#14 | Aymeric Laporte - 2020/21 Performances

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Didsbury Dave said:
Something has gone on behind the scenes. Don't forget Laporte has a reputation for arrogance and being a loner.

Whilst Laporte is always in our strongest team, I'm assuming here that Pep is sending him a message and managing him with a bit of tough love. It's not fair to compare his situation with others. Sometimes players need to play themselves into form and confidence and a clever manager facilitates that. Pep has recently done it with Mahrez and Sterling in the past.

I expect Laporte back in the team soon. I'm hoping for Tuesday and then for the derby. If he comes back even better and more detirmined then Pep has delivered. I trust his player management.
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I would like to know if something has gone on behind the scenes because nothing else makes sense. I know Guardiola was furious in his post match interview v Spurs (rightly so) but I wouldn't be surprised if that involved a bust up with Laporte in the dressing room. You'd presume someone would have leaked that though.

And Laporte has been here a long time now and there's never been a sniff of him being any kind of problem in the dressing room so I'm not sure.

I don't think it's a given that he'll play tomorrow and 5% chance he'll play Saturday. Guardiola is stubborn. In terms of his man management have we ever seen him drop a first team player for four consecutive games and it end well?
 
jay_mcfc said:
?
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jay_mcfc said:
I would like to know if something has gone on behind the scenes because nothing else makes sense. I know Guardiola was furious in his post match interview v Spurs (rightly so) but I wouldn't be surprised if that involved a bust up with Laporte in the dressing room. You'd presume someone would have leaked that though.

And Laporte has been here a long time now and there's never been a sniff of him being any kind of problem in the dressing room so I'm not sure.

I don't think it's a given that he'll play tomorrow and 5% chance he'll play Saturday. Guardiola is stubborn. In terms of his man management have we ever seen him drop a first team player for four consecutive games and it end well?
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It can only be something behind the scenes, definitely. i don't think Pep minds the players giving their opinions so it must have gone further.

I think he will play on Wednesday but that will leave Pep with a conundrum. On ability Laporte is definitely in the team for United. But both Stones and Dias don't deserve dropping. Given things that Pep has said recently, I think he probably has to keep Laporte on the bench for it.

Stones was left out for many more than four games and that's worked out in the long term. Sterling recently too I think, although his form is still not great. I share your concern about Laporte because he's still our number one, but I think we need to take a bit longer to judge Pep.
 
FantasyIreland said:
Are you stating that as fact? because speculation in regards a disagreement/bust up helps nothing.
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No. I've got no knowledge of anything. I believe it can't be anything else, though. He's too good to be left out, has not been injured and his form was fine.
 
Results are what matter not who is in and who is out.

injuries and suspensions and the number of games especially compressed will always mean you have to rotate players.

Liverpool look better without VVD than they did when he was playing earlier this season.
 
twosips said:
I don't really get why anyone's arsed about Laporte not playing if we're not conceding goals.
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Probably because of the way it panned out. Three months ago, Laporte was our only certainty at CB.

Ake - Brought in but considered by most to be a back-up to Laporte.
Dias - Brought in but everyone unsure if he was going to be good enough.
Stones - Pretty much a busted flush.
Garcia - Loved by Pep but seemingly on his way out.

Now we have a strange situation where our number 1 CB and the guy widely considered to be the 2nd best CB in the country, is struggling to get any game-time.

Ultimately, I think as fans we are happy with anyone, playing anywhere, as long as the results are good. It will only take one mistake though that costs us a big game and the calls for Laporte on here will intensify.
 
twosips said:
I don't really get why anyone's arsed about Laporte not playing if we're not conceding goals.
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We've played against teams who haven't really bothered to attack. This will (probably!) be a tougher game.

Dias is undroppable at the moment and I'm a big Stones fan, so Pep has a tough call to make.
 
twosips said:
I don't really get why anyone's arsed about Laporte not playing if we're not conceding goals.
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Taking what Guardiola has said at face value (admittedly, not always easy) I think it's a good thing he's been dropped. That mistake he made for Spurs' opener was a schoolboy error and one I'd have slated the likes of Otamendi for. Pep seems to be holding Laporte accountable for a very basic mistake they shouldn't be making and I'm absolutely fine with that. Especially when it's allowed John to come back in, have three flawless games and build his confidence back up. Now Laporte has had to wait for his chance again and that kind of meritocracy is what I've been crying out for for over a year.

I think people always want there to be more meaning behind everything that goes on but it just looks like a load of hot air.
 
Didsbury Dave said:
On ability, he's in our first eleven, regardless of recent results.
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That's probably fair. He maybe is...but we're doing fine without him. If Pep thinks others are playing better/training better, and it looks justified on the pitch, well...maybe he's making the correct call?

