It's Quiet 16 - Txiki grinders

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Cellarite said:
Nobody knew for sure, that’s obvious. Every blue I know said their hearts sank when they heard the line up.
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I was very surprised, but I thought we would still win it, and if that team had played to it's potential, if Foden and Mharez had scored from chances you wou expect them to, we would have won it. No point keep going over it anyway now it's gone.
 
Didsbury Dave said:
I would like this post twice if I could. I hate “Pep overthinks the champions league” even more.

If we’d lost against Chelsea at the weekend the accusation would have been that he “overthought” it by playing stones instead of Dias. But we win, Stones is brimming with confidence and Dias desperate to get back in the team.

nobody knows what goes on behind the scenes or what Pep is thinking. He is brilliant because most of the time it works. Unfortunalty we have been desperately unlucky in the champions league, not because he “overthinks” it or is some kind of tinker man.
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Yeah a big issue with discussing Pep is that when people say he got something wrong they usually don't know (or attempt to know) why he did it in the first place.

I'd wager the vast majority of people who weren't happy about neither Rodri or Fernandinho starting the CL final (which is a reasonable thing to feel) couldn't tell you why Pep did it.
 
Keeper! said:
Before the match putting up Lukaku against Stones or Laporte seemed suicidal.

It was brilliant man management, gave both Stones and Laporte a huge confidence boost and will make Dias up his game even more to get back in the side.
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I see where you’re coming from but on Saturday, when I saw the teams, I was mildly surprised. On the day of the Champions League final, I was alarmed and instantly concerned that we would lose.
 
Bill said:
absolutely , but on here some wont accept he can and did get it wrong . he even threw the FA cup semi ffs.
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My point isn't that he can't get it wrong or that he didn't get it wrong in the CL final.

It's with language like "fuck about" (not from you I know) and "threw". There's a big difference between that and "miscalculated" or "made a mistake". It's so dismissive. His record speaks for itself.

There's a reason we keep having 0-1 or 1-0 with Chelsea. Tuchel and that Chelsea squad combined are incredible. It's such fine margins. Overall it's so, so hard what he's trying to achieve, and then people say shit like that.

I guarantee that if he just plays the same team all the time in the CL and we lose the criticism will be "if only he'd tinkered"
 
mccity said:
Yeah a big issue with discussing Pep is that when people say he got something wrong they usually don't know (or attempt to know) why he did it in the first place.

I'd wager the vast majority of people who weren't happy about neither Rodri or Fernandinho starting the CL final (which is a reasonable thing to feel) couldn't tell you why Pep did it.
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Agree mate and also there's the fact that football has an element of luck to it, whatever happens.

Stones slipped in the first five minutes and if Lakaku had hit it they could well have gone 1-0 up and ended up winning the game. This forum would have been chock a bloc full of people saying Pep "Got it wrong" picking Stones.

Mahrez was inches from equalising in Porto and we would probably have won the cup. If that had happened literally nobody would have said Pep "got it wrong".

Managers make hundreds of decisions, big and small, every single day. They ar e not all "right" or "wrong", they are just decisions. Whether to rest, What drills to do today, who to bollock, who to take aside and encourage, who to leave out, who to pick, where to play them, what to say in the dressing room, what subs to make, It's the sum total of those decisions and their implications which make a manager great( or shit, or average). Pep is unquestionably great because he exercise good judgement overall.

There could be all sorts of reasons why he picked that team in Porto. He could have wanted to strangle the life out of Chelsea like we have done at Stamford Bridge. He could have fallen out with Rodri (who made a massive error in the semi final), he could have though Rodri was cocky or suffers from nerves, he worried about Fernandinho's mobility, he could have been too keen to shoehorn what he saw as our "key" players in the team, it could have been a combination of those things. We'll probably never know. But what I can say 100% is that he has more than enough credit in the bank with me to respect and support that decision, even in retrospect, and not to reduce that game to a binary statement that "he had a brainfart".
 
Cellarite said:
I see where you’re coming from but on Saturday, when I saw the teams, I was mildly surprised. On the day of the Champions League final, I was alarmed and instantly concerned that we would lose.
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But as said there may well be reasons we don't see as fans, Rodri was running on fumes towards the end of last season and Fern looked his age, could also have illness issues, Pep picked that team for a reason, that time it did not work, let's be honest he is that good it's one hell of a shock when he does get it wrong.
 
Keeper! said:
No we did not, Saturday when we knew the team and Dias on the bench, most fans were surprised/shocked, but it proved a masterstroke of a decision.

Fern and Rodri were left out for a reason.
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I suspect he played Sterling in the Euro final who had been out of form not because he deserved to play and not for his attacking threat
I suspect he played him to help Zinchenko cope with James who has been awesome at wingback marauding forward
Pep is a genius he will be sorely missed when he goes
We will win the Champs soon
 
Bill said:
it is, except we knew before a ball was kicked he'd picked the wrong team.
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Not really sure how you're getting any stick for saying this.

I'm not usually one for losing my head when starting lineups are announced and, to be quite honest, I usually enjoy trying to figure out what the actual setup will be once I see the names on the team sheet.

However, that was a huge fuck up on Pep's part. I knew it, my family knew it, every city fan I spoke to knew it, journalists knew it, Chelsea knew it and I'm pretty sure our own players knew it.

