Cancelo was up there as our best player in the first half. All the good (despite little) attacks were down to his link up.
With all due respect Peps' hands were tied by Sane's injury, he didn't plan to go into this season without a natural winger in my opinion.Not having a go, mate, but if Pep‘s hands are tied, spare a thought for managers with only a £100m pittance to spend each year.
And, when pace is a big issue, why pick your slowest players and leave the likes of Foden on the bench?
A thought provoking post. A lot on here won’t like it, and I don’t necessarily agree with everything myself, but it’s a brave and carefully considered effort from an interested outsider.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 .
The last round v RealWhen was the last time we win a game after conceding first? It almost feels inevitable. Yet I seem to remember this wasn’t the case in the previous 2 seasons
Having said that, itbwas jothing compared to Sterling’s! :-/He isn't quite good enough for the very top level.
Can you imagine Aguero, Kane or Lewandowski missing that chance he had last night?
I know a few people up at Blackburn and I've got a feeling he will comeback and prove a few doubters wrong but time will tell.Fully agree on Stones and the signs arent good - but if we do sell him that means we need another centre half as Garciais most likely off - unless we bring back one of our loanees and Tosin for me looks far from a premiership centre half
Agree on Bernardo and Foden
Do you really think Gundogan is technically superior in anyway to any of our other mifielders. Id rank him s the worst out of any of them at most things.
I dont agree we are a better team with Jesus instead of Kun - I think we are a better team either with Kun alone or with both of them...jesus can certainly ply from the left. We miss so many chances cause Sterling, and Jesus arent clinical and it showed that again last night - yes we were also undone by poor defending BUT both of them had the chances and Kun would have bagged at least two last night from those positions. We need a goalscorer once Kun does hang up his boots with us - if not we will struggle to win major titles/important games just like last night.
Yeah ten times is pushing it.10 times is pushing it. Done pretty well to have a worse season than Pellers last one too given the squad at his disposal. Would cut him some slack however for the utd game because you can’t legislate for the appalling misses by Sterling in that game. How he’s progressed since though hey!
Had to give this a day to gather my thoughts on our season and this performance...
I am going to be brutally honest, but i don't care, need to get it off my chest...
Firstly, Pep played the wrong team. He played a very cautious team. Playing a midfield of Gundogan, Fernandinho and Rodri is a recipe for disaster, such a passive midfield with no progression and no intent on getting forward and finding pockets of space to give the opposition more to think about defensively. You could see the apprehenion and tentativeness setting into the players during the first 5-10 mins. The first goal was coming after how we started, we didn't get on the ball, we didn't take the game to Lyon, we got what we deserved.
This is a team who finished 7th in a so called "farmers" league, what did Pep have to be scared about? Why does he turn into Mourinho when we play in the CL? Should have stuck to what we are good at and that is playing football, pressing high from the front and taking the game to the opposition.
There is something wrong with this club when we play in this competition, i just think our mentally is so weak, we just don't have the belief. Pep takes full blame for me, but even if we played an attacking team, would we have won the game? I am not so sure. We seem to crumble under pressure in this competition, especially when we are the big favourites. We are complete novices in this competition and as a team, we will only require complete respect from the rest of the world if we are to play like a big team in this competition and win it. If we never win this competition and carry on playing as we are, we won't be respected for our achievements, that is the sad reality.
Will we win the league next season? I don't think we will. I am sorry guys, but i am thinking with my head and not my heart this time.
1) We play a ridiculously high line, one ball through the middle or over the top beats the entire defence if we stand in a straight line. This needs really tweaking as we look so amateurish at the back, but Pep is unbelievably stubborn and he won't tweak his tactics. Why can't we have one or two defenders dropping off in a sweeper role so we aren't leaving ourselves so exposed at the back?
2) Pep tinkers the team too much and we can never find our rhythm.
3) Our biggest rivals Liverpool have a set way of playing. They play literally the same team every game and every single player knows their job. They are solid at the back, very mobile in midfield and have very good players on the wings who open teams up for fun. I just don't see us competing with them unless we change MASSIVELY.
4) We have lost 13 league games over two seasons, whilst Liverpool have lost 4 over 2 seasons. We are too easy to beat, too easy to play against. It is almost as if teams have figured out how to play against us and how to beat the press.
5) The midfield certainly needs tweaking. Fernandinho is getting on and Gundogan doesn't provide us with the energy required. It really frustrates me that Pep never wants to play Bernardo Silva in a CM role like he did when De Bruyne was out injured last season. It worked perfectly last season, why has Pep changed the system now and opted for Gundogan to play more games in this position? A midfield of Gundogan & Rodri/Fernandinho just doesn't work for me.
To sum it up, i am just incredibly frustrated. We need to stop pissing about and buy a quality left back, get Koulibaly in and bring in another midfield player like Aouar. The squad is going a bit stale at the moment and the obvious weaknesses are so glaring. As much as i love Pep, i don't understand how he is not seeing that.
And to top it off... If Thiago goes to Liverpool, i will be absolutely fuming. That is pretty much the league wrapped up for them.
We need to really pull our fingers out in the market and on the training pitch... NOW. Pep needs to stop being so stubborn and we need to bring in a top defensive coach who can organise the back 4, the high line we are playing just isn't working at all.
Pep has improved players for sure. He did at Bayern too. But just like at Bayern he may have been improving individuals, and developing the squad and his playing style, but in CL with both teams, he has shown to try and outthink himself. i think it's fair at this point to criticize him for real now.
But he's entering the final year of his contract so how does he rebuild the side when he might well be on the way out?
You are also ignoring the ongoing issue of playing pedestrian midfielders at key moments in the season. We could repeat this season next, and Pep could repeat this type of team selection again.