Discuss Pellegrini...

[crystal_mais]

Unfortunately I didn't see the game yesterday due to other commitments, I saw the team sheet and straight away thought he made a mistake. He should have started with either Milner or Garcia. He would have known Liverpool were going to come at us for the first 20 mins with pace and power.

Having watched the game now, I am convinced they would not have been 2-0 up if either 1 of or both had of played from the start. Liverpool only had that first 30 minutes. After that we dominated, bar some great defending and keeping and a fuck up by the linesman - we should have won that game.

We have literally been battered every time we have played Liverpool over the last 3-4 years (yes even under the god Mancini) - yesterday was the 1st time we have dominated them (again bar the 1st 30 mins) -

We are far better them - just a little luck was required - I hope Pelli & Txixi have taken note of what is required now to win this league - Still ain't over yet but we will be back an with Pelli in charge

 

[BobKowalski]

I've said all along that Pellegrini has done nothing in his career to justify such a job; he's a Keegan-esque moron who'll never win anything significant.

But the bigger issue is Ferran Soriano, and his attempt to colonise the club; Since he officially came to power in the summer of 2012, the club has regressed significantly, both morally, and in a sporting sense. It's since become obvious that last season's failure in the league was in a large part down to the Spaniard undermining Mancini and approaching various managers during the season, while encouraging a player mutiny.

It's looking increasingly likely that the club with be finishing the season with only the Capital One Cup; there was no real progress in the Champions League, as had Mancini's City been drawn in such a group, they'd almost certainly progressed. The Premier League was there for the taking this year, and had Mancini been allowed to continue his work, I think we'd be at least 10 points better off.

And here's to you Vincent Kompany, apparently one of the players threatening to leave the club had Mancini stayed on; it's become more and more apparent that it was Mancini's system that created the illusion that he is genuinely world class. Be careful what you with for......

And now you've got all that off your chest you can go and have a wank in front of your full size Mancini cardboard cut-out.

The sheer skill of posts like this from Mr. A is the fact that they get re-quoted umpteen bleeding times by a) people rushing to abuse the post, the poster or both and 2) by people pointing out the folly of people re-quoting it umpteen bleeding times in the rush to abuse the post, the poster or both.

Its almost Kafkaesque...

 

[taconinja]

I've said all along that Pellegrini has done nothing in his career to justify such a job; he's a Keegan-esque moron who'll never win anything significant.

But the bigger issue is Ferran Soriano, and his attempt to colonise the club; Since he officially came to power in the summer of 2012, the club has regressed significantly, both morally, and in a sporting sense. It's since become obvious that last season's failure in the league was in a large part down to the Spaniard undermining Mancini and approaching various managers during the season, while encouraging a player mutiny.

It's looking increasingly likely that the club with be finishing the season with only the Capital One Cup; there was no real progress in the Champions League, as had Mancini's City been drawn in such a group, they'd almost certainly progressed. The Premier League was there for the taking this year, and had Mancini been allowed to continue his work, I think we'd be at least 10 points better off.

And here's to you Vincent Kompany, apparently one of the players threatening to leave the club had Mancini stayed on; it's become more and more apparent that it was Mancini's system that created the illusion that he is genuinely world class. Be careful what you with for......

And now you've got all that off your chest you can go and have a wank in front of your full size Mancini cardboard cut-out.

The sheer skill of posts like this from Mr. A is the fact that they get re-quoted umpteen bleeding times by a) people rushing to abuse the post, the poster or both and 2) by people pointing out the folly of people re-quoting it umpteen bleeding times in the rush to abuse the post, the poster or both.

Its almost Kafkaesque...

There used to be a trolling scorecard floating out on the internet describing the rules for trolling and one of its primary tenets was generating the most responses based on as few as possible initial posts.

 

[BlueMo']

I'm sure he's a lovely chap. Sven with hair

 

[Deleted member 58678]

Why would we be adrift at Christmas next season when we're still in the race with 5/6 games to go this season ? Total logic fail there once again from you Rob. Think you need to go for a long walk because you've been systematically at the manager's throat since our first defeat of the season back in September. It's a bit tragic when the guy's already won a trophy and has made such a marked and stark improvement on last season.

There's a bigger picture happening at City also which you're completely missing. The current squad is one which the previous two managers built. Pellegrini will be given the same time and space which Mancini and before him Hughes got. There'll be no knee jerking because Liverpool won yesterday or if we don't win the title. The expectation will be greater next season but nobody involved at the club will be lamenting Pellegrini's appointment. He's exactly what everyone from Sheikh Mansour downwards wanted for City last summer because he is not only stabilising but improving a team that was at the end of last season ready to be broken up because of the amount of dissatisfaction amongst the playing staff.

