Discuss Pellegrini...(cont)

[jimharri]

Nicked (shamelessly so!) off the Sunderland forum;

 

[MCFCinUSA]

I like this one, although Sam's not got as much hair as the original & Gollum's looking a little too clean:

 

[Ducado]

I really am enjoying watching Atletico tonight, as I have all season, I reckon City should be lining Simeone up for next season, of the one after.... His style is not too far from our own Manuel's ,

We should do well to learn from our skulky neighbours and put a decent succession plan in place... If we can!

We will not be changing managers any time soon

 

[MCFCinUSA]

I really am enjoying watching Atletico tonight, as I have all season, I reckon City should be lining Simeone up for next season, of the one after.... His style is not too far from our own Manuel's ,

We should do well to learn from our skulky neighbours and put a decent succession plan in place... If we can!

We will not be changing managers any time soon

you tell him...

 

[johnson28392]

I really am enjoying watching Atletico tonight, as I have all season, I reckon City should be lining Simeone up for next season, of the one after.... His style is not too far from our own Manuel's ,

We should do well to learn from our skulky neighbours and put a decent succession plan in place... If we can!

Atletico play the 4-2-2-2 better than anyone else.

But I don't believe we should go for another foreign manager. I prefer English management and a squad with mostly English players.

If Pellegrini fails (which I don't think he will), we must consider Harry Rednapp.

 

[Plain Speaking]

I really am enjoying watching Atletico tonight, as I have all season, I reckon City should be lining Simeone up for next season, of the one after.... His style is not too far from our own Manuel's ,

We should do well to learn from our skulky neighbours and put a decent succession plan in place... If we can!

Totally agree, the manager is the most important appointment at a club.

Simeone has done wonders at AM. He has lifted good players to be excellent players. However the CL final goes, Simeone will be hotly pursued.

Successful manager's extend their own personality, intelligence, organisation, passion and confidence into their teams. So good to see Jose Mourinho out-managed on a fraction of their budget!

 

[Dribble]

One thing I will say though is that Sunday's performance was absolutely perfect. I'm not a fan of 4-4-2, but Last November Pellegrini made the slight change whereby Dzeko started dropping deep into midfield when we were defending which saw the beginning of our unbeaten run. A few more pragmatic performances like Palace away throughout the season and any argument over MP would have been long done and dusted imho.

Lose beautifully or win ugly?
Something changed on Sunday and hopefully its the realisation that a win is the most important thing, for me how we do it comes second. With the squad we have, we'll always get the chance to turn on the style but imho it should never be at the risk of losing. Style with pragmatism is the perfect balance and one shouldn't need to compromise the other if applied how we did on Sunday.

It is vital that Javi Garcia starts , but you just never know with Pellegrini, he could easily start the disastrous Toure/Fernandinho midfield.

It's late and I've had a long day and in the absence of a smiley :-) I can't quite tell if you're taking the piss or not. Garcia has done well in the last couple of months, but come July I'd still jettison him to the highest bidder. Gimme Fernandinho anytime mate.

If you're referring to Yaya & Dinho in a 2 man midfield, Yaya isn't suited to it imho. Yaya in a 3 man midfield where his defensive duties are akin to that of a No 10, yes. He just doesn't have that busy box to box style for a 2 man midfield and I feel it's where we've struggled on numerous occasions this season. We need another like Dinho and like Yaya tbh, because when either is missing we seem to lose a little something.

 

[Shaelumstash]

Naturally I want us win the league no matter who our manager is.

But for the record, I still don't think Pellegrini is the right manager, IF we win the league this season, it will be solely down to the players hunger/desire to win it again DESPITE our rather inept manager.

I kind of agree with what you are saying, but it's rather unfair to say it is solely down to the players. The manager deserves some credit if we win the league, of course he does.

What I find strange is that some people seem to be giving Pellegrini credit for Chelsea beating Liverpool, allowing us back in to the title race. I don't think that's anything to do with our manager. We were very professional in winning at Palace, and although we would be expected to win that game anyway in any other season, he still got the job done, so deserves credit for that.

We are 3 games away from our best season ever, and of course every genuine Blue hopes we win all 3 of those games, and Pellegrini will rightly go down as a club legend if we achieve that.

But in my opinion, we also certainly have our best team ever, player for player. Hart is 27, Kompany 28, Zabba 29, Fernandinho 28, Yaya 30, Nasri 26, Silva 28, Aguero 25, Negredo 28, Dzeko 28. All of our big players are at / approaching their peak. We should be winning leagues now with this collection of players.

