Discuss Pellegrini (Pt 2)

[cleavers]

Can't believe you've spent time trying to analyse it."

Well I for one am grateful for JMW's analysis, and links, thanks.

I came out of the ground last night not knowing if we'd seen the best team I have ever seen beat us, and that this was the reason we looked so bad, or whether we were just that bloody poor, and made them look better than they were.

Having seen the graphs and analysis, I'm now more convinced than ever that it was our failings that contributed most, and Bayern benefitted from a damn poor showing from us. How we kept it to 1-3 I'm still not sure, and I'll bet Bayern felt the same way when they got on the plane. It was an embarrasing performance, simple as that.

 

[LoveCity]

I came out of the ground last night not knowing if we'd seen the best team I have ever seen beat us, and that this was the reason we looked so bad, or whether we were just that bloody poor, and made them look better than they were.

Well, even at our best we may not have been able to beat Bayern, but I think Robben's quote answers the question: "I didn't expect an easy game like that."

 

[cleavers]

Well, even at our best we may not have been able to beat Bayern, but I think Robben's quote answers the question: "I didn't expect an easy game like that."

I agree, even at our very best last night we would probably have not won, but we were so far short of "best" it was hard to understand.

I'm over it now, I hope that a lot of lessons were learned, that some flexibility is built in somehow, and that Everton will feel the rebound on Saturday, if we fail to perform, and win that game, MP's in for a torrid time, and not just from a few on here.

 

[Marvin]

I came out of the ground last night not knowing if we'd seen the best team I have ever seen beat us, and that this was the reason we looked so bad, or whether we were just that bloody poor, and made them look better than they were.

Well, even at our best we may not have been able to beat Bayern, but I think Robben's quote answers the question: "I didn't expect an easy game like that."

They didn't have to get out of 2nd gear to beat us

City's European demons haunting us

 

[JoeMercer'sWay]

Billy, explain to me the following:

The heatmaps of the City/Bayern game show that we had most of our limited possession within our own half. UEFA kindly listed us as playing 4-2-3-1, and Bayern 4-1-4-1. Sadly the system is not as good on the UEFA site as it used to be. I suggest you look at the live map and see the startling difference between the two teams:

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.uefa.com/match-centre/cup=1/season=2014/day=2/session=2/match=2011781/popout/pitchview.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.uefa.com/match-centre/cup=1/ ... hview.html</a>

I pointed out last season where Mancini's failings were. Look here and see just how badly we were dominated in key events:

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/season=2014/matches/round=2000479/match=2011781/postmatch/statistics/index.html#1/2014/2000479/2011781/pitch-view/influence" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague ... /influence</a>

Now look at the formation patterns:

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/season=2014/matches/round=2000479/match=2011781/postmatch/statistics/index.html#1/2014/2000479/2011781/pitch-view/team-shape/0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague ... am-shape/0</a>

In the first 15 minutes we clearly play 2 up top. And they're both on top of each other. We play essentially 4-1-3-2 with Fernandinho holding but really it's a triangular 3 with Nasri and Yaya with Navas doing his own thing on the right. We are lobsided to the right hand side of the pitch, with a tiny focal point. Bayern have a much more balanced shape. Lahm is essentially playing as a 3rd CB, they have the 2 wing backs and it allows Kroos and Schweinsteiger to get up towards the front 3. It becomes more of a front 5 because they're on the front foot and are keeping possession. They have close links to a team mate, especially down the left so they can interchange and pass quickly. Their passing arrows are forwards, ours are backwards because we couldn't keep the ball.

15-30 becomes more telling. City's shape has gone. Navas has become more isolated, Nasri, Yaya and Fern are close together but have drifted slightly left and Fern is directly behind Yaya. Aguero and Dzeko are still right next to each other. The back 4 is stretched. Bayern take full advantage. They move their back 4 over to the right, why? because that is where they are going to pounce and get the ball back off Nasri and Yaya. Dante always sits back and covers. They then have 2 batches of 3 in their front 6, why? so a player always has a teammate to pass to. You can also notice that if you put the two formations on top of each other then the Bayern trios are right in the 2 gaping holes City leave in midfield/defence. Between Nasri and Clichy and huge channel between the midfield trio and Navas and Micah. It is no surprise that Pep was up guiding his team through for large periods, his team have reacted and exploited the space they've created in City's ranks.

