Genuine question. At what point do we start having uncomfortable conversations around Pep? Is he still untouchable? I still fully back him at the moment, he’s singlehandedly turned this club into a European giant and has made us the single most dominating force in the last decade of english football.
But it’s been clear ever since we won the treble his stubbornness is really, really starting to cost us. I think because we won the league again last season a lot of people forget that last season we really weren’t very good- we consistently struggled to win against any decent teams and we didn’t look like the consistently dominant team of years past.
Yesterday’s loss is fully down to Pep, and I don’t mean just the subs. So many of our problems wouldn’t exist if he hadn’t insisted on making almost no new signings the past 2 summers. He knew about our overreliance on Rodri and did nothing to fix it except sign a 33-year old gundogan who’s little more than a zombie at this point. Kyle Walker was awful for multiple seasons, consistently lost us games yet Pep had his contract renewed and didn’t sign any fullbacks, leaving us with extremely weak options there. Letting Alvarez leave was fatal. He bailed us out so so many times during these shit runs of form before. It took the most embarrassing, shockingly bad run of games for Pep to even come around and finally sign new players but by then it was way too late, the season was ruined.
First it was the Rodri problem and the aging midfield that was supposedly at fault. So he signed a quarter billion in new players. What’s the excuse now? If this were any other manager in the world he’d be sacked right now. Sir Alex Ferguson would’ve been sacked for this. Arsene Wenger would’ve been sacked for this. Ancelloti would be sacked for this. Again, I still back him at least until the end of the season but we can’t just keep covering our ears and pretending there isn’t a conversation here to be had.