Pep Guardiola - 2020/21 Performances

[Bluewonder]

I love the guy to bits but he let us down last night.

That being said, I hope he stays for life.

 

[alexmcity]

Whilst people's analysis of tactics will be influenced by the result for me this isn't about retrospection.
If you gamble bigly with a team formation ( in this case out of form attacking player replacing a crucial holding midfielder) then one of two things happen:
1 You win then you're a hero, hailed as a tactical genius and all the praise comes your way.
2. You lose and it's hero to zero and all the criticism comes your way.
Pep is clearly in the second category and he deserves the criticism.
As a general principle this could apply to lots of decisions made in life i.e. play the percentages and if you fail there can be acceptance.
Gamble (bigly) and you've got to succeed. Expect no sympathy if you don't.

People were happy with our performances vs PSG because we won, and did forget we were poor in the first halfs of both games. Fernandinho's performance was in particular quite overrated on here. PSG were without Mbappe and still were the more dangerous team in that first half in Manchester. It could have easily ended 1:1 or even 1:2. If Ferna was doing what Pep wanted from his DM, he would have started in Porto. It's that simple. Truth is Ferna was abysmal vs Chelsea at Wembley, something people did conveniently forget. Mount was toying with him there. Rodri has lost form recently.

The criticism might be justified to an extent, but it is also OTT sometimes. We are lucky to have one of the greatest managers ever. No two ways about it. Ferguson managed to win only 2 CLs, both times with a lot of luck.

 

[Saddleworth2]

Most are still hammering on about what he did wrong. There are two reasons why we lost yesterday:
1) Chelsea are a bloody good team with an excellent coach. I have seldom seen such an effective set up against us tactically. They strangled us like we strangle teams. In addition, they had at least 3 or 4 players who played out of their skins. Kante, Rudiger, Reece James were all excellent.
2) Chelsea players managed the occasion better than us. We let the magnitude of the game effect our performance levels. Not one player (maybe Gabby) performed better than average. They will learn from it no doubt and hopefully not be as overwhelmed as yesterday when we reach our next one.

Hard for those blues that were in Porto. Feel really sorry for you and for Pep and the players.

Next season will be interesting, we need to go big I think to freshen the squad. Just a glance at the form table for the last 12 PL games shows you everything you need to know. Dippers two points top. 5 other teams including us, Man Utd, Arsenal, Chelsea and Leeds within a point of each other. Yes, I know we were rotating but that will happen next season as well.

Striker, AM, DM the priorities for me.

 

[FantasyIreland]

Four seasons in a row.

Dropped Sterling because he thought he was going to shit it at Anfield like he had done previously, and played Gundogan wide right. Lost 3-0 and were fucking shit.

Dropped captain Kompany, best player de Bruyne, player of the season Bernardo, and Sané away at Spurs. Lost 1-0 and were fucking shit.

Decided to sacrifice an attacking player to play five at the back against the 7tb best team in France. Lost 1-3 and were fucking shit.

Decided to change the winning formula that saw us score 4 over two legs in the Ro16, the ¼s and ½s for the final. Fernandinho was incredible against Paris, he was on the bench; Gundogan’s been brilliant in attacking mid all season, played him in defensive mid against one of the fastest and best midfielders in sport; Foden has looked like the best left forward in Europe, played him in midfield where he hasn’t played well once all season; Bernardo ran 12k away at Dortmund in the false9 position and is invaluable when he plays his selfless high pressing game, played him in midfield; needed to get back in the game, gave Agüero ten fucking minutes in his final game for the club after he scored a brace last week; started Sterling who’s played well once all season and who’s general play has been shit for nearly two years… lost 0-1 and were fucking shit.

I think you are feeling like many of us are,angry,frustrated and incredibly puzzled.

 

[BillyShears]

Absolutely baffled how a shit arrogant manager surrounded by mentally weak players who need to be sold (ffs) have managed to collect as many trophies as they have over the last five years.

Something doesn’t quite add up, but hey, who am I to argue with the performance experts.