30-45 Bayern keep up that system, and there are still gaps but they are smaller and that's because the back 4 of City has finally shuffled closer together. It's a temporary fix and leads to a lull of some sorts in the attacking momentum bar for this period. Navas is still isolated and Aguero and Dzeko have been holding hands the entire half, anyone seeing this would obviously change?

45-60 and the killer phase. Bayern keep the shape but Kroos moves slightly to link the front 6 together more. Look how high up their midfielders are. They are dominant. City's back 4 stretches again, Nasri becomes more isolated as Yaya drifts back on top on Fern and Navas is still all on his own. Aguero and Dzeko still hold hands as Bayern kill the game.

60-75, for the first time in an hour that Bayern 6 splits and Ribery becomes a little isolated. Kroos has moved over further to the right to link with the right hand side trio. City suffer for the first 10 minutes but then make changes that alleviates some pressure. Milner sticks to the left finally bringing balance to Navas on the right. Silva slots in higher up the pitch and ends Aguero's bonding sessions with his strike partners. Yaya sits on Fern.

75-90, City's best spell. The tactical changes have worked as there is only Negredo up front and Silva has the team slightly higher up the pitch showing we have more of the ball. There are still too many spaces but it's an improvement, Navas finally has someone to pass to. Bayern are shutting up shop. Gotze goes up top more with Muller meaning there is now space for Micah and Navas to get forward at Alaba and exploit Dante. That nice defensive shape of Bayern is distorted slightly as Kirchoff comes on and confuses the shape with Lahm, they end up on top of each other. Whereas Schweinsteiger had kept forward the changes now allowed City out and onto the front foot, Yaya could move forward as 3 attacking players and in particular 1 attacking midfielder and 1 key wide man had come off. City were relieved of the Bayern screw and that's a big reason as to why we had a much better last quarter.

Sadly Billy the Malaga maps for last season are no longer on the UEFA website, but it's clear from the line-ups that they would at most have put Baptista up front on his own. He was braver in the home leg, playing Saviola as well, but Saviola hasn't been an out and out striker in a long time. On wednesday however there were clear errors tactically that weren't resolved for 70 minutes, leaving Bayern to work it out within 10 and dominate it for an hour.

Explain to me how Guardiola noticed what was wrong and Pellegrini didn't.

We know Bayern were totally dominant. Can't believe you've spent time trying to analyse it.

You cannot possibly conclude that City's change in shape was responsible for City's improvement in the last 15 minutes

Maybe Bayern knew the game was won. Or maybe Negredo's goal lifted spirits! Maybe that's too obvious!!

Go back over City's performances in Europe over the last 3 years. You'll find a common theme.

Put it another way, how many City fans first reasoned thought after Ribery's goal was "Not Again!"

If you don't analyse you don't see why and you don't learn, all you know is that it happened.

Our change in shape had a positive effect on our performance, Bayern's changes were also a strong contributing factor to our improvement. As always there are a number of factors, many resulting from often subtle tactical changes.

 

[Marvin]

Billy, explain to me the following:

The heatmaps of the City/Bayern game show that we had most of our limited possession within our own half. UEFA kindly listed us as playing 4-2-3-1, and Bayern 4-1-4-1. Sadly the system is not as good on the UEFA site as it used to be. I suggest you look at the live map and see the startling difference between the two teams:

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.uefa.com/match-centre/cup=1/season=2014/day=2/session=2/match=2011781/popout/pitchview.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.uefa.com/match-centre/cup=1/ ... hview.html</a>

I pointed out last season where Mancini's failings were. Look here and see just how badly we were dominated in key events:

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/season=2014/matches/round=2000479/match=2011781/postmatch/statistics/index.html#1/2014/2000479/2011781/pitch-view/influence" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague ... /influence</a>

Now look at the formation patterns:

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/season=2014/matches/round=2000479/match=2011781/postmatch/statistics/index.html#1/2014/2000479/2011781/pitch-view/team-shape/0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague ... am-shape/0</a>