Improving? Debateable. Both you and I reckoned we should have won last year. We have added players , got rid of a divisive manager. Ergo we should be champions this year. Our performances against our main rivals have been naive.

Point two. You are probably right. But in my defence I want titles now rather than at some point in the future when the whole holistic thing comes together.

its not even debateable. in real terms we've gone backwards. our strong point, the defence, is now a calamity waiting to happen. every game.
but we are all getting on fine now, we can all watch other teams picking up trophies in a venue somewhere whilst patting each other on the back on what a great and friendly season its been.

nothing is better than being happy.

I don't think we've gone backwards but we've only taken a sideways step to start going in a different direction forwards.

For every one thing that was wrong with our team on the pitch under Mancini there is one for Pellegrini too. The mentality that Mancini started building and installing into us through his personality and his style, that he wasn't finished with completing, if he even could, hasn't been taken up and completed with Pellegrini. There is a certain mentality that champions have that I think we've lacked the whole time Sheikh Mansour has been with us. There's something missing at City. There's something not quite right. We don't walk onto a pitch and command that fear. Under Mancini our opposition fancied their chances of holding out against us defensively, now they look like they fancy their chances getting at us offensively. Both of those show me that we have been, and still are, lacking something. Yes we'll hammer teams with worse players than ours but in all the big games this season against the best teams we've faced, we haven't really gone out and played with a champions effort against any of them really bar one game in the FA Cup v Chelsea. Bayern (LW) Chelsea (LLW) Liverpool (WL) and Barça (LL) - that's 6 defeats out if 9 games against the best we've played this season. That's quite a poor showing.

And thinking back to the game against Chelsea in the FAC it was a game where we'd just been well beaten by them days before and we had something to go and prove, just like Bayern away when we were 2-0 down and had something to prove, and Liverpool yesterday when we went 2-0 down, and Liverpool at home when we went 0-1 down...under Pellegrini I'm yet to see us come out with the right attitude and application from the start of the game against any top side we've played. We haven't kicked off a game against any of these teams, where we haven't had to prove something from a defeat days before or had to claw back a deficit, and started the game looking like a champion outfit.

That disappoints me a lot!

It always seems to be we have to get ourselves into a situation where we make ourselves the underdogs or give ourselves a task where we have something to prove before we come of and look like a proper outfit to be taken seriously against the other best sides.

Where is the champions mentality in that?

The thing is it is Pellegrini's first season with us. There are clearly players in our squad who don't suit his style of play and I think there will be a significant turn-around of players in the next few transfer windows. We are currently no better off from the side that win the title two years ago but this sideways step we've taken I do believe will end up seeing us take greater strides forward in the long run than we would in the previous regime.

But there is a fucking awful lot to improve on and change at City. I'm sick to fucking death of reading posts from people who can't accept that. It's as if Pellegrini's come in and deluded the minds of some. For me we don't look like champions this season.

But I think we are going to end up being something special and the sideways step we've taken will end up being the right one.

 

[BobKowalski]

Here is a very good analysis on yesterdays match - tactics used etc....
There’s an interesting analysis from zonalmarking:

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.zonalmarking.net/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.zonalmarking.net/</a>

It seems very astute to me. Too harsh on Vince? Discuss.

On the one hand, I'm pleased that the article backs up what I've said all along, ie the problem wasn't in personnel selection or lack of effort but in the manner in which we set up which was ceded the central midfield to Liverpool. On the other hand, I'm not extraordinarily pleased that this was either unanticipated (unacceptable) or dismissed as a danger (criminally unacceptable.) I disagree with the article that it was simply determination in the second half that lifted us. It was avoiding Liverpool being able to overload us in the center of the pitch.

Agreed.

 

[BosnianDiamond]

I like Pellegrini and what he's done this season, the style of play, and the confidence he instills in his players. that said, I was shocked by his substitiution of Dzeko when he was looking like he was going to score the game winner. Prior to that, during City's dominating second half, Dzeko really held the ball up well and occupied two defenders for majority of the time which allowed Silva and Nasri to operate. Here is the summary from ZonalMarking which discusses the Aguero substitution. While Aguero is the superior striker, I agree it was a bad tactical move at this point of the match..


Aguero

Then there was the other major substitution – Aguero on for Dzeko. Pellegrini simply couldn’t resist using his most exciting striker, but Dzeko had done quite well upfront, holding up the ball and allowing Silva, Nasri and Milner – plus Fernandinho too, sometimes – to use him as the central pivot to play around. Aguero is a more straightforward striker, and while he nearly teed up Silva for a winner, the pass was overhit and he contributed little else. It would have been a shame to leave Aguero on the bench, but when City had the opposition pinned back behind the ball, Dzeko was a better option.

