Lyon CL QF Post-Match Thread

[WandV]

Hello,
as a psg fan, i can relate, and im sorry for your loss vs these fuks of lyon.
But i d like to give you a less biased opinion on what we saw and predicted from here.

I personnally expected Lyon to win, for many reasons.
First their place in l1 is purely accidental this year, and they practise a very very defensive type of football, very close to a mourinho old school style.
But in ligue1, as a strong team, u cant get points vs teams that are by essence even more defensive, so they drawed a lot, and its no surprise lyon is very efficient on very little chances, its their habit.
Concerning this aspect, i agree with those who say that pep went pretentious, wich i think he is, and thought "his" style , his "football" would overcome his own players technical abilities.
The fact is that Lyon s midfield is very strong, it s just cos u dotn watch them that u dont witness it, they erased juve midfield and attack for 3 halft times, and imo, even with bernardo for example, result would have been the same.
For a simpel reason, your team was out of shape, completely empty of any energy.
And you guy dotn mention that, Lyon went on physical trainig in early june, hoping to be in top shape right now.
Ligue 1 stopped, Bundesliga went on right away. Semis prove these were the 2 good decisions.
The 3 countries that decided to go on with their league despite the pause and the upcoming c1, got fingered.
Spanish teams are done, no gaz. Italians, and yours as well. You went back to your leagues despite a pause that was terrible in terms of stress, physical loss, to end your championships.
Doing so, you lost so much energy, and ruined your chances of being in shape in august.

I was amazed by the physical level of lyon in past weeks, and you were already terrible against arsenal wich is very very very bad team, which would actually dream of half of lyons team.
Most of the french players in this one are in French team, and could have been already in more "shiny" clubs. Gundogan, bernardo, etc arent even close to aouar s level , he has one of each in his left nut.

Pep acts nice etc, but lets be fair , hes a fukin dick . He profundely despise defensive football, and teams that either prove him wrong or what he calls unfair wich would be losing basically. I knew he ll despise garcia s mourinhian tactics , and would put his second squad to prove his style is the best. Doing so, if it went bad he d insist cos he always does.

You know that he built his football on the cruyff and bielsa philosophies. Result is behind the way you play for these. Today proves he is puting himself above fans, footballers, as a lesson giver, wich bielsa got hated in the end in Marseilles for this same reason, sayin to the world : people, as god i tell you result is less important than what we tried to do on the field yatiyata, where lyons just does this and this, we had better stats , better this tralalalala...ok then so why did u lose 1-3? and didnt make more changes? Cos he s pretentious, and even more dangerous he is as i just described, mystical.
And in that aspect, he is exactly like mourinho. He destroys mentally players. First 3 years are extatic, then , even if it works , he wants more. Cos he s more a researcher in football tactics today than guy u pay to win. He puts himself above this, and personally i think its pityfullly pretentious and pathetic from a common human being.

Cruyff s style, im sure i d find a lot to discuss hours about it here, imho works only if u have the best player in the wolrd in ur team, romario , messi, henry etc

Wenger calls himself from cruyff, and yes, his style worked with henry..with others it didnt.
I m of the sacchi school, wich takes a bunch of lumberjacks and make them able to win a c1, and the new german school is widely inspired by sacchi and lobanovsky s tactics.
I think the one man tactic, creating space for 1 player, who will open etc, as again it was hoped for kdb tonight comes to an end, as defensively tactics evolved a lot in last 5 years.

I dont see pep changing, and he s now close to be a new mourinho. Obsessed by his image, caricature of himself, as a city fan i woudl have go absolutely berserk watchin the piece of pathetic acting drama pep did in interview. Setien had more balls yesterday to answer to worse, and he basically has none .
This also comes right to many who think pep without messi is nothing. I say cruyffs style works with the best player of the world/league in ur team. Messi, henry, etc..
When u dont, u need a more pragmatic system, and he ll never do that.
Garcia is a submourinho, praises defense as his god. But with a very technical midfield, and pace in front, very basic stuff.

