I think he must have realised that Chelsea would break on us. I think he had some crazy idea that OK this will happen, but they will be out of position and my team will kill them on the transition. There must have been some rationale to it.
It annoys me that whatever the plan was it was clear that Chelsea were looking very likely to score and we had Rodri and Fernandinho on the bench and we didn't do anything.
We are never going to understand this.
I hope Pep recovers from this. It is very very damaging. A coaching failure if ever there was one.
But on the other hand the league season was a personal Pep triumph. I think we have to accept that our coach is a genius but he makes mistakes like us all.
I don't understand where the criticism of certain players is coming from. Those who question Sterling are being very unreasonable. I thought he was OK.
There are times when an extra defensive player adds coherence to your attack. We were so open we allowed Chelsea to get to 50-50 possession in the first half. Did we play a really bad offensive game? I don't think so. When you play against a 5-2-3 you are not going to slice through them. You are looking for 3-4 moments in a game, an you restrict their breaks. We totally lost control of that 1st half and it stemmed entirely from the tactical decision.
To be honest I don't know where Gundogan played. Did he play in the position where Rodri/Fernandinho would have played? We needed cover. If he was playing that role then why would you choose him over Rodri, or Fernandinho. Gundogan is not particularly good at defensive cover.
There is no point trying to 2nd guess what Pep was doing. I just hope he recovers.
At least we wont have to worry about complacency next season.