortmund and PSG, and to then change it for the final is the worst one yet.

I do think that it zapped the confidence right out of the players and fans as well. You can get away with it in the Prem due to the shear volume of games, but every time he does something in the CL it just never seems to work.
 
supercity88 said:
I think that is harsh on Chelsea. They forced us into errors and punished others that were unforced from our poor passing and lack of shape with the change in lineup.

They played some good football and tried to win the game. And our weakness has been exposed three times now.
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It is not harsh. It is the way they play against us. Yes the ultimate rationale is to end up winning same as us but how they achieve that goal is by consistently doing what you've just said. It's from a negative defensive set up that they won that game which we couldnt break down. We either let them come on to us or we try to get through their narrowest of lines which we tried to do . It didnt work and played into their tactic more often than not. Even with Fern theres no guarantee of a win. Possibly a better outcome we will never know but Chelsea under Tuchel is generally a negative defensive team that feeds on mistakes and presses hard all over the opponent's high line .Let's see how good they are when they have to create something positive facing ten men behind the ball.
We needed guile last night. We are too naive.
 
Sitting back now after a few hours sleep, and waking up still drunk from the early hours this morning, we just laid the biggest egg we could've in the biggest moment for some time.

I get what Pep was trying to do, it just badly exposed us without Rodri or Fernandinho, and broke up the usual rhythm we play with. That's on him, and I'm sure he's kicking himself more then any of us as much as it hurts right now, and will for some time. The players looked daunted by the occasion as well, not many can hold their heads up with their performance, was just a bad performance and credit to Chelsea as much as that's hard to say right now.

Also farewell to Sergio, he gave everything he had for our club, and won everything he could win, besides one.

Will sit back for a few days now, enjoy the season that was, as much as this hurts right now, but we'll all be back in a few months time, ready to go again.

Thanks to everyone on Blue Moon this season, hope you can all get back to the football next season.
 
Peps initial mistake was bad but not rectifying it quickly when it was clear to anyone watching that it wasn’t working was worse for me. His substitutions were way too late.
 
In the end, despite the criticism for not playing a DM, we only conceded 1 goal. I think we would have all thought before the match that if Chelsea only score once that we would win. What’s let us down is an almost complete lack of a goal threat, until the last 10 mins when we finally pushed forward with desperate intent. Whether this is down to the system, the players, Chelsea’s defensive ability or what, someone else better equipped than me will say, but not having out and out goal scorers doesn’t help. Yes, Chelsea have won this without a big scorer too. It their system is built on 1-0 wins ours isn’t.
 
I dare say we’d have absolutely destroyed Chelsea last night if the PSG team had played. I still can’t believe why he’d not do that.
 
Plays By Sense Of Smell said:
Yep. Chelsea deserved their win, well done.
Pep brainfart did it again.
Not feeling that bad after the season we've had - was a free hit, we didn't get it, but we made serious strides forward this/last year.
Last night was another major step.
We stay in the news.
We continue to compete for the top prizes.
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As a season it was great.

Remember PSG, Dortmund. The league games. There was much to be proud of.

We will lick our wounds and recover. I hope City don't make any stupid transfer decisions over the Summer.

It will be an interesting Summer. What direction do we take with the team? A new centre-forward, or do we embrace the 4-6-0, and enhance the 6?
 
blkswn said:
In ways it was reminiscent of the Lyon game. We saw the lineup and were uncomfortable right away. About 20 minutes into the game we knew, yeah, this is not going to go well. And just like that game, we did nothing to change it or realise it needed changing.
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Like we were uncomfortable with the lineup I am sure the players were too and the game was lost almost psychologically.

Perhaps Pep's tactic was the right thing to do but with a history of overthinking games it was inevitable that the players were affected. Add on top of this the difficulty of playing against tight defences and it made an already difficult game even more so.
 
The way I saw it was YES this was solely down to Pep and his team sheet, it's a Champion's league final, you play your best team, END OF. As soon as I saw the team sheet I thought "We're fucked", playing Sterling meant both Foden and Gundogan played out of position and both hardly had a kick in the first half and this for a player who has been dire for virtually the whole of the season, WHY?, it nullified Foden and took away Gundogan's attacking threat which has been brilliant all season, Pep's clearly never heard the saying "If it ain't broke, don't fix it"
 
bluemc1 said:
Said it to loads of people after the match and I’ll say it again
We’ve not looked vulnerable to that through ball or ball over the top since Tottenham game, we’ve had Ferna or Rhodri giving protection to the back 4, last night he changes it in our most important game against a team with a lightning quick striker, they should’ve been 2 up before they scored. Gundo has had his best season for us playing in a more advanced role and so he takes him out of that position
It’s his quick interplay with KDB & Foden in and around the box that has unlocked defences all season so he’s basically taken that option away v a team who are brilliantly organised defensively
He’s put a player in who has not performed well for my months and is so out of form and low on confidence he’d struggle to get in a lot of sides at the moment
He’s not done this in a CC tie he’s fine it in a CL final

what the actual fuck Pep, WHY
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Bar the odd game, I think we have looked vulnerable defensively since we lost to United, particularly with goals starting from that side of the pitch. With the exception of the Everton game and the two European ones, we have been a bit off our game for the last couple of months.
 
SamTheGuru said:
How are we feeling in the morning?
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Gutted we didn't give it our best shot. Such a disappointment. In a champions league final we should never be left wondering what if, as much as we are. Should have played the best team in the best positions.
 
Would have been our best ever season with the win

But not to be, dissapointment still hasn't gone away, the day after

But victories at Anfield, wins over Dortmund and PSG and the way we beat them will still make this a memorable season

Our 5th Title and another cup title, makes this a very memorable season regardless of yesterday's avoidable defeat
 
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