But combined to a much better shape, some overated and old players, a pretentious stubborn coach, who today after failing in bayern and in city now cannot be called the best one in the world anymore, it was very predictable.

Both our clubs , must overpay players , salarys and transfer fees, cos we are the outcasts of the rich clubs.
How does this affect our level?
We re happy to have top players, mbappe, kdb etc. We pay them a lot, that isnt a problem, these are pro players. But we need a complete team, and to make that team we have to overpay middle class players too. These middle class players get insane salaries, makin them unsellable. And for most, a salary is relative to their level, but this is in their minds. Reality...And when this idea comes in the fans mind, it gets bad.
Many of your players are washed up, but are paid so much u wont ever get rid of em until the end of all contracts. You have names that did their jobs in pl, but are done now, and idk how u gonna refresh ur team.

Now U will never be C1 s favorite, same for psg, til we win one. Before that, we will be outsiders , our players, our names or coaches, dont count for shit against the power of history and time. We are called favourites city and psg by pundits who know very well u arent til u won one, but only to be happy to destroy us publicly after. Dont play this for them, its only a game, and at this level, losing in quarterfinals isnt shameful.
What is is to avoid deliberatly to witness the quality of the rival team, wich wasnt there cos it sucks, it s a final 8, the 8 best teams in the world, level differences are tiny.

Cheerup guys, u just had no luck, players arent responsible for being paid and selected.
Wish us the win, that d be pîssing off uefa a lot .

 

[Keeper!]

Agree with some of your points but money doesnt guarantee success Barca spent nearly £400m last season and like us have underachieved , and you forgot losing to Arsenal in the FA Cup semi final.
Can't see Pep being put under pressure by Khaldoon or Txiki , more than likely if Pep is offered a new contract it would be on even better terms , where are we going to find a better manager than Pep Guardiola ?

Money does not but success for sure, it does not buy great CB or 50m LB or midfield players that can't run.

Money does buy the best coaches that can spot a player, improve them and fit them into a team.

We always try to buy the very best, pay top dollar, Jesus apart when was the last time we bought a rough diamond and polished them into a star?

 

[fallowfield]

I've said it and I'll keep saying it. Football has transformed these past few years.

It's about:
1) which team is the fastest
2) which team runs more

Within reason obviously.
For games between the top teams with both technically accomplished then yeah.

As I just posted myself, I've just come round to thinking similar and it's crept up on Pep and City. The game moves on all the time and suddenly i look at the squad and it seems a bit weak and slow in the central areas.

 

[HarrytheBlue]

We lost because of individual errors . Pep didn’t make those errors but picked the team so it’s on him and he’s cool with that .
plenty of crap getting written but hindsight is a wonderful thing. If we’d have gone and played our usual attacking game and lost it would have been “ can’t play like that in Europe-when will He ever learn “ and “ you gotta be more solid in the champions league and so teams more respect “
Individual errors and VAR shafted us in my opinion and for what it’s worth Sterling was Man of the Match in my opinion even with the miss !

Pep's unusual selections often confound everyone and we win those games by 3 or 4 sometimes, and it's easy to criticise from the comfort of the living room when it doesn't work. That's part of what sets Pep apart from the rest - details and hard thinking are what he does. This selection could have worked, but for the individual errors and VAR screwing us over. My thoughts are that this would be easier to deal with if we had imposed our normal surging, passing game with options left right and centre, pulling the opposition out of formation and left nothing on the pitch. Because we've gone with an unusual formation, it feels like we've been punched in the guts. We had 3 or 4 decent chances before the miss. Rodri's scuffed shot being one. Those chances go in and it's a tactical masterclass. But like everyone else, we can all picture Mahrez and Foden starting and going past defenders in and around the box. Having said all that, our normal game is high risk (risk and reward) where our backline keeps the ball and draws the opposition forward. Stones was key to that formation as he has the confidence to stride through the middle with the ball and pick out a pass while doing the other normal CB stuff. He was supposed to do for us what Pique (in his pomp) did for Barca. Only my opinion, but something away from football has got into his head and affected his concentration levels to the point where trust in him has eroded. As a result, we can't quite play the Pep way. To play the Pep way effectively, the CBs and FBs have to be pretty special.

