We will play at least fifty-five games this season so we are almost one-third into the season and I thought I would discuss how I feel about Pellegrini so far.
He came to us with a bit of a reputation from his time in Spain. But I feel some have this reputation a bit wrong in their heads. He did not take average sides to the latter stages of the Champions League or to a title challenge in La Liga. I have seen that sort of statement a few times whilst reading through a few threads on here in the last few days. Villarreal and Malaga were far from being "nothing teams" or “average sides”. At Villarreal he had some very good teams with a good goalkeeper, three players that were part of the Spain Euro 2008 winning side defensively with Capdevila Marchena in the back four and Marcos Senna in defensive midfield, they had one of top attacking midfielders in the world at the time in Riquelme and some reliable and good goal scoring forwards. A few of those Villarreal sides were excellent. Top three La Liga and Champions League latter stages side all day. There was no "overachieving" there; they were as good as they showed.
Malaga were not as good as that Villarreal side but they had a decent keeper, a fairly decent back four, and in getting them into the CL they had a fantastic midfield with Toulalan Juaquin Isco Duda and Cazorla with a few average forwards. But that midfield was better than most anywhere in Europe bar the odd three or four teams. Granted they lost Cazorla last season but they got as far as they did in the Champions League because their midfield was just as good as any other side’s they faced. All while they underachieved in La Liga last season.
At Real Madrid he did an excellent job with what was an excellent team in La Liga but did not do anything of note in any cup competition considering the team he had, losing in the Round of 16 in the Champions League to Lyon and losing 4-1 in the Round of 32 of the Copa del Rey to Segunda’s Alcorcón.
He did about as well as he should have with each team he was with, probably overachieving a little in getting Malaga in the Quarter-finals of the Champions League but underachieving in cup competitions with Real Madrid. Overall the most impressive thing I can see was the team he built in Villarreal – they were a proper decent side.
In the Summer I felt that a top three finish and a decent showing of ourselves in the Champions League would be a good season for our first season with the new Begiristain/Pellegrini partnership at the helm of the first team. But they both must happen. A domestic cup win would be a great bonus but if we fail to finish in the top three it would not be a good compromise as we have to qualify for the Champions League every season since we are not a proper big name yet and i reckon it would be difficult for us to get our targets in the transfer window if we were not in it (Christ, we struggle to get them when we have qualified for it).
We have qualified for the knock-out stages of the CL, from an easier group than we have been in before, but we have already done the job nonetheless. I do not think we have played particularly well in any game apart from small stints away to Plzen and home to CSKA. In all games we have looked like we could concede goals. Plzen created and missed a string of chances in the first half at their place, CSKA too in that away game (it was only Clichy's deflection into Joe Hart's leg that saved us at the death) and CSKA scored two at our ground. I think we have been fairly sloppy and scrappy and not particularly impressive. Also in the Bayern Munchen game I saw one of the most naïve and almost pathetic tactical games I've seen from a City manager. Arguably the best team on the planet, with arguably the best manager on the planet, come to the Etihad and we play a high defensive line in a 4-4-2 against a 3-3-4/2-3-5. At times in midfield it was 4v7. It was so wrong tactically it was almost laughable but i was too disgusted to laugh. I am in no way saying that playing properly against a team like them would have seen us win the game, by no means, but it would at least have given us a chance to get something out of the game or even just not been taken the piss out of. Thank God Guardiola took it easier at 3-0 and took their best three players off because i reckon if they really would have wanted to, they could have hammered us. Pellegrini either thinks we are a better team than we are, or he underestimated Bayern or he has not got a clue. None of which are acceptable but hopefully he has learnt from his mistakes that night. We will almost certainly get a tough draw for the Round of 16 and it will more than likely be our last games in the competition this season but I am hoping we can make a better show of ourselves against a decent team and instil some belief into this squad that we are a good side and we will be back and better next year – and you never know maybe even play well enough to progress to the quarter finals. Although, going off our season so far I cannot see how we will progress unless something drastic happens.
We started the Premier League season with a good win against Newcastle and we have had really good wins and performances against United West Ham and Norwich. However, we have been anything between poor and terrible against Cardiff Hull Stoke Villa Newcastle(cup) and Sunderland. With us managing to get a win after allowing Hull some glaring chances at 0-0, scrape a point at Stoke after creating almost nothing all game and allowing Stoke a string of headed chances which they missed, digging ourselves out of a woeful performance at Newcastle and eventually going through, and deservedly losing the other games through poor defending and not creating enough clear cut chances. We have played poorly more often than we have played well. That is not what good sides show of themselves and is not good enough full stop to be honest.
A lot of that is down to individual performances of the players, unreliable players like Kompany Richards and Silva constantly getting injured and a few other things. But from what I have seen it is down to the manager more than anything.
Away at Cardiff we just got ourselves ahead and he took Navas and later Dzeko who had scored off, players did not know who they were marking at corners, we were playing a high line with a defender my Grandad would outpace and it was all-round just abysmal tactics. Against Hull we were being outplayed in the centre of midfield all game because we were outnumbered and he did not do a thing to change it. We were far too open against Stoke he did not do anything to stop their dominance over Rodwell and Yaya (outnumbered in midfield again). Against Villa he played both Dzeko and Negredo together like we had gone back 30 years to a midtable 1980s English team, we created no decent chances despite dominating possession greatly and putting dozens of crosses into the box for the two big men. That game was embarrassing. At Newcastle Jovetic got an early injury and he would have been our creator/possession retainer in the attacking third but even though he had Silva and Nasri on the bench he brings on Negredo to create the same problems as at Villa and low and behold we could not keep the ball and we could not create a chance. Woeful!
Aside from individual games: I do not think he understands that Yaya cannot defend to his best when he has got just one other central midfielder playing with him in the middle. He does not put a tackle in, ever, and with players with greater speed than him off the mark playing in the midfield of the opposition he cannot keep up with their movement and passing. Yaya’s individual problem is that he does not work hard enough in the non- big games but that is surely there for the manager to see also and that he is only properly effective in defensive mid if he is in a five man midfield, otherwise he needs to play further forward with fewer defensive responsibilities. Unless, of course, it's a big game where he tends to raise his game to a level not many can live with.
Overall I have not been impressed so far. HOWEVER!, as I said at the top, we are only one-third into this long season and I will not be giving a judgement on whether Pellegrini is the man for the job or not so early on. He may realise that we are nowhere near as good as many and probably he thinks we are, that our squad is severely lacking in quality once you go past our excellent spine (if they are even fit) and iron out a few things and plan out a few things to help us when we do have a few injuries instead of playing the same as if we had our best side out (our squad players cannot do the job our best players can so we need to find a different strategy until we get ourselves a squad capable of doing so) even when we do not. Plus at this stage we will not know if we will achieve our two main targets of a top three finish and a decent showing of ourselves in the Champions League. So the main judgement will come at the end of the season but we must improve and he must show more than sitting on the side of the pitch shaking his head.
