Al Hilal (N) | CWC | Post Match Thread

OrigamiNinja said:
Just watched the highlights and it looked like it was a case of same old story?

Really disappointed to see a lot of the same old faces out there, those that essentially caused a lot of the problems last season. A starting midfield 3 that contains Bernie and Gundo, is just footballing suicide. Pep, like the rest of us has seen enough of this to understand, seemingly, he has learned nothing.

Bernie as captain is just as worrying. Picking a guy to lead the side, who arguably should no longer be at the club after serving up utter shite for 2 years, is crazy. It was the same with Walker when he got the gig and again, it looks like Pep has learned nothing. Granted, I doubt Bernie will be getting his cock out in public, so he does have that over Walker.

There was clearly come positives from this tournament but unless Pep removes his blinkers, I fear we will see much of the same next season. He places far too much trust in players that are either well and truly past it, injury-prone, or a mixture of both. Theres no point in spending the money we have, if Peps default position is to go back to what worked 3 years ago but clearly doesn’t work now. I can honestly see a situation 6 weeks into the new season, where half of the new signings are nowhere near the starting XI and we are still wheeling out crocks and OAPs every week.

Hopefully the lads get a decent rest now and Pep uses this time to decide on some serious changes for the start of the season.
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Pretty much but i don’t think the midfield had much to do with in this game. You can have Rodri and another top midfielder in there but we’ll still always push right up. When you’ve got a central defence with no pace and essentially a left sided midfielder at left back. One ball totally takes out any midfield
 
I wasn't too fussed about this competition at the start, but I got more and more into it as it went on. It was great seeing the new players and quicker football. Going off the comments, it seems we chucked that in the bin and reverted to type? That's annoying.
 
A stack of chances to go two or more up and fell like a pack of cards after half time.

The CWC not important again for some who watched it in the middle of the night.

In truth it was a shocking collapse after Inzaghi took so much flack at Inter, he proves his class.

The homogeneous playing style lacked cutting edge when we needed a goal the most.
 
Just woke up and seen the result. We've not really defended well in the earlier games, the other teams just didn't take their chances especially Juve.
 
bluemonkey71 said:
Dias has been worrying me for a while. No pace, more interested in pulling his shorts up to his crotch and pointing at players rather than doing his own job. Zero pace and just tries to wrestle people to the ground
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Needs someone to have a word with him ASAP - do you want to be a celebrity or a footballer?
 
manimanc said:
I don't know mate i just can't get annoyed with whatever happens in this competition.
Yes it was great to see us win against Juve but I'm sure come August pep will have us ready.
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I think that's the problem though mate. With Akanji, Ake, Gundogan & Nunes still getting plenty of minutes, I don't think we will be ready come August. Everyone wanted a full refresh this summer but this result just feels like it's more of the same
 
OrigamiNinja said:
Just watched the highlights and it looked like it was a case of same old story?

Really disappointed to see a lot of the same old faces out there, those that essentially caused a lot of the problems last season. A starting midfield 3 that contains Bernie and Gundo, is just footballing suicide. Pep, like the rest of us has seen enough of this to understand, seemingly, he has learned nothing.

Bernie as captain is just as worrying. Picking a guy to lead the side, who arguably should no longer be at the club after serving up utter shite for 2 years, is crazy. It was the same with Walker when he got the gig and again, it looks like Pep has learned nothing. Granted, I doubt Bernie will be getting his cock out in public, so he does have that over Walker.

There was clearly come positives from this tournament but unless Pep removes his blinkers, I fear we will see much of the same next season. He places far too much trust in players that are either well and truly past it, injury-prone, or a mixture of both. Theres no point in spending the money we have, if Peps default position is to go back to what worked 3 years ago but clearly doesn’t work now. I can honestly see a situation 6 weeks into the new season, where half of the new signings are nowhere near the starting XI and we are still wheeling out crocks and OAPs every week.

Hopefully the lads get a decent rest now and Pep uses this time to decide on some serious changes for the start of the season.
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Spot on with everything you have written. I would add that there will be no space left in our team for the new signings to shine because of Pep's trust in the old guard. It's all very strange. The starting line up againt Hilal told us what to expect once the Premiership starts. And there we were thinking Pep had finally seen the light.
 
FFS people chill out. Everyone acknowledged that we needed a rebuild, rebuilds take time. Just because we won the first 3 games everyone was expecting that we are back to city of old and last season was deleted from history.

How realistic is that? Things take time, we played a good team and got beat, that's football. Did anyone honestly expect for our turnaround to not take time? We can't go from the shower of shite we dished out week in week out last term to suddenly becoming brilliant again.

Take the positives, accept the negatives (for now) and things will come good once the new coaching staff and players settle in. We're going to have some disappointing games this season, we're going to concede some goals in the same way we did last season, if you can't accept that now, maybe you should take a season off.
 
Regular Joe said:
Drivel. Nonsense. Pointless garbage comments. Call it bed wetting if you like. Don’t care about it if you aren’t interested. I presume you haven’t paid over £5k to come to America to watch this tournament as I have so maybe this defeat means a little less to you.
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I presume you didn’t watch us in division 3 with your entitled post?
What a load of drivel. Absolute nonsense. Proper rubbish post.

Ah now I know the meaning of the word drivel. Thanks for explaining it to me.

Love fans like you who are fuckin clueless.
 
On the bright side that new CWC badge is an abomination and it would’ve looked so bad on our kit.
 
Rammy Blue said:
Yep, agreed. I’d add as I’ve put separately, that we can only hope Viana has the strength to make some of these tough decisions for Pep.
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The club have clearly decided that youth is the way to go. Most are all for that strategy. It’s a waste of time though, if the manager doesn’t buy into it and stubbornly sticks with experience instead.

Bernie is the prime example for me. Awful for 2 seasons. After the 2023/24 season, you can forgive Pep for showing him the loyalty and sticking with him. He deserved a chance to turn it around after what he had previously given the club. However, after dishing up another season of absolute shite, it should have been a case of “thanks for everything Bernie but it’s time for you to find a new club”. Instead, he gets the captaincy. It’s poor decisions like this, that ultimately end dynasties and turn us from the dominant force in English football to the next Liverpool of the 00s or United of the 10s/20s.
 
manimanc said:
Let down?
Worse defensive display?
Fuck me has the sun got to people on here or what?

These are all glorified friendlies. What is your post all about!

Try thinking about the fact we've got a nice break coming up where we could have started the season on our arse if we'd gone all the way in this competition.
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Club won't think it's friendly they just lost 30 million going out now. Soriano and Khaldoon are going to be pissed off.
 
BolinCell said:
That was like city losing to some Championship team, good team my arse.
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It wasn't at all. They were a much better side than I was expecting. Plenty of decent players and a solid system that took advantage of our weaknesses. Under pressure they were far more composed than Juventus.
 
manimanc said:
I presume you didn’t watch us in division 3 with your entitled post?
What a load of drivel. Absolute nonsense. Proper rubbish post.

Ah now I know the meaning of the word drivel. Thanks for explaining it to me.

Love fans like you who are fuckin clueless.
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This could be a positive, as it crushes any recency bias, in that it highlights more signings are needed, but importantly that have to be a different type of player..no more flair, or technicians etc.

Power, aggression, pace.
 
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