Discuss Pellegrini (Pt 3)

[AliWaheed]

Does he even care?

He certainly cares more than one or two on this thread who seem more interested in City losing so they can say "I told you so" about the manager.

Perhaps their initial enthusiasm has just proved misplaced, Pellegrini just smiles his way through post match defeat interviews telling us all how mystifying it is that his superior side failed to win. He knows he's safe in his job no matter what.

Well his job's not safe. I'm hoping they're keeping an eye on Diego Simeone. Or just get HArry Redknapp. At least we'd win the prem every season.

 

[Scareye]

He certainly cares more than one or two on this thread who seem more interested in City losing so they can say "I told you so" about the manager.

Perhaps their initial enthusiasm has just proved misplaced, Pellegrini just smiles his way through post match defeat interviews telling us all how mystifying it is that his superior side failed to win. He knows he's safe in his job no matter what.

Well his job's not safe. I'm hoping they're keeping an eye on Diego Simeone. Or just get HArry Redknapp. At least we'd win the prem every season.

What's that smell??

 

[Marvin]

Low perhaps, but unsurprising. Fans are passionate people. To see a manager lose so many games without such as a blink of emotion across his face is infuriating. Christ even Wenger takes it out on water bottles occasionally. Looking not only like you don't give a shit, but that you simply don't understand why we're loosing is infuriating.

This was a frequent occurrence under Mancini, but as many of us were repeatedly reminded last season, possession doesn't win prizes, points do. I expected a period of transition from slow methodical defensive side to a quicker more aggressive pressing side. However the main thing about any top team in transition, is they must always continue to be a top team (As AVB found out at Chelsea). You have to stay in and around the top 3/4, perhaps not convert everything to wins, but at the very least don't convert draws (or in our case wins) into losses. Maybe we're doing too much too fast, regardless, it falls on the manager to pace the change. He's, IMO, got that pace drastically wrong. As evidenced by our repeated defensive failings. Does anyone think Sunderland, or Villa, or Cardiffs back lines are better than ours? If loosing Vinny is such a problem, sit the team deeper, throw on another midfielder, just do *something* to ensure we stop conceding goals. Stop charging off chanting 'We'll score more than you', whilst we get sucker punched by long ball over the top after long ball over the top.

Against WBA, I'd expect us to win, because we are, or at least should be the better team. We beat them last season with ten men for a huge portion of the match, even came from behind. However I expected us to beat everyone we've lost to this season with the exception of Chelsea. Will we? Well, christ only knows. Realistically we need 6 points from WBA and Southampton, 4 wouldn't be good enough. Getting 3 points at Southampton will be very difficult. Do it and it may just have the team thinking we can get 3 points at our other tough away grounds.

10 points from the next 12 would be good enough and would put us back in the top 4 and very likely in touch with Arsenal.

August, Sep and October has gone. Commit it to memory. learn from it. Use it to avoid complacency, and lets get to the New Year within 3 points of the top. If we do that, then every City fan will be rightly confident of winning back the title from Man Utd

It's annoying to have thrown points away, but lets use the experience positively. I refuse to accept that City can't make 3 points on Arsenal and Man Utd between now and New Year, and another 3 points on them between then and May. It's a very limited and achievable target

That in itself doesn't look insurmountable by any stretch, I agree. And perhaps I'm getting hung up on the losses, rather than the points. However, I think it's telling that no team with 4 losses at this stage of the season has gone on to win the league. It's just too many hits to take all at once. There are too many frailties that don't look like they're being properly addressed. It would take a turnaround of post-Arsenal proportions to claw this back now. How the bookies still have us favourites I genuinely have no idea. With that Kolarov free kick right at the end, by hook or by crook, we should have got that ball in the back of the net. That's firmly what I believe champions would have done. We didn't even test the keeper.

We can have faith in the fact that our performances haven't been poor. We haven't deserved, depending on your definition of such, to come away with so few points from our away games. It would be a bigger worry if we weren't getting points and playing shit. However lowest points total since the takeover tells it's own story. If that Hughes trajectory spiel is to be believed, Pellegrini is surely soon going to be out on his arse. Because we're heading for outside the top 4 at the moment at best.

We've also changed manager, lost Hart and Kompany and we went into the Sunderland game having just lost Silva who was on fire.
Take a step back, look at the squad and then look at our immediate fixtures. I expect 10 from the next 12 points.

In short time w could easily be comtemplating a return to Wembley, a glamour tie in the last 16 of the Champions League and 10 points from 12 would put us back in the title race

 

[lancs blue]

He certainly cares more than one or two on this thread who seem more interested in City losing so they can say "I told you so" about the manager.

Perhaps their initial enthusiasm has just proved misplaced, Pellegrini just smiles his way through post match defeat interviews telling us all how mystifying it is that his superior side failed to win. He knows he's safe in his job no matter what.

Well his job's not safe. I'm hoping they're keeping an eye on Diego Simeone. Or just get HArry Redknapp. At least we'd win the prem every season.

I think his job is safe for a good while yet, the Catalans would be putting their own heads on the block if they sacked their own choice of manager after removing a man who finished 3rd, 1st and 2nd in his 3 full seasons.

 

[Dubai Blue]

I want to give Pellegrini a chance but I can not understand how we can have dominated every game (with exception of Stoke) in terms of possession and shots and come away with so few points.

On the contrary, it seems fairly obvious to me. We have tons and tons of possession because the other teams are happy to let us have it. They then sit back and watch us play pretty passes all game without actually seriously threatening to score.

 

[George Hannah]

Perhaps their initial enthusiasm has just proved misplaced, Pellegrini just smiles his way through post match defeat interviews telling us all how mystifying it is that his superior side failed to win. He knows he's safe in his job no matter what.

