I'm not sure they did, I thought the first half was pretty equal, but the panic that ensued after the red card, just shows how hard it is to believe in that way of playing, especially if you have someone like Boothroyd barking orders, and not Pep :-)I thought france had far the better players,that lad who plays for lyon was a class above
liverpool, spurs would need him a couple of years just like we did.So if Pep had been at Spurs last season , with our current squad and Poch had been at City , who would have won the league ,LFC , with all their luck , Poch or pep ??
I agree. His brilliance is actually underrated. The way we finished this season, with no margin for error whatsoever, and he still managed to juggle squad rotation to keep the likes of Jesus, Foden and Mahrez involved, thus getting performances under pressure and increasing their chances of staying as potential fringe players, was just amazing and nobody but City fans could really see that.
I cannot see any situation where I go to my grave and I have seen a better manager. He's got it all.
And I remember a time when he got flack from blues for selling Joe Hart, playing out from the back etc. Don't hear that much now do we?
He's exceeded my wildest expectations. The greatest tribute I can pay him is that I can no longer watch fixtures involving other Premier League teams, without being aghast at the error count and general ineptitude on display.
I have to say that very early in Pep's time at City, I shuffled out of White Hart Lane shaking my head in disbelief at what then looked (to my untrained and unfamiliar eye) like Kolarov and Bravo assisted suicide. I still have heart failure on a regular basis, particularly when Ederson's doing Cruyff turns in our 6 yard box, but I know now that what I initially considered to be madness was in fact just a unique genius in the process of shaping his clay. I hope he stays at City forever.....
That's been a massive factor, as has replacing the players who couldn't play the possession game.
The Scots played like that in the 1930s, as noticeably did Charlton Athletic, they never had the players though. Possession football started in Scotland, percentages football started in England. Something to think about.I think there was an element of panic about that U21 game from the players themselves after the sending off, towards the end the players themselves bottled it for me, they didn't trust the system they were being asked to play, but lets face it few of them play it on a regular basis.
When City do it, we completely trust it, in pretty much every situation. A couple of games stood out for me last season. The Spurs home leg in the CL, if ever there was a game we were going to panic in, that was it, we didn't, we kept playing the way we knew worked, you can add Leicester to that, no panic just belief it would work. Only a genius can instil that belief into footballers, who lets face it are generally not the sharpest people.
I don't know what football was like in the 1930's, but Pep plays formations that appear to come from back then, all geared to attacking, a time when 100 league goals was not unusual for the champions, I don't know enough about those days to know if there was a similar genius way of playing, but I know I'll never see better than right now, perhaps someone my age thought similar in the 1930's, but there was a difference then, the whole league was closer, we even got relegated finishing only 16 points behind the champions (obviously 2 points per game then).
Check the first division tables from then, its quite eye opening, lots of ridiculous scores.The Scots played like that in the 1930s, as noticeably did Charlton Athletic, they never had the players though. Possession football started in Scotland, percentages football started in England. Something to think about.