 

[The1nvisibleMan]

Most are still hammering on about what he did wrong. There are two reasons why we lost yesterday:
1) Chelsea are a bloody good team with an excellent coach. I have seldom seen such an effective set up against us tactically. They strangled us like we strangle teams. In addition, they had at least 3 or 4 players who played out of their skins. Kante, Rudiger, Reece James were all excellent.
2) Chelsea players managed the occasion better than us. We let the magnitude of the game effect our performance levels. Not one player (maybe Gabby) performed better than average. They will learn from it no doubt and hopefully not be as overwhelmed as yesterday when we reach our next one.

Hard for those blues that were in Porto. Feel really sorry for you and for Pep and the players.

Next season will be interesting, we need to go big I think to freshen the squad. Just a glance at the form table for the last 12 PL games shows you everything you need to know. Dippers two points top. 5 other teams including us, Man Utd, Arsenal, Chelsea and Leeds within a point of each other. Yes, I know we were rotating but that will happen next season as well.

Striker, AM, DM the priorities for me.

On point 1, this was our third meeting against Tuchel’s side and we’d lost the previous 2 and didn’t learn a thing. So while they are good we had ample evidence an time to fix any problem and we didn’t. People said we didn’t play our best team against them before so they wouldn’t know what we were doing and then did fuck all

Secondly I’ve seen many people claim us losing our heads is raggish behaviour yet this pure fucking arrogance is okay. I don’t get it

 

[The1nvisibleMan]

Absolutely baffled how a shit arrogant manager surrounded by mentally weak players who need to be sold (ffs) have managed to collect as many trophies as they have over the last five years.

Something doesn’t quite add up, but hey, who am I to argue with the performance experts.

Oh come on there’s no doubt that we’ve been class in the League but have clearly got some mental issues in the Champions League. We’ve been mostly dire in the FA Cup too

 

[FantasyIreland]

Most are still hammering on about what he did wrong. There are two reasons why we lost yesterday:
1) Chelsea are a bloody good team with an excellent coach. I have seldom seen such an effective set up against us tactically. They strangled us like we strangle teams. In addition, they had at least 3 or 4 players who played out of their skins. Kante, Rudiger, Reece James were all excellent.
2) Chelsea players managed the occasion better than us. We let the magnitude of the game effect our performance levels. Not one player (maybe Gabby) performed better than average. They will learn from it no doubt and hopefully not be as overwhelmed as yesterday when we reach our next one.

Hard for those blues that were in Porto. Feel really sorry for you and for Pep and the players.

Next season will be interesting, we need to go big I think to freshen the squad. Just a glance at the form table for the last 12 PL games shows you everything you need to know. Dippers two points top. 5 other teams including us, Man Utd, Arsenal, Chelsea and Leeds within a point of each other. Yes, I know we were rotating but that will happen next season as well.

Striker, AM, DM the priorities for me.

Chelsea played great,no argument,and they deserved the win.....but Pep picked the wrong team,he let them play their best game,and he nullified ours.
That is another loss that is down to him,and unfortunately he seems to save them for the big occasions.

 

[Txiki Txiki Bang Bang]

Why can't somebody close to him like Lilo or even Txiki, Ferran or khaldoon just tell him to stop the overthinking bollocks in CL because we all can see it except for Pep himself.

His friends wouldn't want to offend him and for some strange reason, I think Khaldoon probably feels like Pep is bigger than the club and is doing us a favour by staying with the club.

 

[hammocity]

Four seasons in a row.

Dropped Sterling because he thought he was going to shit it at Anfield like he had done previously, and played Gundogan wide right. Lost 3-0 and were fucking shit.

Dropped captain Kompany, best player de Bruyne, player of the season Bernardo, and Sané away at Spurs. Lost 1-0 and were fucking shit.

Decided to sacrifice an attacking player to play five at the back against the 7tb best team in France. Lost 1-3 and were fucking shit.