Well his job's not safe. I'm hoping they're keeping an eye on Diego Simeone. Or just get HArry Redknapp. At least we'd win the prem every season.

I think his job is safe for a good while yet, the Catalans would be putting their own heads on the block if they sacked their own choice of manager after removing a man who finished 3rd, 1st and 2nd in his 3 full seasons.

and qualified for the CL every year and was an FA Cup winner and was sabotaged from repeating it.

 

[crystal_mais]

Back to Mancini vs Pelli - Surely this is getting boring - he has gone - need to stop this. The away form/results were poor under Mancini and it's shit under Pelli

They should have identified this as an area and been working damn hard to rectify it.

My criticism from yesterday is that MP did not set the team up to play at tempo from the off - we needed to get at them

I hope all the British Journo's are happy - we selected 3 English players who along with the rest were shite...

I still think he is assessing the players and slowly some are to be shown the door

 

[Anonymous]

Perhaps their initial enthusiasm has just proved misplaced, Pellegrini just smiles his way through post match defeat interviews telling us all how mystifying it is that his superior side failed to win. He knows he's safe in his job no matter what.

Not to wantonly pick a fight but again it's amazing how the narrative on this forum has changed from six months ago where a certain faction are concerned. We've gone from "we're not Chelsea, we show patience with our managers, our owners don't act like Abramovich" - to basically "sack the manager he's a clueless puppet" after he's not even been in charge for half a season.

You're right though .... he knows his job is safe because as I've stated he's only been in charge a few months, we're six points off being top, we've qualified from our CL group, are still in the league cup, and have the FA Cup to play for.

Any talk of jobs not being safe is wishful thinking from the aforementioned faction who are just desperate for Pellegrini to fail.

 

[AliWaheed]

Low perhaps, but unsurprising. Fans are passionate people. To see a manager lose so many games without such as a blink of emotion across his face is infuriating. Christ even Wenger takes it out on water bottles occasionally. Looking not only like you don't give a shit, but that you simply don't understand why we're loosing is infuriating.

This was a frequent occurrence under Mancini, but as many of us were repeatedly reminded last season, possession doesn't win prizes, points do. I expected a period of transition from slow methodical defensive side to a quicker more aggressive pressing side. However the main thing about any top team in transition, is they must always continue to be a top team (As AVB found out at Chelsea). You have to stay in and around the top 3/4, perhaps not convert everything to wins, but at the very least don't convert draws (or in our case wins) into losses. Maybe we're doing too much too fast, regardless, it falls on the manager to pace the change. He's, IMO, got that pace drastically wrong. As evidenced by our repeated defensive failings. Does anyone think Sunderland, or Villa, or Cardiffs back lines are better than ours? If loosing Vinny is such a problem, sit the team deeper, throw on another midfielder, just do *something* to ensure we stop conceding goals. Stop charging off chanting 'We'll score more than you', whilst we get sucker punched by long ball over the top after long ball over the top.

Against WBA, I'd expect us to win, because we are, or at least should be the better team. We beat them last season with ten men for a huge portion of the match, even came from behind. However I expected us to beat everyone we've lost to this season with the exception of Chelsea. Will we? Well, christ only knows. Realistically we need 6 points from WBA and Southampton, 4 wouldn't be good enough. Getting 3 points at Southampton will be very difficult. Do it and it may just have the team thinking we can get 3 points at our other tough away grounds.

10 points from the next 12 would be good enough and would put us back in the top 4 and very likely in touch with Arsenal.

August, Sep and October has gone. Commit it to memory. learn from it. Use it to avoid complacency, and lets get to the New Year within 3 points of the top. If we do that, then every City fan will be rightly confident of winning back the title from Man Utd

It's annoying to have thrown points away, but lets use the experience positively. I refuse to accept that City can't make 3 points on Arsenal and Man Utd between now and New Year, and another 3 points on them between then and May. It's a very limited and achievable target

That in itself doesn't look insurmountable by any stretch, I agree. And perhaps I'm getting hung up on the losses, rather than the points. However, I think it's telling that no team with 4 losses at this stage of the season has gone on to win the league. It's just too many hits to take all at once. There are too many frailties that don't look like they're being properly addressed. It would take a turnaround of post-Arsenal proportions to claw this back now. How the bookies still have us favourites I genuinely have no idea. With that Kolarov free kick right at the end, by hook or by crook, we should have got that ball in the back of the net. That's firmly what I believe champions would have done. We didn't even test the keeper.

We can have faith in the fact that our performances haven't been poor. We haven't deserved, depending on your definition of such, to come away with so few points from our away games. It would be a bigger worry if we weren't getting points and playing shit. However lowest points total since the takeover tells it's own story. If that Hughes trajectory spiel is to be believed, Pellegrini is surely soon going to be out on his arse. Because we're heading for outside the top 4 at the moment at best.

Thats the thing. I was sitting there thinking - "We're bound to score because we're going to win the league and thats what league winners would do" Well I had my answer. Fact is: We're not winning the title. Get that out of your heads.
And I disagree, I think we deserved to lose yesterday, and against Cardiff and Aston Villa. We're way too lethargic, turn up expecting to win and for those teams it's a champions league match so they give it everything. Got to put in 100% against the lower teams because they're not that shit if you let them have possession. Couldnt believe how Sunderland were playing it out of defence yesterday. Unbelievable!

 

[jake28]

I want to give Pellegrini a chance but I can not understand how we can have dominated every game (with exception of Stoke) in terms of possession and shots and come away with so few points.

On the contrary, it seems fairly obvious to me. We have tons and tons of possession because the other teams are happy to let us have it. They then sit back and watch us play pretty passes all game without actually seriously threatening to score.

Exactly Dubai Blue.