In the first 15 minutes we clearly play 2 up top. And they're both on top of each other. We play essentially 4-1-3-2 with Fernandinho holding but really it's a triangular 3 with Nasri and Yaya with Navas doing his own thing on the right. We are lobsided to the right hand side of the pitch, with a tiny focal point. Bayern have a much more balanced shape. Lahm is essentially playing as a 3rd CB, they have the 2 wing backs and it allows Kroos and Schweinsteiger to get up towards the front 3. It becomes more of a front 5 because they're on the front foot and are keeping possession. They have close links to a team mate, especially down the left so they can interchange and pass quickly. Their passing arrows are forwards, ours are backwards because we couldn't keep the ball.

15-30 becomes more telling. City's shape has gone. Navas has become more isolated, Nasri, Yaya and Fern are close together but have drifted slightly left and Fern is directly behind Yaya. Aguero and Dzeko are still right next to each other. The back 4 is stretched. Bayern take full advantage. They move their back 4 over to the right, why? because that is where they are going to pounce and get the ball back off Nasri and Yaya. Dante always sits back and covers. They then have 2 batches of 3 in their front 6, why? so a player always has a teammate to pass to. You can also notice that if you put the two formations on top of each other then the Bayern trios are right in the 2 gaping holes City leave in midfield/defence. Between Nasri and Clichy and huge channel between the midfield trio and Navas and Micah. It is no surprise that Pep was up guiding his team through for large periods, his team have reacted and exploited the space they've created in City's ranks.

30-45 Bayern keep up that system, and there are still gaps but they are smaller and that's because the back 4 of City has finally shuffled closer together. It's a temporary fix and leads to a lull of some sorts in the attacking momentum bar for this period. Navas is still isolated and Aguero and Dzeko have been holding hands the entire half, anyone seeing this would obviously change?

45-60 and the killer phase. Bayern keep the shape but Kroos moves slightly to link the front 6 together more. Look how high up their midfielders are. They are dominant. City's back 4 stretches again, Nasri becomes more isolated as Yaya drifts back on top on Fern and Navas is still all on his own. Aguero and Dzeko still hold hands as Bayern kill the game.

60-75, for the first time in an hour that Bayern 6 splits and Ribery becomes a little isolated. Kroos has moved over further to the right to link with the right hand side trio. City suffer for the first 10 minutes but then make changes that alleviates some pressure. Milner sticks to the left finally bringing balance to Navas on the right. Silva slots in higher up the pitch and ends Aguero's bonding sessions with his strike partners. Yaya sits on Fern.

75-90, City's best spell. The tactical changes have worked as there is only Negredo up front and Silva has the team slightly higher up the pitch showing we have more of the ball. There are still too many spaces but it's an improvement, Navas finally has someone to pass to. Bayern are shutting up shop. Gotze goes up top more with Muller meaning there is now space for Micah and Navas to get forward at Alaba and exploit Dante. That nice defensive shape of Bayern is distorted slightly as Kirchoff comes on and confuses the shape with Lahm, they end up on top of each other. Whereas Schweinsteiger had kept forward the changes now allowed City out and onto the front foot, Yaya could move forward as 3 attacking players and in particular 1 attacking midfielder and 1 key wide man had come off. City were relieved of the Bayern screw and that's a big reason as to why we had a much better last quarter.

Sadly Billy the Malaga maps for last season are no longer on the UEFA website, but it's clear from the line-ups that they would at most have put Baptista up front on his own. He was braver in the home leg, playing Saviola as well, but Saviola hasn't been an out and out striker in a long time. On wednesday however there were clear errors tactically that weren't resolved for 70 minutes, leaving Bayern to work it out within 10 and dominate it for an hour.

Explain to me how Guardiola noticed what was wrong and Pellegrini didn't.

We know Bayern were totally dominant. Can't believe you've spent time trying to analyse it.

You cannot possibly conclude that City's change in shape was responsible for City's improvement in the last 15 minutes

Maybe Bayern knew the game was won. Or maybe Negredo's goal lifted spirits! Maybe that's too obvious!!

Go back over City's performances in Europe over the last 3 years. You'll find a common theme.

Put it another way, how many City fans first reasoned thought after Ribery's goal was "Not Again!"