 

[Fiftyyearsandcounting]

I don't know why pep chose the starting 11 he did or why he adopted the tactics he did. Obviously he had a system and plan in mind. More often than not he is right. But what virtually every man and his dog could see was, that after 30 minutes, whatever he thought would happen, wasn't. So why did he not change it? He is famed for his ability to forensically analyse a game, but he chose not to tweek it. Was it pride? Did he feel that to do so would be admitting his initial error? Also why didn't a senior players on the pitch or at half-time express a concern. Does Pep allow players to criticise or make autonomous changes?

 

[Phil1]

we all said when the team Came out it was a big mistake,no hindsight required ,he had five subs,how you can defend his over thinking and going defensive thus nullifying our key strengths is beyond me,they should have been scared to death of us not the other way around,he told the players to be afraid so they were

You’ve no idea what he told the players. Stop talking rubbish. We were rightly cautious of Lyon because they are a good side. It’s fuck all to do with overthinking anything.

 

[jimmygrimblesboots]

No its not Raggish at all. City is now a global club which depends on massive investments/sponsors. Investors/sponsors expect the club to win competitions in order to attract a global audience and remain relevant. The city of old served as a foundation however this is new city, one that is expected to win every competition that we enter. That is the winning mentality. We've evolved past the mom and pap team or else what's the use of spending 300 miilion on a squad?

We used to look across the road when they were shovelling up trophies and spending billions and we disliked their supporters arrogance , i dont want our support to be seen the same way. Humility its a word Dippers and Rags do not comprehend but not City supporters.

 

[Keeper!]

Asking Jesus and sterling to score sitters and Ederson to hold onto a ball isn’t asking too much. Asking for us to be reffed fairly isn’t asking too much or for VAR to do its job isn’t asking too much.
Blaming Pep for all our woes is an easy cop out. Time some of the players justified their places in the team.

Also please justify the playing of Garcia.

A young kid who a week ago gave the big middle finger to the club by stating his desire to return to Barca.

His manager was rightly upset and kicked him out of the squad for the Real game and rightly so, good strong management. But wait , what did Pep do next? Reinstated him, fucki*** incredible desision, John Stone's I dislike immensely but what must he have thought last night when he looked at the team? same with Otto, incredible decision.

One of the most bizarre team selection decisions since Ike Immel was chosen over Tony Coton.

 

[Phil1]

Also please justify the playing of Garcia.

A young kid who a week ago gave the big middle finger to the club by stating his desire to return to Barca.

His manager was rightly upset and kicked him out of the squad for the Real game and rightly so, good strong management. But wait , what did Pep do next? Reinstated him, fucki*** incredible desision, John Stone I dislike immensely but what must he have thought last night when he looked at the team? same with Otto, incredible decision.

One of the most bizarre team selection decisions since Ike Immel was chosen over Tony Coton.

I’m not going to justify anything. I imagine he looked who was available and decided that Garcia, as a professional footballer would do the job asked and funnily enough, he did.

 

[kaz7]

You’ve no idea what he told the players. Stop talking rubbish. We were rightly cautious of Lyon because they are a good side. It’s fuck all to do with overthinking anything.

He took an attacking team and told them to be ultra defensive with no creative players to link to the front,he gave them a few days training like that,what do you think he told the players to do,it didn't work in previous years ,they play one way for four years but he expects them to play the opposite and expects them to be comfortable,every year in the cl,he put his insecurity onto the players and expects what exactly?we attacked madrid twice and won,are Lyon better than tbem?attack one day do the opposite a few days latef