Discuss Pellegrini (Pt 2)

[mancity1]

Mentality is a real issue, and my biggest concern at the club.

We have players that have pretty much got away with a season of underperformance because they blamed everything on the manager.

We have players texting journos badmouthing the manager.

Its an easy cop out for them and it wouldnt surprise me if stories dont start coming out about Pellegrini if our form doesnt pick up.

Its the sort of thing that has to be cut out of the club. Look at the difference between the mentality of the rags this year and last. Does anyone believe that they would have reacted to a derby defeat of that nature by losing to West Brom at home?

It's not just down to Ferguson being a far superior manager, its down to their players knowing that they will carry the can for underperformances. No-one else.

Not sure that is the case now eith the easy cop out of Moyes to blame. Not sure our players are any different in that regard either.

It gets back to what you have been saying for many a blue moon now Moomba and that is the players have to be accountable for the things they can control on match days.

You cannot blame it all on the manager and expect things to improve , if anything it will make a bad situation worse.

For all of RM's weaknesses he always put the team first before himself and in part paid the ultimate price for doing so.

Maybe it was naive to go to the press and say where he thought individuals went wrong and you saw how the press who want to put added pressure on MP are going with the same line will not buy into that most likely because he as been already told from above what is expected in that regard and probably doesn't suffer from foot and mouth disease as much as RM in anycase but RM said what we all knew.

Nasri for one admitted as such but didn't at least publicly blame Mancini.

He didn't rate Sinclair and he told us well blow me down with a feather as if we didn't know that.

He thought Hart could improve and he was right he could but would he.

Look whats happened to Hart since RM left .......

Little is ever gained by shooting the messenger.

 

[Anonymous]

Might be booze blues from last night's shenanigans but I've got that feeling I had when Leslie was in charge, that it won't end well. Hope we steamroller Everton but it's going to be a very tough one.

If it's true then the out'ers will get their wish and Pellegrini really will be gone by Christmas. Be interesting to see how long the next guy gets ...

Think I need to dig out Hunter's piece on the Durham show about Pellers yet again to give myself a bit of reassurance.

Dig out any of the things written by the Spanish based journos about Pellegrini. Hopefully once you've read them again you'll realise quite how offensive comparing him to Hughes is :)<br /><br />-- Fri Oct 04, 2013 1:22 pm --<br /><br />

I know we have to give him time in the league but not Europe, was Europe not the reason he was brought in.

Again ... we lost to the holders of the cup who were awesome. I think we all expected to give them a game ... but the reality is our fate in the group will be decided by results against CSKA. Bayern was always a nice bonus if we were to beat them but ultimately not terminal losing to them. That doesn't btw mitigate any of the mistakes Pellegrini made. Just that right now it's about getting out of the group.

 

[BobKowalski]

Not good enough for us im afraid, and a boring one as well. Any chance to take Mancini back and do a Jose?

We've been beaten by the best team in the world, having just humbled the defending PL champions and the manager isn't good enough? Fuck me, I despair.

I don't despair but I do think there's a fair few who'll have to reevaluate their thoughts on the manager in a few months time. Putting aside the obvious five or six who had made their mind's up before he was appointed, i can fully understandable that there's concern at what went down on Wednesday from many. But it's so early in the season and there is so much football to be played that writing any manager with a top squad off at this juncture if folly.

Pellegrini needs to show he can adapt when things aren't going according to plan A ... so far we've been lucky in that it was only against Bayern that this was cruelly exposed. He's got plenty of time to put the performance right and get the right results.

There may be a re-evaluation of Pellers. I don't know anyone who dislikes the guy or will have a problem if we are seeing Pellers in a different and more positive light. There is no real antipathy towards him as there was with Hughes or Mancini.

For me though its a nonsense to say you cannot judge a manager after a handful of games. I judge a manager based on the mentality he brings to the club. I knew after a handful of games that Hughes would never cut it because he isn't a leader. He didn't have the obsessive drive, focus and sheer bloodymindedness to turn the cash into silver. After a handful of games you knew Mancini had all of that and more. Khaldoon's after season chats made me smile as he praised all and sundry and all he said about Roberto was that he never met anyone with such a drive to win. What actually meant was "Roberto is a fucking pain in the arse but it works and we need it right now".

Forget tactics, style of play and the glory of finishing second. Judge them on the mentality and are they serial winners. Sometimes you can spot it in the first 45mins of a the first game. Hodgson at Liverpool. Just didn't look or feel right. Hodgson never looked comfortable and it showed on the pitch. I did wonder if Pellers and some TLC might not be a bad thing for the us at this stage in our development and 3 years of the Mancini bootcamp. Secoond game against Cardiff and chucking away a lead and conceding 3 goals and I wondered no more.

PB talks about facing the best side on the planet and what could we do apart from wring out hands and plead to give it time. Well you can fight for one. And you can give the players the framework in which to put up a fight. Do what Chelsea did against the same side. We both lost but the difference in the way we lost was like night and day. The reaction to losing was markedly different. They were dejected, frustrated, annoyed at having just lost. We said 'well what could we do?'

I am quick to make judgements and if I am wrong on Pellers then happy days. I have nothing against Pellers. I am relaxed on Pellers. He works out then great. If not well we get someone else. Shit happens.

 

[RP2]

The number of competitive games Pelligrini has been in charge for is in single figures. He is still new, still learning, and the players are still learning from him.