If you don't analyse you don't see why and you don't learn, all you know is that it happened.

Our change in shape had a positive effect on our performance, Bayern's changes were also a strong contributing factor to our improvement. As always there are a number of factors, many resulting from often subtle tactical changes.

In this case, I believe the psychological impact of conceding goals at key times was much much more important than the shape of the team.

 

[Anonymous]

Winning is the best cure and, as you say, it can be a bit chicken and egg. However, getting the players to believe in his system and showing more belief in themselves will help; again winning helps with that. Last night, I do think Pellegrini got things wrong and that won't help the players' belief but, and I've said this before, if Pellegrini has an approach that he believes in and has proven to work in the past, chopping and changing in response to every setback, will show a lack of faith in his own methods and is no way to get his players to believe.

Some interesting sub plots in there.

You want the players to believe in MP's system.
He played his system last night I think you'd agree ?
His system was an utter flop last night, it would be hard to disagree ?
His system is proven to work in the past, so you want him to stick with it ?

I'm not being difficult, but its this 'there is only one sytstem' thing that probably worries most of us, most of all, it seems to have worked against Newcastle, United, Plzen, and to a degree Villa, barring the individual f*ck ups costing us the game, but its has definitely failed against Cardiff, and Hull in the PL, and last night against Bayern. The worrying bit, is his lack of flexibility when its clearly going wrong, last night changes should have been made after 20 minutes, it was obvious to everyone in the stadium.

Different games need flexibility in systems, both from one game to another and even within games. At Villa for instance, having been so dominant, and having seen them equalise, and us go back in front, why not just make sure of the result. Last night watching 6 on 2 in midfield, why not change things, to at least stem the tide ?

I'm still pretty neutral on MP, but I want to see more flexibility in this so called system, I'm not sure what our two fullbacks were meant to be doing last night, but whatever it was it failed miserably, they neither helped the 2 centrebacks, as they were frequently drawn out of position to cover them, they didn't help the midfielders, a couple of extra bodies would have been useful, and they didn't get forward to help supply our two strikers either. Yes Bayern were good, but there is no way their 11 should have dominted our 11 so comprehensively, and that was down to the system failing badly from the 8th minute, it looked clueless, and the team rudderless.

Bizarrely, for a man of your intelligence, you are much better than that post. Whether we like or admit it, alarm bells are ringing. I want Manuel to breeze through with flying colours but the bell tolls differently at the moment.

 

[NQCitizen]

I came out of the ground last night not knowing if we'd seen the best team I have ever seen beat us, and that this was the reason we looked so bad, or whether we were just that bloody poor, and made them look better than they were.

Well, even at our best we may not have been able to beat Bayern, but I think Robben's quote answers the question: "I didn't expect an easy game like that."

They didn't have to get out of 2nd gear to beat us

City's European demons haunting us

Yet we hadn't actually lost at home in europe for ages until last night.

 

[cleavers]

Winning is the best cure and, as you say, it can be a bit chicken and egg. However, getting the players to believe in his system and showing more belief in themselves will help; again winning helps with that. Last night, I do think Pellegrini got things wrong and that won't help the players' belief but, and I've said this before, if Pellegrini has an approach that he believes in and has proven to work in the past, chopping and changing in response to every setback, will show a lack of faith in his own methods and is no way to get his players to believe.

Some interesting sub plots in there.

You want the players to believe in MP's system.
He played his system last night I think you'd agree ?
His system was an utter flop last night, it would be hard to disagree ?
His system is proven to work in the past, so you want him to stick with it ?

I'm not being difficult, but its this 'there is only one sytstem' thing that probably worries most of us, most of all, it seems to have worked against Newcastle, United, Plzen, and to a degree Villa, barring the individual f*ck ups costing us the game, but its has definitely failed against Cardiff, and Hull in the PL, and last night against Bayern. The worrying bit, is his lack of flexibility when its clearly going wrong, last night changes should have been made after 20 minutes, it was obvious to everyone in the stadium.

Different games need flexibility in systems, both from one game to another and even within games. At Villa for instance, having been so dominant, and having seen them equalise, and us go back in front, why not just make sure of the result. Last night watching 6 on 2 in midfield, why not change things, to at least stem the tide ?

