Manuel Pellegrini (cont)

[BillyShears]

Some good points raised M.A and I generally agree with your outlook. I really don't why many think Pellegrini is a great man manager but a poor tactician. I don't know if people just hear that mentioned elsewhere and regurgitate but it's simply not true. Pellegrini has a higher win percentage than Mancini which suggests he gets his tactics right more often. He might not change things during the game to such an extent as Mancini did, but then you could argue why would we need to if things were correct more often than not from the start?

My criticism of Pellegrini is probably one that many Arsenal fans would level at Wenger. He's got his idea of how the side should play and he has faith in his squad of players and believes they can implement it. Through any bad spells we have there are never fundamental changes but then it clicks - the players perform his system and we win games. From the long spells of good form I have seen under Pellegrini I can see why he keeps his faith in his original tactics. Minor tweaks as we saw vs. Chelsea at 1-0 and 10 men down saw us get a vital result. His tactics vs. Bayern at home and Roma away saw a recognition of what the opposition style of play was and how we could best counter it. It worked.

You don't have the success in the CL without tactical astuteness and clever man management. He hasn't won the thing no, but he's done very well with teams that haven't been expected to. Mancini has failed time and time again in the CL and he just couldn't figure it out with City. I'd agree that Pellegrini isn't perfect. Sometimes you'd love to see Mourinho's pragmatic approach to games just to ensure we get points from a game when under strength. But we didn't do that last season and it's probably the reason we won the league. We were positive and won a lot of games that we may have lost in previous seasons. The way we reacted at Goodison for instance, when 1-0 down last year.

Pellegrini came in last season and was derided for wanting to play 442 and derided for being tactically naive yet he won the premier league at his first attempt. This whilst being given inferior players to the ones which the club was letting go of according to most of the same people who think he's tactically naive.

This season he's still in the hunt for the title, still in the champions league, yet is being still being derided for being tactically naive. To me it really beggars belief that people don't see the enormous flaws and contradictions in their arguments.

 

[chris85mcfc]

Some good points raised M.A and I generally agree with your outlook. I really don't why many think Pellegrini is a great man manager but a poor tactician. I don't know if people just hear that mentioned elsewhere and regurgitate but it's simply not true. Pellegrini has a higher win percentage than Mancini which suggests he gets his tactics right more often. He might not change things during the game to such an extent as Mancini did, but then you could argue why would we need to if things were correct more often than not from the start?

My criticism of Pellegrini is probably one that many Arsenal fans would level at Wenger. He's got his idea of how the side should play and he has faith in his squad of players and believes they can implement it. Through any bad spells we have there are never fundamental changes but then it clicks - the players perform his system and we win games. From the long spells of good form I have seen under Pellegrini I can see why he keeps his faith in his original tactics. Minor tweaks as we saw vs. Chelsea at 1-0 and 10 men down saw us get a vital result. His tactics vs. Bayern at home and Roma away saw a recognition of what the opposition style of play was and how we could best counter it. It worked.

You don't have the success in the CL without tactical astuteness and clever man management. He hasn't won the thing no, but he's done very well with teams that haven't been expected to. Mancini has failed time and time again in the CL and he just couldn't figure it out with City. I'd agree that Pellegrini isn't perfect. Sometimes you'd love to see Mourinho's pragmatic approach to games just to ensure we get points from a game when under strength. But we didn't do that last season and it's probably the reason we won the league. We were positive and won a lot of games that we may have lost in previous seasons. The way we reacted at Goodison for instance, when 1-0 down last year.

Pellegrini came in last season and was derided for wanting to play 442 and derided for being tactically naive yet he won the premier league at his first attempt. This whilst being given inferior players to the ones which the club was letting go of according to most of the same people who think he's tactically naive.

This season he's still in the hunt for the title, still in the champions league, yet is being still being derided for being tactically naive. To me it really beggars belief that people don't see the enormous flaws and contradictions in their arguments.

We've been poor this season, im not entirely sure why you can't just admit that, everyone else seems to be able to see that apart from you.

Yes we're still in the league and the CL, but we've been very poor with a few glimpses of brilliance.

Fingers crossed the return of Yaya, Bony and hopefully Nasri in the not to distant future will see us kick on.

 

[George Hannah]

Some good points raised M.A and I generally agree with your outlook. I really don't why many think Pellegrini is a great man manager but a poor tactician. I don't know if people just hear that mentioned elsewhere and regurgitate but it's simply not true. Pellegrini has a higher win percentage than Mancini which suggests he gets his tactics right more often. He might not change things during the game to such an extent as Mancini did, but then you could argue why would we need to if things were correct more often than not from the start?

My criticism of Pellegrini is probably one that many Arsenal fans would level at Wenger. He's got his idea of how the side should play and he has faith in his squad of players and believes they can implement it. Through any bad spells we have there are never fundamental changes but then it clicks - the players perform his system and we win games. From the long spells of good form I have seen under Pellegrini I can see why he keeps his faith in his original tactics. Minor tweaks as we saw vs. Chelsea at 1-0 and 10 men down saw us get a vital result. His tactics vs. Bayern at home and Roma away saw a recognition of what the opposition style of play was and how we could best counter it. It worked.