Decided to change the winning formula that saw us score 4 over two legs in the Ro16, the ¼s and ½s for the final. Fernandinho was incredible against Paris, he was on the bench; Gundogan’s been brilliant in attacking mid all season, played him in defensive mid against one of the fastest and best midfielders in sport; Foden has looked like the best left forward in Europe, played him in midfield where he hasn’t played well once all season; Bernardo ran 12k away at Dortmund in the false9 position and is invaluable when he plays his selfless high pressing game, played him in midfield; needed to get back in the game, gave Agüero ten fucking minutes in his final game for the club after he scored a brace last week; started Sterling who’s played well once all season and who’s general play has been shit for nearly two years… lost 0-1 and were fucking shit.

It's easy picking out games where it goes wrong, we've won 8 trophies in 4 seasons, guess Pep did incredibly well in those "other" games, look at the big picture and don't act the entitled fan that we accused the rags of being when they were the dominant team. I'll take a trophy every year regardless what it is but if we don't win one it's deffo not the end of the world. As someone who has been to every CL game at the Etihad and a couple of away games over the years I was as gutted as all the fans last night but still proud of my Club.

 

[alexmcity]

Most are still hammering on about what he did wrong. There are two reasons why we lost yesterday:
1) Chelsea are a bloody good team with an excellent coach. I have seldom seen such an effective set up against us tactically. They strangled us like we strangle teams. In addition, they had at least 3 or 4 players who played out of their skins. Kante, Rudiger, Reece James were all excellent.
2) Chelsea players managed the occasion better than us. We let the magnitude of the game effect our performance levels. Not one player (maybe Gabby) performed better than average. They will learn from it no doubt and hopefully not be as overwhelmed as yesterday when we reach our next one.

Agree with those two points.

Generally, many from our fans underestimated Chelsea because they lost from Arsenal, Leicester and Villa. But they didn't take into account that Chelsea were very tired against these teams having played Real and us over 3 days, that our style, unlike that of underdogs like Leicester, suits their strengths much much better, and that their defensive record since Tuchel has taken over has been fantastic. Being underdogs, they coped much better with the pressure.

 

[kaz7]

The biggest night in our history, the players and last night for sergio and he does that shit, disgraceful look at me shite, we knew if they scored first it would be over but we left the door open for them to walk through

 

[leo_city]

Poor performance, lots of water consumption in stress and lack of workrate near touchline

 

[Trojan1962]

Everyone could see within the 1st 15 minutes things were not right and crying out for a change yet he carried on with it to justify his bizarre team selection. That is arrogance and quite rightly criticism must come his way.

 

[Odd socks]

The one thing I didn't get last night ( and other times) was keeping FFS and raz on the touch line's to spread the play....
There were times when when it looked like 10 onto 8 and the both of them just stood there watching,
Both players more often received the ball while standing still so easy to close down.

 

[Fordyboy46]

Such a frustrating manager, I really don't know what goes on in his head in big matches. Has he explained why Fernandinho or Rodri didn't play last night, an absolute clusterfuck of a decision, ones that he will keep making unfortunately

 

[Xhavenjoe]

Not read the thread and not going to

If we all decided not to read this thread, we would not be able to benefit from your pearls of wisdom.

 

[Ribchester]

Such a frustrating manager, I really don't know what goes on in his head in big matches. Has he explained why Fernandinho or Rodri didn't play last night, an absolute clusterfuck of a decision, ones that he will keep making unfortunately

The first explanation needed is why that useless “out of form some might say” was in the starting 11, for me shouldn’t even be on the bench. Stealing a living

 

[Trojan1962]

Had Pep not won the league this year I think his performance last night may well have led to his departure.

 

[alexmcity]

We were 3 wins away from the quadruple, while our most productive players from previous seasons were either crocked (Aguero) or out of form (Sterling) or not at their best (Kevin and Jesus). Also, some players lost form in the final months (Rodri, Cancelo, maybe also Bernie and Gundogan.. ) due to the huge efforts from December to March. It's amazing we did so well while having key players unavailable or underperforming. It was a brutal season. Pep and the players exceeded the expectations by fighting in 4 competitions until the end. Back in December few on here expected that we will win the title and the league cup while fighting for the FA Cup and the CL. Have some perspective folks.