Pep Guardiola - 2025/26

Think he is going! Been amazing and we should celebrate his incredible achievements these last few weeks.
 
Because of trust he picks a semi-fit Rodri and has never given him the protection of Nico G - always preferring Bernie or moving Nico O (who is a bright talent but you can see his form is dipping a bit - it's a big ask on such a young player to not only move from position to position but to maintain form for months)
I agree with the Rodri and trust bit, but overplaying Bernardo and NOR at Nico G’s expense is very likely because they are left footed.

With Gvardiol’s (and Ake’s to a certain extent) injury we lack left footed players who play on the left. Guehi, Khusanov, Doku, Semenyo who’ve all played on the left side of the pitch are predominantly right footed.
Guardiola values left footed players, particularly at LCB and left CM in a two midfield, for build-up speed and better passing angles. He has described left footed defenders as unicorns who give us faster, more direct passing to the left wing (compared to right footed players).

You and I may not agree with part or all of this, but the mad genius has his reasons.
 
We play against packed defences with no one in the team capable of threading a ball through.

We hardly ever put decent crosses into the box.

We hardly ever play through balls to Haaland even when he has space to run into.

We play risky passing moves out from the back but when we manage to beat the press we turn round and go backwards.

Our attacking corners are mostly poor.

We don't leave anyone up front when defending corners, even if we need a goal.

We spend most of our time 20 yards from the opposition goal but hardly ever shoot from there.

In short we miss so many easy opportunities to create a bit of chaos in the opposition defence.
 
Don
Nunes
Khus
Dias/Guehi
Air Nouri
Rodri
Silva
O’Reilly
Cherki
Halland
Semenyo

Just like he should have done last week
 

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