We all know Stones *can* be world class if he focuses. We've seen signs of it before, and I guess Pep has seen enough recently to give him a go. The way I look at these things isn't 'why isn't Laporte playing?', instead I try and look at it from the view of 'oh class, stones is playing regularly because he's being brilliant'. Would rather just look at the positive tbh and let Pep handle Laporte.

Edit - honestly, I could not care less if KDB barely played again this season if we went on to win a load of trophies for example. All I care is that we get the performances we want out of the players in whoever's spot they're taking.
 
twosips said:
That's probably fair. He maybe is...but we're doing fine without him. If Pep thinks others are playing better/training better, and it looks justified on the pitch, well...maybe he's making the correct call?

We all know Stones *can* be world class if he focuses. We've seen signs of it before, and I guess Pep has seen enough recently to give him a go. The way I look at these things isn't 'why isn't Laporte playing?', instead I try and look at it from the view of 'oh class, stones is playing regularly because he's being brilliant'. Would rather just look at the positive tbh and let Pep handle Laporte.

Edit - honestly, I could not care less if KDB barely played again this season if we went on to win a load of trophies for example. All I care is that we get the performances we want out of the players in whoever's spot they're taking.
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Yep, and not being like that is when you slip into the realms of favouritism. Which is exactly what gets thrown at Pep regarding certain players. So it seems he can’t win either way. He’s either got favourites or he’s being mean. He’s probably just doing what he thinks is best and that’s it.
 
twosips said:
I don't really get why anyone's arsed about Laporte not playing if we're not conceding goals.
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I don’t think that there’s been a problem between him and Pep.

Laporte has been struggling since returning from injury, picking up other injuries along the way. But as we didn’t have cover, he was continuously rushed back.
Now that we have the cover, I think he’s being given the time to recover his full fitness.
 
twosips said:
That's probably fair. He maybe is...but we're doing fine without him. If Pep thinks others are playing better/training better, and it looks justified on the pitch, well...maybe he's making the correct call?

We all know Stones *can* be world class if he focuses. We've seen signs of it before, and I guess Pep has seen enough recently to give him a go. The way I look at these things isn't 'why isn't Laporte playing?', instead I try and look at it from the view of 'oh class, stones is playing regularly because he's being brilliant'. Would rather just look at the positive tbh and let Pep handle Laporte.

Edit - honestly, I could not care less if KDB barely played again this season if we went on to win a load of trophies for example. All I care is that we get the performances we want out of the players in whoever's spot they're taking.
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I agree with most of that, mate. I am totally confident in Pep's people management ability and trust that he's doing the right thing.
 
Didsbury Dave said:
Something has gone on behind the scenes. Don't forget Laporte has a reputation for arrogance and being a loner.

Whilst Laporte is always in our strongest team, I'm assuming here that Pep is sending him a message and managing him with a bit of tough love. It's not fair to compare his situation with others. Sometimes players need to play themselves into form and confidence and a clever manager facilitates that. Pep has recently done it with Mahrez and Sterling in the past.

I expect Laporte back in the team soon. I'm hoping for Tuesday and then for the derby. If he comes back even better and more detirmined then Pep has delivered. I trust his player management.
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I'm not particularly sure there needs to have been anything behind the scenes that caused this.. We were defending poorly earlier in the season, but unfortunately for him our stiffening up in the back coincided with his drop and the inclusion big Stones.

Even if neither he nor John's form had anything to do with our improved play, it did happen. And the see no reason bto change a winning defense so long as it keeps up it's performance.

Laporte should and will simply have to wait till someone shows a loss of form to get back in.

No player should be guaranteed a starting role. Performance should determine that. Love Laporte but he can wait until a drop in form
 
twosips said:
I don't really get why anyone's arsed about Laporte not playing if we're not conceding goals.
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I know I'm repeating myself but here goes:

1- We've watched others play poorly for months and still get picked week after week.

2- Laporte not only gets dropped for four consecutive matches for one mistake but he is also effectively singled out by Guardiola - something which he's rarely ever done and something that he hasn't aimed at others despite continuous poor form.

3- During the 4 games he's not played a single minute in, Garcia has made 2 appearances.

4- The game before Spurs v Liverpool Laporte was excellent and him and Dias were starting to flourish and form a great centre back partnership. All this to me is just wasting time when these two could be building the best cb partnership seen in the prem in a long time. They are the absolute perfect combination.
 
Dax777 said:
I'm not particularly sure there needs to have been anything behind the scenes that caused this.. We were defending poorly earlier in the season, but unfortunately for him our stiffening up in the back coincided with his drop and the inclusion big Stones.

Even if neither he nor John's form had anything to do with our improved play, it did happen. And the see no reason bto change a winning defense so long as it keeps up it's performance.

Laporte should and will simply have to wait till someone shows a loss of form to get back in.

No player should be guaranteed a starting role. Performance should determine that. Love Laporte but he can wait until a drop in form
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Where have we defended poorly this season outside of the Leicester game when our cb's were Ake and Garcia?
 
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