A pacey striker (even if he has many other qualities) isn’t the ideal supersub with 30 minutes remaining. Teams tend to start defending high up the pitch before dropping increasingly deep – it’s often said that pace is invaluable against tired defenders, but tactically it’s more useful earlier in games.



A more pertinent analysis is more simple: Aguero never looks dangerous when not 100% fit. At his best he’s unstoppable, but when there’s a doubt surrounding his sharpness, he plays within himself

 

[aguero93:20]

I like Pellegrini and what he's done this season, the style of play, and the confidence he instills in his players. that said, I was shocked by his substitiution of Dzeko when he was looking like he was going to score the game winner. Prior to that, during City's dominating second half, Dzeko really held the ball up well and occupied two defenders for majority of the time which allowed Silva and Nasri to operate. Here is the summary from ZonalMarking which discusses the Aguero substitution. While Aguero is the superior striker, I agree it was a bad tactical move at this point of the match..


Aguero

Then there was the other major substitution – Aguero on for Dzeko. Pellegrini simply couldn’t resist using his most exciting striker, but Dzeko had done quite well upfront, holding up the ball and allowing Silva, Nasri and Milner – plus Fernandinho too, sometimes – to use him as the central pivot to play around. Aguero is a more straightforward striker, and while he nearly teed up Silva for a winner, the pass was overhit and he contributed little else. It would have been a shame to leave Aguero on the bench, but when City had the opposition pinned back behind the ball, Dzeko was a better option.

A pacey striker (even if he has many other qualities) isn’t the ideal supersub with 30 minutes remaining. Teams tend to start defending high up the pitch before dropping increasingly deep – it’s often said that pace is invaluable against tired defenders, but tactically it’s more useful earlier in games.



A more pertinent analysis is more simple: Aguero never looks dangerous when not 100% fit. At his best he’s unstoppable, but when there’s a doubt surrounding his sharpness, he plays within himself

Dzeko looked knackered to me, he pulled out of chasing down a ball right around the time Kun started to warm up, Jovetic was probably the best option but he didn't even make the bench. As for pace being more useful against defenders earlier in a game when they're not as tired that's a load of shit tbh.

 

[blueparrot]

I don't think that winning the league this year was the reason Pellegrini was brought to the club and if we do it's a welcome bonus. For me he was brought to help build the foundations of a club moving forward and growing over years. Mancini built a team that won trophies but it wasn't built on strong foundations and every couple of seasons it would have fallen apart and need rebuilding.
If people think he would have got this group of players playing for him well enough to win the league this year I think your deluding yourselves. We may or may not win it this year but going forward whoever is the manager they will reap the rewards of what happens over the next couple of windows.
Having said all that when we won the league we had to win our last 6 and hope for the best that the Rags dropped 8 points we did our bit and fortunately they lost exactly 8 points. This time if we win our last 6 we only need Liverpool to drop 1 point. I really believe we still have a very good chance, and a return of a cup and league double in a first season a great acheivement

 

[Shaelumstash]

I was responding to Marvin's comments that Pellegrini has had a year to assess his players. These two have been way below their best. But I think that is in part due to the system being asked of them. ie Much less protection. But given this is the manager's preferred style of play then we may need to rethink the defensive personnel. The endless rumours re a goalkeeper suggest he is not that confident in Hart. And while Vincent is a magnificent athlete and sometimes heroic in his last ditch defending, his distribution is often poor and he occasional makes very rash challenges.

Not suggesting we ditch either of them but some serious rethinking on how we defend is needed.

Robbieh you don't have to justify yourself to a WUM, you are spot on.

Kompany was at fault for all 3 goals yesterday. He was clearly not match fit and shouldn't have played.

The problem is that we don't have another centre half who is comfortable playing a high line. That leaves us with 3 options:

1. Play Kompany injured.
2. Play Lescott and Demichelis in a high line, and risk another Watford / Wigan.
3. Play two match fit centre halves and drop the line a bit deeper to accommodate for their lack of pace.

Pellers chose option 1, and as I said Kompany was at fault for all 3 goals. I think choosing option 2 may have been even more of a disaster based on previous games.

A top manager would have picked option 3. Unfortunately the lady's not for changing though, so we're going to have to hope Liverpool slip up and we can win our remaining games against the lesser teams.

Good point. You have to alter the team shape according to A) who you are playing and B) who you have available and fit.

I have know idea whether Kompany was ready to play or not. But for me the biggest problem was when we played Chelsea without Fernandinho. We should have made allowances for that, rather than just put MdM in his place. Disastrous decision making and one that Mourinho fully exploited.

Completely agree with your point. I've been making the same one since the Cardiff game when he played Lescott and Garcia in a comedy high line.