supercity88
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 9 Aug 2009
- Messages
- 13,560
You make some good points. However, to suggest that it's Pellegrini's fault that players weren't moving, and he should have been screaming for them to move is a bit lame. Why do Professional footballers playing in a CL semi need to be shouted at to move? Unless of course they have had movement "coached out of them" by Pellers?
They shouldn't have to be coached to move. But as they weren't the boss has to bollock them doesn't he?! We ran out of ideas before the game kicked off. There were no options to pass to other than centre back to full back, full back to winger, winger back to full back and so on. With the occasional use of Yaya Toure. It was so easy for Real to mark us because no one was even attempting to find space. This was the case right up to 90 minutes and despite Sterling making a few good attempts to create something, we still lacked the passion and hunger to try and do anything with the ball. In the first leg I thought it was a gameplan Pellegrini had implemented to ensure we didn't over commit players and get caught out.
In the second leg it was clear the team was just bereft of ideas. Of course the players should know to keep moving and try to find space, the manager shouldn't have to do that. But at half time Pellegrini needed to be absolutely bollocking the team because of it. He should have said "guys you are one goal away from a final in the CL, a final we can win, get out there and fight for the ball, hunt it down and when we win it move into space". Instead, clearly he thought it was a good performance and we were unlucky!!! Some might suggest he only said that to make sure the players didn't feel even lower, but I genuinely think he believed we played well!
You can rest assured, Guardiola will not sit and watch his City side play with that lack of movement for 90 minutes. He'll be up in his technical area screaming instructions, he'll be pulling players over to tell them his instructions and he'll haul players off if they don't perform whether they're a kid from the academy or a £30m striker underperforming.