It's Quiet 16 - Txiki grinders

[Bill]

And Joe Hart has gone and proved Pep, Pellegrini and Mancini were right, Hart had issues, he had to go.

course , but don't replace him with a traffic cone.

 

[Keeper!]

course , but don't replace him with a traffic cone.

 

[Tugay One Cup]

it is, except we knew before a ball was kicked he'd picked the wrong team.

Not really sure how you're getting any stick for saying this.

I'm not usually one for losing my head when starting lineups are announced and, to be quite honest, I usually enjoy trying to figure out what the actual setup will be once I see the names on the team sheet.

However, that was a huge fuck up on Pep's part. I knew it, my family knew it, every city fan I spoke to knew it, journalists knew it, Chelsea knew it and I'm pretty sure our own players knew it.

Then, to top it all off, we were as shite as everyone expected.

I'm not really sure how anyone can talk about hindisght when the overwhelming reaction on the City side of things was a collective sigh and the one on the Chelsea side of things was a unanimous cheer.

 

[Cellarite]

But as said there may well be reasons we don't see as fans, Rodri was running on fumes towards the end of last season and Fern looked his age, could also have illness issues, Pep picked that team for a reason, that time it did not work, let's be honest he is that good it's one hell of a shock when he does get it wrong.

Please don’t get me wrong - I wouldn’t swap him for any manager, past or present, dead or alive - that’s why the odd occasion when he gets it wrong seem bigger, because he hardly ever does.

 

[Bill]

Not really sure how you're getting any stick for saying this.

I'm not usually one for losing my head when starting lineups are announced and, to be quite honest, I usually enjoy trying to figure out what the actual setup will be once I see the names on the team sheet.

However, that was a huge fuck up on Pep's part. I knew it, my family knew it, every city fan I spoke to knew it, journalists knew it, Chelsea knew it and I'm pretty sure our own players knew it.

Then, to top it all off, we were as shite as everyone expected.

I'm not really sure how anyone can talk about hindisght when the overwhelming reaction on the City side of things was a collective sigh and the one on the Chelsea side of things was a unanimous cheer.

spot on .

 

[samuelyeboah]

No we did not, Saturday when we knew the team and Dias on the bench, most fans were surprised/shocked, but it proved a masterstroke of a decision.

Fern and Rodri were left out for a reason.

speaking of, there seemed to be a reason behind it -



dias hasn't won enough aerial duals this season, and pep thought stones and laporte were more equipped for that job vs lukaku and chelsea's playstyle, which proved a great decision as they both won 100% of their aerial duals.

 

[Chi-town blues]

speaking of, there seemed to be a reason behind it -



dias hasn't won enough aerial duals this season, and pep thought stones and laporte were more equipped for that job vs lukaku and chelsea's playstyle, which proved a great decision as they both won 100% of their aerial duals.

Stones got higher leap then dias and laporte but I think Rodri is the one who takes care of long balls like a boss.

 

[pavelsrnicek]

Agree mate and also there's the fact that football has an element of luck to it, whatever happens.

Stones slipped in the first five minutes and if Lakaku had hit it they could well have gone 1-0 up and ended up winning the game. This forum would have been chock a bloc full of people saying Pep "Got it wrong" picking Stones.

Mahrez was inches from equalising in Porto and we would probably have won the cup. If that had happened literally nobody would have said Pep "got it wrong".

Managers make hundreds of decisions, big and small, every single day. They ar e not all "right" or "wrong", they are just decisions. Whether to rest, What drills to do today, who to bollock, who to take aside and encourage, who to leave out, who to pick, where to play them, what to say in the dressing room, what subs to make, It's the sum total of those decisions and their implications which make a manager great( or shit, or average). Pep is unquestionably great because he exercise good judgement overall.

There could be all sorts of reasons why he picked that team in Porto. He could have wanted to strangle the life out of Chelsea like we have done at Stamford Bridge. He could have fallen out with Rodri (who made a massive error in the semi final), he could have though Rodri was cocky or suffers from nerves, he worried about Fernandinho's mobility, he could have been too keen to shoehorn what he saw as our "key" players in the team, it could have been a combination of those things. We'll probably never know. But what I can say 100% is that he has more than enough credit in the bank with me to respect and support that decision, even in retrospect, and not to reduce that game to a binary statement that "he had a brainfart".

There was a very interesting thread from Man City tactics on Twitter that pointed out the problems Chelsea caused in the previous matches and why Pep may have changed the team for the final.

In short Chelsea kept getting they’re wingbacks up to our full backs that created numerical mismatches in every match. Pep tried to solve that by bringing in Sterling with a view to pin their wingbacks and disrupt their build up. It didn’t work as Chelsea constantly go through our press and found space out wide. Ending up with overlaps.

Pep solved it and Stamford Bridge and by the time the home game came around Chelsea had lost their 2 best wingbacks so a major weapon of theirs’ had been weakened.

 

[blueparrot]

There was a very interesting thread from Man City tactics on Twitter that pointed out the problems Chelsea caused in the previous matches and why Pep may have changed the team for the final.

In short Chelsea kept getting they’re wingbacks up to our full backs that created numerical mismatches in every match. Pep tried to solve that by bringing in Sterling with a view to pin their wingbacks and disrupt their build up. It didn’t work as Chelsea constantly go through our press and found space out wide. Ending up with overlaps.

Pep solved it and Stamford Bridge and by the time the home game came around Chelsea had lost their 2 best wingbacks so a major weapon of theirs’ had been weakened.

Thats the point really, whatever he did whether it worked or didn’t it was thought out and done for good reasons whether we could see it or not. The idea its tinkering or overthinking for the sake of it is daft.

 

[decmancity]

Honestly the way people talk about the CL final its as if we got battered 7-0. Gundogan had played that position a hundred times, it wasn't like we put Stones up top and played long ball to him.

We barely created a half chance never mind test Mendy and we just lost on a counter attack goal. Shit happens, in a two legged game we probably would have won.