You don't have the success in the CL without tactical astuteness and clever man management. He hasn't won the thing no, but he's done very well with teams that haven't been expected to. Mancini has failed time and time again in the CL and he just couldn't figure it out with City. I'd agree that Pellegrini isn't perfect. Sometimes you'd love to see Mourinho's pragmatic approach to games just to ensure we get points from a game when under strength. But we didn't do that last season and it's probably the reason we won the league. We were positive and won a lot of games that we may have lost in previous seasons. The way we reacted at Goodison for instance, when 1-0 down last year.

Pellegrini came in last season and was derided for wanting to play 442 and derided for being tactically naive yet he won the premier league at his first attempt. This whilst being given inferior players to the ones which the club was letting go of according to most of the same people who think he's tactically naive.

This season he's still in the hunt for the title, still in the champions league, yet is being still being derided for being tactically naive. To me it really beggars belief that people don't see the enormous flaws and contradictions in their arguments.

Manuel has done well, so did Mancini. Who did the best is ultimately determined by the trophy count.

 

[cleavers]

Manuel has done well, so did Mancini. Who did the best is ultimately determined by the trophy count.

It will.

However we have one, and we will never again have the other, so all the blathering on about Mancini is pretty well irrelevant, its history, he'll never improve his trophy count at City, no matter how many people in hindsight, think he might have, had he stayed.

 

[George Hannah]

Manuel has done well, so did Mancini. Who did the best is ultimately determined by the trophy count.

It will.

However we have one, and we will never again have the other, so all the blathering on about Mancini is pretty well irrelevant, its history, he'll never improve his trophy count at City, no matter how many people in hindsight, think he might have, had he stayed.

it will be bad news for us if his record isn't bettered

 

[BillyShears]

Another constant complaint is “too much rotation”. This is the classic armchair complaint that is completely at odds with the modern game and the modern approach to sports science. Pellegrini doesn’t make unilateral decisions on who should be rotated when. It’s a decision the medical staff are involved in based on the fitness of certain players. You can’t continually ignore rotation whilst we win football matches but then blame rotation whenever we don’t win them. The manager for his part isn’t going to pick sides which he thinks are inferior simply for the sake of it, and he equally isn’t going to simply rotate for the sake of it.

I'm going to disagree here, you, me, and most others were saying pick the strongest side on Saturday, and yet we get 3 out 5 changes in defence again, this is not a rare occurrence , its the norm, so its little wonder that our defending for much of this season is below par. Now neither I, you, or anyone else, actually knows what the fitness people are saying about player fitness levels, but having had a week off in the warm, and having another week before the next match, I can't really see a reason for these defensive changes, week in, week out. We were fortunate to get past Sheff Wed in the previous round after similar changes, so a lesson should have been taken from that. To defend properly as a team we need to have some continuity, and we're not getting it, and in front of the back there are also constant changes, and this is not doing us any favours.

You know my views on the manager, but he's not helping himself, and while defending may not be his priority, we're not doing the business up front either, which means we need to be tighter at the back. We've let in 2 goals in 4 of the last 6 games (ignoring last weeks pointless friendly), and we haven't kept a clean sheet in 7 games, that's not the form of champions.

We had a great run after the home defeat by CSKA, but we were still letting in silly goals, and he rightly was praised during that run, but the defensive problems were still evident.

I'm not seeing the crisis that many in this thread are seeing, after all its only 3 games, 1 draw and 2 defeats, and in 2 of the 3, our opponents have probably had their best game of the season, but you can't escape the fact that we're badly off form since West Brom away, a month ago, and too many changes defensively is at the heart of it for me, I don't just mean in these last three games, I mean in the season as a whole. What is our best back 4 ? Do we know ? I know who I'd pick personally, but how many times have that back 4 played together this season ? In our 2 full back positions, we are taking a risk every time we play the back up players imho, even one of them. I'm not so troubled by the CB's, though Vinny's form is worrying because he's not doing the basics well right now, and I think we should pick a pair and stick with them (injury permitting), and I'm also thoroughly unconvinced about rotating keepers.

Nearly everyone's mantra for 'boro was play the strongest side, even the managers it seemed, and then he didn't, so its little surprise he's coming in for criticism over that decision.

The game itself was a bit misleading, firstly everyone sees the score and thinks we must have been poor, but by all accounts (I didn't see much of it, other than highlights) we played well first half (even Steve Claridge, who never gives us an ounce of credit said this), and probably should have been out of sight by half time, but yet again we didn't take our chances, a characteristic of this season. Then another characteristic of this season, we give away a stupidly poor goal, putting 'boro on the front foot, and giving them something to hold, and the ability to hit a weakened defence, quickly on the break. We still nearly pulled it level, only to see a second scored with almost the last kick of the match.

