Actually if there's one thing I wouldn't hold against him it's last year's final. That team was dead on its feet. They dragged themselves through the semi-final, somehow won it, but you could see it there. The final was a step too far.
I believe that the really poor part of this season, those two or three months before Christmas, were part of the reaction to eight years of solid effort in three or four competitions season after season.
Pep is easily the greatest manager we've ever had, or will ever have. He does get things wrong. It's rare, but it happens. It is the right of every person on this forum to express an opinion about that. And it is the right of every other person to dissent from that opinion. Otherwise Ric might as well close down the forum.