Damocles said:
Just a small point too - Begiristain and Soriano faced this issue previously.
At the end of the 07/08 season, Barca were struggling under Rijkaard since Xmas and there was a feeling that he had lost the dressing room due to his management of Ronaldinho and a couple of others.
Cruyff and others including Soriano wanted to sack him in the February/March and replace him but Txiki Begiristain politicked extremely hard against this to the point where there were rumours in the Spanish press that he was willing to put his job on the line for it.
Begiristain was a big advocate of Pep taking over who was in charge of the B Team at the time, but said that parachuting him in with a few games left would be disastrous for both the club and the future of a manager they wanted. Instead they should let the season play out as it was going to play out, then give Guardiola the reigns instead of putting him in an unwinnable scenario. Barca finished third that year which was by no means a foregone conclusion and obviously Guardiola came in the next summer.
My point is that this has happened before with the exact same decision makers in charge and they all seemed to recognise the value of waiting instead of potentially wrecking a new manager's start. The idea that we'll sack Pellegrini before the end of the season is an massive long shot for my money.
9 times out of 10 that's the right thing to do. The only concern is that it is clear for all to see that our players want to win the CL. They don't seem too concerned about winning the prem again, they are certainly not going to fight for it. There was definitely a half arsed approach on the pitch on Saturday. Most wanted to keep fresh for the CL. If we go out of the CL how much fight is there to finish in the top 4. People might say there's no way we'll not be in the top 4 - but look at how poor we've been since Jan. The other teams are showing form at the right time and we are looking so easy to beat.
The only thing that can save this season now is beating Barcelona and putting in a real performance. You can see that the manager has tried to mix things up but the players are letting us down. People talk about formations but we've seen the 4-4-2 blow almost every team apart when the players do their jobs correctly. It doesn't matter who the manager is, if this bunch of players isn't addressed then we are in trouble. It's time to mix things up, to lower the age and to ensure only the fighters remain at the club. I'm more concerned by the players than the manager at the moment. We've seen two contrasting managerial approaches get the same out of them... tough love didn't work... praise and trust hasn't worked either.
We can't be sacking Pellegrini now though - this is a big summer and we need to show a long term strategy to attract the best players. Fortunately, if Vieira was seen as the man to step up - his name alone could bring several top quality players to our club.
