Discussion: Manuel Pellegrini 2015/16

[Otamendi's Beard]

Honestly, not a fan of some of the decisions, but the decision to bring on Navas was the right one as he was our best player and should easily have won us the game with his excellent play. If De Bruyne or Sterling take any of their chances then we win comfortably. Bringing on Delph before Kelechi was my only real complaint as it was never going to get us a goal. We should have won that game and it's the players who are the reason we didn't. Glad he dragged off Yaya, hopefully he's finally sick of him and won't continue to bend over backwards to accommodate him, as it's clearly not worth it. I won't hold my breath though...

Good post. People are moaning about Navas but he could've had three assists if our finishing was better.

 

[cookster]

You are....still.

Hate him by all means and want him sacked but just stop talking bollocks.

Fuck it, go on, name me 20 better managers?

Ridiculous to say I hate him or even want him sacked. I want him to be a success but would argue he's not getting anywhere near the best out of a great squad.
We have probably got the 4/5th best squad in world football but the manager is not at that level.

 

[BigOscar]

I don't have a problem Navas playing, I think he played well when he came on. I have a problem with Pellegrini thinking Sterling is a better option up front than Iheanacho. Even if he wants to try Sterling up there I'd give him until the 70th minute at the very most, especially when he wastes two glorious chances; you know it's not his day. Bringing on Iheanacho with 6 minutes to go is poor from Pellegrini.

I agree that ideally I'd have dragged off Yaya and gone with Kelechi up front and Navas on the wing, but you aren't going to do that when a player goes down injured in the first half as it's too early to make 2 subs. Navas was the right sub imo, the problem was not bringing Kelechi on earlier in the second half for Yaya, definitely before the Delph substitution which made very little sense at all to me.

 

[sam663]

We still have to play Cheslea, Arsenal and Liverpool away, and don't forget the seasonal screwed up performances at the Etihad. A point against a team sitting at the bottom of the table is just not good enough .

 

[Phil1]

The Pelligrini supporters will call that a good point,the non supporters will be justified again,as for those who can't make their minds up will soon be in the latter category,pretty fucking woeful that,lose a striker and not to replace with a forward is stupid,not tactical,fucking stupid

We got away with it so many times in games last season,so the cocky Chilean thinks we can do it all the time,pathetic coaching really,no matter how blinkered you may be towards him.it will cost him his job in the summer,title or no title imo

I'm a supporter of his but don't think it was a good point. I'm fuming it finished a draw but the point remains we did more than enough to win despite today's shortcomings by him.

 

[Deleted member 58678]

Or maybe he just can't win and whatever system he plays is criticised if it leads to points dropped. I've little doubt that the prematch thread will have been full of "well done Pellers for learning his lessons and knowing we need to be more pragmatic away from home". Now it's post match, we didn't score, and it's "ffs why did he leave 3 holding midfield players on the pitch for so long". It's also funny how Toure and Fernandinho have gone from being attacking midfielders in Sevilla to being defensive midfielders now that we didn't win.

I disagreed fundamentally with his decision to not put Kelechi on, but he's the manager and has to make big calls. De Bruyne or Sterling bury one of their easy chances and half the people criticising Pellegrini would be on here saying he get everything bang on.

Too much noise tonight for my liking. Most of it unwarranted.

But there weren't those criticisms about him when we lost to West Ham. So "whatever system he plays is criticised if it leads to points dropped" is just not true.

 

[Paulmcfc2703]

For everything he did good against Sevilla it feels like we are back to square 1 with him.

Yet again we have played poorly for at least 45 mins to an hour. If this was a case of 4 or 5 games a season then fair enough but it's a good 20-25 games (a conservative estimate) a season where this is the case. We seem to give up half of the game where we play piss poor, with no tempo at all. Already this season we have today, Norwich first half, Newcastle first half, Gladbach first half, Watford first half, Spurs second half, West Ham first half & palace first half where we play the slow tempo football which is shit and never works.

I really feel sorry for Kelechi. The kid should have come on for Bony. Changing to an untested formation was ridiculous. Although part of me believes Pellers did it through sheer arrogance because we nicked a winner v Sevilla when he did it in the last 10 minutes.

Why bring Delph on? We finally manage to take a hold of the game, the crowd goes quiet and he essentially gives them a bigger lift than what Garde could have.

 

[meeesh]

I'm a supporter of his but don't think it was a good point. I'm fuming it finished a draw but the point remains we did more than enough to win despite today's shortcomings by him.

Fair enough,but what I forgot to add,even though I didn't think I needed to,but it was a game we could have lost as well,so lets have this weeks break,and pray that David and Sergio are back for Liverpool match,am sure MP will be hoping the same,to make his life easier for a while

 

[Neville Kneville]

I fully agree it was a bizarre decision today. But I don't agree with your wider narrative about Pellegrini and young players because I think most of the ones you're talking about aren't good enough right now. It's the same complaint Neville Neville had the other day and I don't agree with him either. The club know better than us, and even if they fuck it up occasionally and lose a talented player, in the greater scheme of things it shouldn't be something to wind people up as much as it does.

Today Pellegrini made a bad call but we didn't lose and on another day we win even without bringing Kelechi on due to the chances created.

Again 'the club' is being used for this argument. I don't believe that 'the club' don't rate at least one or two more as good enough for the first team squad. People keep using this as a fact but where are the quotes from Vieira or Wilcox or even Brian Kidd to back this up ?

All we know is that 'the manger' doesn't pick them. We don't have any idea whether 'the club' agrees with him.

I have no issue with Pellegrini today but I have an issue with this argument constantly repeated as fact.

 

[hilts]

There was a time when a point away from home after a difficult away game in Europe was considered an okay result. I agree that Pellegrini could've and probably should've stuck Kelechi on as soon a Bony went off, but he didn't. De Bruyne and Sterling still missed enough chances to win two games.

Still it's been a while since the dickheads have had something to get their teeth into. Going to be a long long international break now. Think i'll be avoiding this place...

You will be sadly missed