Yet we destroyed Newcastle, and the current champions.

Yes, we got destroyed by Bayern - but name one other team who might have beat them on Wednesday night, in the form they were in?

Give the man a chance

 

[moomba]

Yes, we got destroyed by Bayern - but name one other team who might have beat them on Wednesday night, in the form they were in?

Give the man a chance

I dont think too many would be overly critical if we had lost to BM, it was just the manner we lost is hard to take.

It was just one game, and the performance wasnt all his fault but he has to take a large amount of responsibility for it.

Hopefully many lessons were learned that night.

 

[tolmie's hairdoo]

Be good to see the crowd get behind a few people tomorrow, including the manager.

Think he, Hart and the rest of the players do need to see and hear that?

A win tomorrow against difficult opposition, however it comes, will brighten the picture and the league table.

Anything else, come the final whistle,and it would have to be fair game.

 

[BobKowalski]

The number of competitive games Pelligrini has been in charge for is in single figures. He is still new, still learning, and the players are still learning from him.

Yet we destroyed Newcastle, and the current champions.

Yes, we got destroyed by Bayern - but name one other team who might have beat them on Wednesday night, in the form they were in?

Give the man a chance

Being new, still learning doesn't count for shit any more than it does for Moyes or Jose. At this level you have to keep winning. Mancini takes over at Galatasaray the eve of the CL game and he has to get a result. There is no 'well I'll sit in the stands and evaluate the team and learn what I can' bollocks. He has to get them ready and get a result. There is no hiding place although currently we are building one with us seemingly happy to accept a top 3 finish and get out the Group stages as a ' good season'. I'm pretty sure we will have Vincent tweeting to this effect at some stage.

Its all about Mentality. It always fucking is.

 

[Danamy]

When we go behind we don't have the fortitude to get back into the contest..

This has been an issue for a long time. How many games where we go behind do we actually go on to draw let alone win?

When we went 3-2 down at Villa and 2-1 down at Cardiff you just knew we wouldn't get anything from the games.

It's like the players think "oh shit what do we do now?"

I'm not sure it has been a problem for a long time to be honest. Maybe its because we didn't used to go behind that often but when we did we seemed to bounce back. Fulham away last season we went behind to a ludicrous penalty decision and won. WBA away we were a man down and went behind late on and went on to win it with a goal in ET from Edin. Even in the derby when we went 2-0 down we played well and fought back to 2-2 before that freekick.

Perhaps significantly these performances were earlier in the season. Once the speculation grew about Mancini being on his way out in the latter part of the season (and it had to common knowledge to the players as Rodwell admitted to doing some research on Pellers once his name started to be linked) then some of the edge seemed to disappear from the performances. I'm pretty sure Mancini also knew and thereafter everyone was just acting out their respective parts until the curtain came down.

Along with others on here the mentality of the squad is bit of an issue for me and mentality comes from the top. The culture and mentality of any organisation always reflects and comes down from the man in charge and at the moment I don't like what I see. From the back end of last season and right throughout this one we seem to have lost some steel. some edge and that is a concern as much as the tactical cockup on Wednesday. You can fix tactics. Fixing mentality is much more difficult.

I have seen BM twice this season. On Wednesday and earlier against Chelsea. The difference in approach and attitude were polar opposites. Chelsea fought and scrapped and took BM to the wire. Jose and Pep were both on the sidelines determined to extract the maximum out of their teams and beat the other. Jose v Pep is a no holds barred grudge match and it showed. With us? Pep patronised the fuck out of Pellers and BM patronised us on the pitch. It was all sweetness and light and swapping love notes. Pep didn't even break into a sweat. BM were excellent but by christ we made them look good. And whats worse we have Sergio saying there was nothing we could do. BM were just too good. Seriously just fuck off with that attitude. If thats the players reaction then we are fucked. You think Chelsea would be going round saying 'oh well nothing we could do?' You think Jose would tolerate it for a second from his players? Would he bollocks.

Is that a Mourinho in post Bob? ;-)

 

[Ducado]

Be good to see the crowd get behind a few people tomorrow, including the manager.

Think he, Hart and the rest of the players do need to see and hear that?

A win tomorrow against difficult opposition, however it comes, will brighten the picture and the league table.

Anything else, come the final whistle,and it would have to be fair game.

Quite agree, but I suspect that quite a few of us had quite a shock on Wednesday night, horses for courses really; if he and the team give the crowd something to cheer about they will cheer and get behind them (see the Derby).

I want to see a real reaction from everyone on that pitch on Saturday, tactics had a lot to do with Wednesday but it was not the whole picture, we need to see more of a will to win and hunger to put right the wrongs of the last few days

 

[cibaman]

Be good to see the crowd get behind a few people tomorrow, including the manager.

Think he, Hart and the rest of the players do need to see and hear that?

A win tomorrow against difficult opposition, however it comes, will brighten the picture and the league table.

Anything else, come the final whistle,and it would have to be fair game.

Whenever we've had a bad result the crowd have always got behind the team at the start of the next match. It will be the same tomorrow.

The difficulty will be if we play badly, concede an early goal. Fans will not immediately turn against the team, just become impatient. It could turn nasty at the end but only if its a bad result and a bad performance.

I think the response to the manager will be fairly neutral. There's unlikely to be any show support, because there hasn't been so far, we don't sing his name etc. But I think his honeymoon period is over. If its a bad day there might be a few Mancini chants