The manager deserves great credit for the improved squad harmony and the amount of goals we have scored. But on the flip side, he must also carry the can for us being tactically naive, and defensively vulnerable in some big games.

Personally I'd say the manager was directly responsible for the losses against Cardiff, Bayern, Chelsea, Liverpool and Sunderland due to his tactical naiveté. Others are entitled to disagree, but that is my opinion. I don't think you can blame the players for not being up to it in those games, I think they were sent out and did their best while following the manager's instructions.

Sometimes they were the wrong tactics for the players we had available (Cardiff and Sunderland) sometimes they were the wrong tactics for the teams we were facing (Bayern and Liverpool) and sometimes it was both (Chelsea).

I personally think that with a top manager, with this selection of players, at this stage of their career's, we would have won the league comfortably by 6 or 8 points.

I will be happy to congratulate the manager on a job well done if he wins the league, even his biggest detractors must surely be humble and gracious enough to do that. Unfortunately I doubt his biggest supporters would be so gracious to admit he has underachieved if we don't win the league.

Anyway, let's hope it never comes to that. I'd much rather win the league and have the cabal revelling in a year of self-congratulatory back slapping than the alternative.

 

[johnson28392]

One thing I will say though is that Sunday's performance was absolutely perfect. I'm not a fan of 4-4-2, but Last November Pellegrini made the slight change whereby Dzeko started dropping deep into midfield when we were defending which saw the beginning of our unbeaten run. A few more pragmatic performances like Palace away throughout the season and any argument over MP would have been long done and dusted imho.

Lose beautifully or win ugly?
Something changed on Sunday and hopefully its the realisation that a win is the most important thing, for me how we do it comes second. With the squad we have, we'll always get the chance to turn on the style but imho it should never be at the risk of losing. Style with pragmatism is the perfect balance and one shouldn't need to compromise the other if applied how we did on Sunday.

It is vital that Javi Garcia starts , but you just never know with Pellegrini, he could easily start the disastrous Toure/Fernandinho midfield.

It's late and I've had a long day and in the absence of a smiley :-) I can't quite tell if you're taking the piss or not. Garcia has done well in the last couple of months, but come July I'd still jettison him to the highest bidder. Gimme Fernandinho anytime mate.

If you're referring to Yaya & Dinho in a 2 man midfield, Yaya isn't suited to it imho. Yaya in a 3 man midfield where his defensive duties are akin to that of a No 10, yes. He just doesn't have that busy box to box style for a 2 man midfield and I feel it's where we've struggled on numerous occasions this season. We need another like Dinho and like Yaya tbh, because when either is missing we seem to lose a little something.

Garcia is better than Fernandinho in the holding role.

Fernandinho is not a holding midfielder, I'm surprised that people think he is one .. he is never a holding midfielder.. this is a role he's tried this season and it is fair to say that he did okay in the first half of the season but in the second half of the season, something happened to him .. I think for now he should watch from the sidelines.

 

[oppa gangnam style]

I just hope he will prove he is not a nearly man. We had a big chance when Chelsea home/Norwich away games could have been won we did 1 point from that two games.
Then we did than hard job by beating Chelsea out of the cup but all for losing vs Wigan next round.

CL was poor, a pretty shit Barca didnt even gave us a chance.

Since than we had good form in the league and at the Pool game we had fantastic chance as long as we would have been able to get a draw at least.
We lost and on top of that we drew vs a shit Sunderland at home right after that.
(its interesting as we needed big reaction after chelsea loss but what a poor game that Norwich-City 0-0 was, hardly a reaction..., and then loss to Pool and again what a reaction vs Sunderland at home we nearly lost...)

Now again we have a huge chance, 3 games, 3 wins and title is ours after it looked like we lost it and we fight for 2nd place.

I just hope Pelle is not a nearly man and will know how to win 3 games. Everton is a fucking boogey team, no matter how better we are they just come up with a performance at home that is very hard to beat and we cant be naive, cant be slow, we have to match their desire big time, we have to be aggressive but also stable at the back, I would hope we go even with a 3 man midfield even if it is too pragmatic for Pelle.

We still can throw this title away, not easy to win 3 games in a row, under this pressure especially. But someone has to win the league and only one will deserve it.

Pelle looks calm if the team can be calm and none of the brainfarts happen like Kompany/Hart did in big games, and tactics will be spot on we should win the league.