Then, to top it all off, we were as shite as everyone expected.

I'm not really sure how anyone can talk about hindisght when the overwhelming reaction on the City side of things was a collective sigh and the one on the Chelsea side of things was a unanimous cheer.
 
Keeper! said:
But as said there may well be reasons we don't see as fans, Rodri was running on fumes towards the end of last season and Fern looked his age, could also have illness issues, Pep picked that team for a reason, that time it did not work, let's be honest he is that good it's one hell of a shock when he does get it wrong.
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Please don’t get me wrong - I wouldn’t swap him for any manager, past or present, dead or alive - that’s why the odd occasion when he gets it wrong seem bigger, because he hardly ever does.
 
Tugay One Cup said:
Not really sure how you're getting any stick for saying this.

I'm not usually one for losing my head when starting lineups are announced and, to be quite honest, I usually enjoy trying to figure out what the actual setup will be once I see the names on the team sheet.

However, that was a huge fuck up on Pep's part. I knew it, my family knew it, every city fan I spoke to knew it, journalists knew it, Chelsea knew it and I'm pretty sure our own players knew it.

Then, to top it all off, we were as shite as everyone expected.

I'm not really sure how anyone can talk about hindisght when the overwhelming reaction on the City side of things was a collective sigh and the one on the Chelsea side of things was a unanimous cheer.
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spot on .
 
Keeper! said:
No we did not, Saturday when we knew the team and Dias on the bench, most fans were surprised/shocked, but it proved a masterstroke of a decision.

Fern and Rodri were left out for a reason.
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speaking of, there seemed to be a reason behind it -



dias hasn't won enough aerial duals this season, and pep thought stones and laporte were more equipped for that job vs lukaku and chelsea's playstyle, which proved a great decision as they both won 100% of their aerial duals.
 
samuelyeboah said:
speaking of, there seemed to be a reason behind it -



dias hasn't won enough aerial duals this season, and pep thought stones and laporte were more equipped for that job vs lukaku and chelsea's playstyle, which proved a great decision as they both won 100% of their aerial duals.
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Stones got higher leap then dias and laporte but I think Rodri is the one who takes care of long balls like a boss.
 
Didsbury Dave said:
Agree mate and also there's the fact that football has an element of luck to it, whatever happens.

Stones slipped in the first five minutes and if Lakaku had hit it they could well have gone 1-0 up and ended up winning the game. This forum would have been chock a bloc full of people saying Pep "Got it wrong" picking Stones.

Mahrez was inches from equalising in Porto and we would probably have won the cup. If that had happened literally nobody would have said Pep "got it wrong".

Managers make hundreds of decisions, big and small, every single day. They ar e not all "right" or "wrong", they are just decisions. Whether to rest, What drills to do today, who to bollock, who to take aside and encourage, who to leave out, who to pick, where to play them, what to say in the dressing room, what subs to make, It's the sum total of those decisions and their implications which make a manager great( or shit, or average). Pep is unquestionably great because he exercise good judgement overall.

There could be all sorts of reasons why he picked that team in Porto. He could have wanted to strangle the life out of Chelsea like we have done at Stamford Bridge. He could have fallen out with Rodri (who made a massive error in the semi final), he could have though Rodri was cocky or suffers from nerves, he worried about Fernandinho's mobility, he could have been too keen to shoehorn what he saw as our "key" players in the team, it could have been a combination of those things. We'll probably never know. But what I can say 100% is that he has more than enough credit in the bank with me to respect and support that decision, even in retrospect, and not to reduce that game to a binary statement that "he had a brainfart".
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There was a very interesting thread from Man City tactics on Twitter that pointed out the problems Chelsea caused in the previous matches and why Pep may have changed the team for the final.

In short Chelsea kept getting they’re wingbacks up to our full backs that created numerical mismatches in every match. Pep tried to solve that by bringing in Sterling with a view to pin their wingbacks and disrupt their build up. It didn’t work as Chelsea constantly go through our press and found space out wide. Ending up with overlaps.

Pep solved it and Stamford Bridge and by the time the home game came around Chelsea had lost their 2 best wingbacks so a major weapon of theirs’ had been weakened.
 
pavelsrnicek said:
There was a very interesting thread from Man City tactics on Twitter that pointed out the problems Chelsea caused in the previous matches and why Pep may have changed the team for the final.

In short Chelsea kept getting they’re wingbacks up to our full backs that created numerical mismatches in every match. Pep tried to solve that by bringing in Sterling with a view to pin their wingbacks and disrupt their build up. It didn’t work as Chelsea constantly go through our press and found space out wide. Ending up with overlaps.

Pep solved it and Stamford Bridge and by the time the home game came around Chelsea had lost their 2 best wingbacks so a major weapon of theirs’ had been weakened.
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Thats the point really, whatever he did whether it worked or didn’t it was thought out and done for good reasons whether we could see it or not. The idea its tinkering or overthinking for the sake of it is daft.
 
Honestly the way people talk about the CL final its as if we got battered 7-0. Gundogan had played that position a hundred times, it wasn't like we put Stones up top and played long ball to him.

We barely created a half chance never mind test Mendy and we just lost on a counter attack goal. Shit happens, in a two legged game we probably would have won.
 
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