Champions League Final | Post-Match Thread

[Bobby Heaton Moor]

 

[bluealf]

Swindon at home.

Mansfield Town in the little clubs cup :(

 

[Robinho's Subbuteo]

After last night

So anything other than a CL win is a crappy season?

 

[LesBleuMiserable]

The conclusion must be play any English team in chumps league and might as well stay at home, Liverpool, Spurs and now Chelsea…too much of a coincidence right?
We were the better team on every occasion and finished above them in the league.

 

[bluealf]

Another huge miss really :(

 

[WesthoughtonJohn]

It sounds like a mad idea but does someone higher up in the club need to veto his team selections for the biggest games? I’m still scratching my head about the line up. it makes no sense ....

No sir.
Pep is paid to make the decisions, and those above him trust him to get them right. It's his fellow coaching staff who should be having a word.
There's just something in his head with the CL currently where he's over thinking it. If he was a player the accusation would be "he's trying to hard"

 

[Beanhead]

No idea why there is a comparison between the line up last night & the FA Cup semi in terms of performance. For the FA Cup we had 1 DM and no other midfielders - last night we had a DM who has played nearly all season as an 8, where he has been exceptional. Having Gundo as 6 and Sterling wide, altered how all of the team played - including defensively - and we were massively exposed for every Chelsea counter. The press was inconsistent as a result as well. Both our FBs seemed outnumbered very quickly.

I'm not blaming Sterling, I just don't understand how his recent performances justified his starting spot, to the extent of altering the entire game plan. Regardless of the ball over the top idea.

Personally, I wanted Pep to play Ferna - Bernardo-Gundo, Foden-KDB-Mahrez and then just pass Chelsea into a dull stupor.

Exactly this. Complete mess of an approach. Sterling wasn’t to blame the system was. I was surprised to see him start, although his starting birth wasn’t the problem, a surprise maybe but the problem was who it shunted from the field. Sterling replaces Mahrez and the extra spot goes to Fern or Rodri and it’s a different game. During the match thread Sterling as usual got a lot of flack but whilst he wasn’t brilliant he was by no means anywhere near the worst. Kevin & Mahrez were particularly bad, Gundog reminiscent of his old self when called up on to fill a void that’s he’s just not comfortable with and Bernie worked hard without displaying any real quality. At least Sterling was in a battle and showed glimpses where he broke the lines for cut backs. Foden was the only attacking player who really showed any substantial quality.

The sad thing about it all was that was the only way we were going to get anything out of that game.. a moment of individual brilliance. Pep totally lost focus on his ideals for this game. Completely and somewhat bizarrely decided to ignore what has worked so very well for him since January. He should be kicking himself this morning. That was all on him.

 

[nellyonthewing]

Chelsea already knew from their recent victories over us that if they could run at our back line it lost shape. Taking out the defensive midfield screen was reckless and naive.

 

[Robinho's Subbuteo]

We’ve strengthened worth a couple hundred million onto an already good core and we only just reached our first final in which we made the same mistakes as before. You can’t just keep lumping money at the problem

Ok. What do you do then? Get a new manager in?

 

[Brightwell Bros.]

I'll guarantee you if he'd done that and we'd lost, everyone would be saying "Why didn't we change it for a team that have already beaten us twice" - last time they beat us Rodri and Ferdo started.

I'm honestly not sure it would be the same. I suspect some would have asked Aguero to come on earlier. Anyway, what's done is done.