I'm not giving up on the season yet, we all know that typical City will lose at home to 'boro and then beat Chelsea (or Barcelona), but for me we need to stop rotating players when there isn't a need, if some of them don't like not playing, then tough shit, play better, and you won't be dropped, and that includes Milner, who's head is now clearly elsewhere.

I guess part of the problem with the back 4 is that there probably isn't a best or strongest right now. Mangala, Vinny, and Demichelis have all been up and down this season (obviously injuries haven't helped Vinny). However there was nothing in that line up which screamed "weakened". I like Boyata and I really don't have a problem with the manager picking him ahead of Mangala or Demichelis since both those players have also come in for a fair amount of criticism in recent weeks and months AND Vinny had played poorly alongside a very unmobile Martin the week before. Yes he could've played either player again but it wasn't a shocking decision to plump for Boyata, as witnessed by his performance which I thought was creditable.

My argument with regards Fernandinho remains as in my original post. Again, I fully understand with Toure being away why we erred on the side of caution with him.

Overall I completely agree that the ever changing backline has been a problem and certainly hasn't helped our defending at all. I also think that our work at set pieces is atrocious both defensively and from an attacking point of view. The manager really needs to get a grip of that asap because as you say we're giving away far too many stupid goals from nothing situations.

But equally Saturday wasn't about rotation or about poor defending. The fact remains that Silva, Kun, Navas, Milner, Jovetic, Dzeko, between them couldn't fashion one goal nor could they fashion one clear opening. Yes we outplayed them in the first half and their keeper made some good saves, but there were saves that you'd expect any good keeper to make and if anything a couple of the dives were clearly for the cameras. In the second half it became clear that rather than having another gear we could move up into, we were hitting a wall. Whether that's due to the travel, or due to key players just coming back to fitness, or due to missing Toure Nasri, or due simply to it being the FA Cup who knows.

What I do know is that personally I would prefer we get these types of performances in cup matches than in the league or in the CL. If we win on Saturday then for all of the wanton negativity and overreactions i've read, we'll be seriously back in the game and the momentum will have swung our way. Lets not forget that Chelsea having lost to Bradford at home, now face Liverpool at home tomorrow night.

 

[cleavers]

Manuel has done well, so did Mancini. Who did the best is ultimately determined by the trophy count.

It will.

However we have one, and we will never again have the other, so all the blathering on about Mancini is pretty well irrelevant, its history, he'll never improve his trophy count at City, no matter how many people in hindsight, think he might have, had he stayed.

it will be bad news for us if his record isn't bettered

It's still pretty irrelevant going on about it, as we have the manager we have, and the one we don't have, we'll never have again, unless we have a change of owner, which would certainly be bad news.

 

[BillyShears]

We've been poor this season, im not entirely sure why you can't just admit that, everyone else seems to be able to see that apart from you.

Yes we're still in the league and the CL, but we've been very poor with a few glimpses of brilliance.

Fingers crossed the return of Yaya, Bony and hopefully Nasri in the not to distant future will see us kick on.

I was answering to a post with regards Pellegrini's supposed tactical naivety, not how aesthetically pleasing our football has been to you. Also you don't speak for "everyone else", unless by everyone else you mean a handful of permanently banned posters.

 

[George Hannah]

It will.

However we have one, and we will never again have the other, so all the blathering on about Mancini is pretty well irrelevant, its history, he'll never improve his trophy count at City, no matter how many people in hindsight, think he might have, had he stayed.

it will be bad news for us if his record isn't bettered

It's still pretty irrelevant going on about it, as we have the manager we have, and the one we don't have, we'll never have again, unless we have a change of owner, which would certainly be bad news.

The study of our history helps in not repeating mistakes

 

[tolmie's hairdoo]

£130 million net spend since Mancini has left tho mate

And still 8 of the players in our best 11 were part of the core that Mancini left

Hart, Zabba, Vinny, Clichy, Yaya, Silva, Nasri, Sergio, and you could even argue Dzeko

I must have missed Mark Hughes signing Zab and Komps, then?

.

I didn't say Mancini did sign them, i said they were the core players from the Mancini era, and they still are.

If the inflation has changed on buying players, then it has also changed on selling players, so that kind of evens itself out. Also the fact that during that £500 million spend, we were seen as a cash cow, and every club from the likes of Villa to Real Madrid were happy to milk everything they could out of us.

And also that £500 million spend got us a team that has arguably been the best in England for 3-4 years, and has got us to where we are today, and has also won us 2 league titles an FA cup and a league cup, so id say it was money well spent, but i don't think the £130 million spent since Pellegrini has come in has been money well spent.

Can you see what you are saying right here, though?

So £500m buys you a team befitting of winning trophies?

Yet £130m over two years, having matched in one season, what it took Mancini three, is something Pellegrini should be pulled up over?

You have perfectly highlighted the financial reality between the two tenure's right there, as FFP kicked in.

As for the financial landscape. Teams saw us coming, as you say.

Those players did, also.

And the inflated wages to make us more attractive was also the reason we were not able to realise anywhere market value for Adebayor, Robinho and Tevez when they were sold on.