I'm still pretty neutral on MP, but I want to see more flexibility in this so called system, I'm not sure what our two fullbacks were meant to be doing last night, but whatever it was it failed miserably, they neither helped the 2 centrebacks, as they were frequently drawn out of position to cover them, they didn't help the midfielders, a couple of extra bodies would have been useful, and they didn't get forward to help supply our two strikers either. Yes Bayern were good, but there is no way their 11 should have dominted our 11 so comprehensively, and that was down to the system failing badly from the 8th minute, it looked clueless, and the team rudderless.

Bizarrely, for a man of your intelligence, you are much better than that post. Whether we like or admit it, alarm bells are ringing. I want Manuel to breeze through with flying colours but the bell tolls differently at the moment.

As you haven't picked out what you think is wrong from my post, in fact I'm not sure you've read it all, I can't really respond, however for the record it wasn't meant to knock OB1's post, it was meant to drag some debate back into the thread genuine questions that people might have had an opinion on, slate them by all means if you disagree.

Do you not agree that MP needs to have more flexibility in this so called system ? Do you not agree that our fullbacks last night were awful, out of position and of little use to the team, much like the forwards, who as JMW's diagrams show, spent most of the time holding hands in their half, looking back at the disaster unfolding some distance behind them ? Then again only three weeks ago, I posted on here that I'd probably seen one of the best performances I'd ever seen, albeit against a poor united team, but we were as dominant in that game as Bayern were last night. We did play well at Plzen in the second half, and our reserves dismantled Wigan's reserves, which I took as a positive because all to often our reserves fail to turn up in thos games.

Like you I want him to succeed, I want us to succeed actually, and I don't really care that much who manages the success if I'm honest. I'm not pro or anti MP, much as I wasn't with the previous manager though by the end of last season I thought his time was up.

 

[andyhinch]

Winning is the best cure and, as you say, it can be a bit chicken and egg. However, getting the players to believe in his system and showing more belief in themselves will help; again winning helps with that. Last night, I do think Pellegrini got things wrong and that won't help the players' belief but, and I've said this before, if Pellegrini has an approach that he believes in and has proven to work in the past, chopping and changing in response to every setback, will show a lack of faith in his own methods and is no way to get his players to believe.

Some interesting sub plots in there.

You want the players to believe in MP's system.
He played his system last night I think you'd agree ?
His system was an utter flop last night, it would be hard to disagree ?
His system is proven to work in the past, so you want him to stick with it ?

I'm not being difficult, but its this 'there is only one sytstem' thing that probably worries most of us, most of all, it seems to have worked against Newcastle, United, Plzen, and to a degree Villa, barring the individual f*ck ups costing us the game, but its has definitely failed against Cardiff, and Hull in the PL, and last night against Bayern. The worrying bit, is his lack of flexibility when its clearly going wrong, last night changes should have been made after 20 minutes, it was obvious to everyone in the stadium.

Different games need flexibility in systems, both from one game to another and even within games. At Villa for instance, having been so dominant, and having seen them equalise, and us go back in front, why not just make sure of the result. Last night watching 6 on 2 in midfield, why not change things, to at least stem the tide ?

I'm still pretty neutral on MP, but I want to see more flexibility in this so called system, I'm not sure what our two fullbacks were meant to be doing last night, but whatever it was it failed miserably, they neither helped the 2 centrebacks, as they were frequently drawn out of position to cover them, they didn't help the midfielders, a couple of extra bodies would have been useful, and they didn't get forward to help supply our two strikers either. Yes Bayern were good, but there is no way their 11 should have dominted our 11 so comprehensively, and that was down to the system failing badly from the 8th minute, it looked clueless, and the team rudderless.

Bizarrely, for a man of your intelligence, you are much better than that post. Whether we like or admit it, alarm bells are ringing. I want Manuel to breeze through with flying colours but the bell tolls differently at the moment.

Just give him a chance and give him a bit of time, he's the incumbent. There's a lot of reasons why some of use have concerns, but I've never been a flapper, I'm fucked if I'll start now. For the record I think he's proving to be a bit of a useless ****, hope I'm proved wrong, I'm trying to look forward to Neverton with some trepidation tbh.