I'm saying his signings because any suggestion that txixi is at fault will just start the usual comments from damo et al that he is gods gift to football
Txiki has a fair bit to answer for. Said before all ball was kicked we were light in midfield. We are very light in midfield. We are light up front. And I'm sorry, just don't see how Silva & De Bruyne and Sterling fit into a team. All 3 counteract each other.
Play Sterling and De Bruyne out wide, we lack balance offensively and defensively.
Play Sterling behind a striker you get the worst out of all three.
Play Silva out wide, you don't get the best out of him and De Bruyne doesn't dictate a game like Silva does.
You could argue playing Fernando holding, Delph left of him and Fernandinho right is our most balanced midfield. So do we leave Silva out? One of our two record signings out?
Which ever way you look at our squad it's unbalanced or we leave one of Sterling, De Bruyne or Silva out. Sterling is making himself easiest to leave out, so then we're unbalanced.
I don't think there's an argument that we were at our best early season.
.......Ya Ya..Fernandinho.....
Navas.........Silva......Sterling
............Aguero...............
Does Navas produce what De Bruyne does? No. Did the team look balanced? Yes.
There would be an argument for, but Nasri is out.
...........Delph...Fernamdinho.....
Nasri.......Silva.......De Bryune....
Not a electric but would retain the ball.
For a manager in his last season supposedly he's been left with two huge decissions. How to mould Sterling, Silva & De Be Bruyne into a cohesive unit and what to do with Ya Ya.
While he's making mistakes, the injuries are really hurting. Today's team selection and tactics were standard, not brilliant not particularly bad. Could he have improved it? Possibly, we'll never know. Could anyone expect what we saw today? I doubt it.
For me know, his first call if he's to continue, Demichelis is really struggling and needs to be phased out. If that doesn't happen, put me in the otters club. He needs to make a call on Bony. I've defended Bony, but we look sharper and more comfortable as a team with Kelechi up front. Perhaps Bony would benefit from being fit for a month or so and training hard and earning a place. He has Mönchengladbach to step up.
If there is a motivational problem, or he's lost some of the players, I'm afraid that's on the senior management. If they are confident of Pep, the players know that, how is Pellegrini supposed to deal with that? It's impossible to expect any manager to ring the changes, show the players who's boss, when in actual fact he pretty much isn't.
In my opinion the players should be playing for their futures, did it look like that to anyone today? Fingers could be pointed at Pellehrini, but he picked a familiar team and system with players mainly in their favour positions. The odd tactical mistake may cost you the odd result here and there, but starting one international over another in their favoured positions should not result in a performance like that. Out there today, I hate to say it but Bojan made Silva look like Buster Philips, Glenn Johnson made Sagna look like Scott Hiley, Shawcross made Demichelis look like David Brightwell. These are not tactical issues.
Yes, we looked shaky at the back, very shaky that could be blamed on formation/tactics. But what's the excuse for going forwards?
I fully agree, I think there is something wrong, I just don't simply buy that it's all the managers fault.
