Champions League with Pep

The Chelsea game didnt bother me as much and I understood the team selection due to issues with the referee in the past (how many other Champions League finals has the managers press conference been dominated by questions over the referees history of wrong decisions against a specific manager over a number of seasons with different teams), especially after Rudiger was allowed to take Kev out of the game without sanction.
The 2 Liverpool semi-finals were the worst as they were just blatantly fixed by the referees and Liverpools expert use of the 'dark arts'. That these games effectively denied players like Vinnie, Fernando, and Silva a shot at the final purely down to who owned the club and who the manager was is utterly disgusting. Our fight with UEFA certainly spilled over on to the pitch in this period.
The other times we went out we didn't play very well and that happens in cups, although there was some dodgy decisions on the Lyon game and, obviously, in the Real Madrid games but that goes without saying for any team playing Franco's Fascists.
The Champions League in particular has been a bit of a joke for over 25 years in my opinion, there has only been about 5 teams win it without using diving, timewasting and assorted shithousery or a bit of a push from referees and that style of play used to suit European teams more than British ones, aside from Liverpool, see Mourinho's Inter and pretty much every Real Madrid win for examples.
 
The Chelsea one still bothers me when I think about it.

We fucked that up. It was an avoidable loss and Pep's selection and tactics were poor.

So I do think he somewhat underachieved in the CL just on the basis of making that final a much harder job than it needed to be.

I think he should have won 2 but I'll take 1. Still a great achievement.
 
I recall some horrendous decisions against us in CL the Liverpool games for me looked like stitch ups.
That said Pep made the worst decisions by dropping Fern & Rodri for the final v Chelsea, we were a far better team than Chelsea & the team that played well all season should have been selected, also the drug driver didn’t help either.
But we can’t complain getting the monkey off our back. The journos used to delight in saying we had never won the CL so when we won it I was delighted. Thanks for that Pep.
 
I recall some horrendous decisions against us in CL the Liverpool games for me looked like stitch ups.
That said Pep made the worst decisions by dropping Fern & Rodri for the final v Chelsea, we were a far better team than Chelsea & the team that played well all season should have been selected, also the drug driver didn’t help either.
But we can’t complain getting the monkey off our back. The journos used to delight in saying we had never won the CL so when we won it I was delighted. Thanks for that Pep.
The greatest manager of all time won 2 in 27 years as he wasnt afforded the same benefits in this competition, same as SetPieceFC this season.
 
6 Premier Leagues, 3 FA Cup, (8 consecutive SF's, 4 consecutive finals), 5 League Cups, 1 CL, the domestic treble,THE treble and, undoubtedly, THE best team England has ever seen.
Meanwhile, serial CL winners Real Madrid have won the CL 3 times in that time, 3 Spanish Leagues and 1 Spanish Cup. On balance I'd take ours over theirs every day of the week...
 
It's a knockout competition so you need luck as we did in Istanbul.
Var and bent refs screwed us a few times, and the odd brain part from Pep lol.

Has a better record then pisscan who the press/media think is better then Pep the fucking knobheads
 
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Covid season exit to Lyon still terrifies me
He overthought that after Bayern ( was it iirc) mullered Barca about 6-0 or something. If we had beaten Lyon I think we were scheduled to meet Bayern in the next round.

Tbf refs did us - again. One of their goals was immediately following a foul on Aymer Laporte and by rights should have been disallowed.

But a few weeks earlier we had just successfully challenged UEFA with the CAS outcome....

Porto gives me PTSD.

We were shafted v Dips and Spuds.

Unlucky v Real in 2022 conceding those late goals from Rodrygo and then surprise, surprise Real get awarded a winning penalty and extra time strangely is not played to the full time.

But boy when we finally triumphed we did it in style agsinst all of the 'best teams' in Europe. No favourable draws for us unlike slimy Arsanal.

So with a better rub of the green and minus one Pepbrsinfart i reckon we would have won in 2019, 2021 and 2022. We had an elite team in those days......
 
It's just one reason I didn't want Arsenal to win, being handed a knockout run that involved Sporting, Leverkusen and Athletico was just too soft. If they won that it'd just be too soft. You need to beat a City, Madrid, Barcelona, Munich, Inter, Juve, Milan, even Liverpool or United, on the way. Some of those teams aren't great ATM, but putting them out still means something. Winning a Champions League without it would have been too soft.

I agree 100% and it was doing my nut in the thought of them 'winning' it so easily.

I dont like Spitty but to my knowledge he is the only person in the msm who has said what we all know that Arsanal had very favourable draws and to be worthy Euro Champions you need to be beating the big teams in the ko stages. Hes bang on right.
 
We should have won it in 2021…
And also in 2022, 2 goals ahead going into added time in the 2nd leg of the semi final and blew it. We would have beaten Liverpool. Then Istanbul would have been 3 on the trot… imagine what could have been.
Pep would’ve left before the treble I reckon if we’d done the first two back to back. I’m happy we got the monkey off our back and I was there to witness it, personally can’t stand the competition I always thought it was rigged to certain teams, the new format stops this, but it’s still a glorified cup competition usually won by a team who hasn’t won their own league that season.
 
Think we could have done 3-in a row in a different universe. Got pipped by Madrid in the last minute and didn’t show up in Porto. Things could have gone very differently.
 
The Dippers games were up there with the finest match fixing since Chelsea v Barcelona. Giving us the Spanish ref when Pep was in the news for Catalan;s independence, the coach attack and the disgraceful cheating in both legs. 2nd leg pulled it back to 1 to wrongly have the 2nd goal ruled out for offsider. Again total corruption.
Then the Spurs game with their handball goal which Var allowed and we were only shown the handball in plain sight after the game, apparently VAR didn't have access to that angle and then our goal ruled out for offside right at the end.
Hard to win the CL as many time as some when blatant cheating goes on for them and we were cheated out of potentially 2 more finals
 
Unlucky v Real in 2022 conceding those late goals from Rodrygo and then surprise, surprise Real get awarded a winning penalty and extra time strangely is not played to the full time.
Of course they got awarded a penalty when Dias completely lost his mind and gave them one. Mind that collapse would never have happened had Grealish been able to show any composure when he was through on goal twice. If Pep was guilty of anything that night it was not lifting them for the extra 30 minutes. there was a look of resignation on his face. The chelsea debacle was on him.
 
1. Going toe to toe with a very good Monaco side in the second leg when we were 2 goals to the good.

2. Playing 3 at the back against Lyon for the first time.

3. Playing our top scorer (Gundo) as defensive midfielder to accommodate an out of form Sterling in the Chelsea final.

4. Playing a complete 2nd string against Leverkusen this season.

5. Going to Madrid this season and playing 3 wingers when there's only 2 fuckin wings.

Apart from that, please come back Pep.
 

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