Manuel Pellegrini (cont)

[Paulmcfc2703]

Just to but in here, I think Pellegrini playing a 4-4-2 against Barca was a case of fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. If I'm not mistaken, he's done that repeatedly in your games against Bayern and Barca last year and the same thing keeps happening. He should have learned from prior mistakes and played a different system.

To be honest I think the system is not the issue here. We played 451 last year and got beat anyway.

The issue I have with Pellegrini is the constant rotation. The 2 games prior (granted it's only Stoke and Newcastle) we kept the same back 5 and after 2 relatively good defensive displays he changes the whole left side of the back 4 again. That coupled with Fernando and Milner coming into the middle (which got exposed against Boro) to replace Yaya and Fernandinho meant we are once again changing a 3rd of the team after a 5-0 win! Why? I just don't get it.

With Yaya suspended we at most should have made 2 changes (Clichy for Kolarov maybe). To keep a clean sheet for the first time in 2 months and then make wholesale defensive changes is just stupidity.

 

[Bill Walker]

I keep reading about City fighting till the end and how we always finish the season strongly. Fine if we beat Liverpool and perhaps Chelsea will implode, especially given all their recent off the field trouble in Paris.

However, if we finish strongly and still finish second, then I and many other will be pointing to our slow start in both the Premier League and the Champions League. How we farted about in pre season and treated the Charity Shield as a joke with two left backs and a central defensive partnership that hasn’t featured since.

That isn’t hindsight. A lot of us said it at the time and Martin Keown made exactly the same point after our victory at Stoke. I know that we caught Chelsea at Christmas, but they had the harder fixtures and moved away once they started to balance out.

The Barcelona game was slightly different because I just don’t think we are good enough to challenge the European elite, regardless of whether we play 4-4-2 or 4-5-1. Yaya will improve our possession in the second leg, but he’s a slightly fading force. Aguero is our only world class player and the rest are either good or very good.

We haven’t got the footballing defenders required to play the Barca way and as soon as we start pressing, you just know that somebody is going to launch into a ridiculous challenge and get a yellow or red card.

Silva not world class, Kompany, Yaya ? rubbish mate

 

[Bill Walker]

I worry with this inept manager that Kun will fuck off soon, he cant remain happy just winning (or nearly winning) the prem surely

 

[Lancet Fluke]

To be honest I think the system is not the issue here. We played 451 last year and got beat anyway.

You could be beaten by Barca playing any system in the world, doesn't mean that one of those systems didn't give you the best chance of getting a result.

 

[sh249]

Sorry if this has already been posted....Wanted to comment on this report as I think Brennan is right on the money about Pelle and his comments on Dzeko....Think we all got carried away with the performance against a struggling Newcastle team....and this report hits the marks on a few issues...

Brennan: Confusion over Pellegrini's Barcelona planning a concern

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/sport/sport-opinion/brennan-confusion-over-pellegrinis-barcelona-8722037" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/ ... na-8722037</a>

Our chief Manchester City writer was left puzzled by some of Manuel Pellegrini's decisions in the run-up to the Barcelona game

Manuel Pellegrini said there was “a bit of confusion” in the Manchester City ranks as they were being torn asunder by Barcelona.

Even accepting that the Chilean boss is not at his best in press conferences, as his team is far more eloquent with their feet than he is with his tongue, it is a worrying statement.

When you are facing a brilliant Barcelina attack, £350million-worth of strike talent spread across Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez, and Neymar, there is no room for “confusion”.

You have to go into the game with heads clear, knowing what your role in the team is, how to react in any given situation, and with a trust in, and understanding of, what your teammates are doing.

Of course, when you play a team that has the ability to switch into genius mode, any amount of planning and meticulous attention to detail can quickly go down the pan.

Barcelona were in that mode at the Etihad, and whether a different tactical approach, or a stricter application of Pellegrini’s instructions, would have helped to contain them, is a moot point.

Of course, at the centre of this debate is whether Pellegrini’s insistence on playing 4-4-2 was the fatal mistake in the first leg.

After being overrun and humiliated at home by Bayern Munich last season, it seemed Pellegrini had got his fingers burnt by that error.

He played with a lone striker in the two group games against Bayern this season. Edin Dzeko was the man at the Allianz Arena, when City were only beaten by a late goal, and Sergio Aguero performed the role – and scored a hat-trick – in the Etihad return.

Against Premier League leaders Chelsea at home, he went for two up front – Aguero and Dzeko - and abandoned the idea with 20 minutes left and City 1-0 down. With Frank Lampard on and Dzeko off, the Blues equalised.

Again it seemed Pellegrini had learned. In the return at Stamford Bridge, he went with Aguero as a lone striker, City dominated midfield and would have won the game had the Argentine striker not been short of full match sharpness.
In games where City dominate possession, 4-4-2 makes sense, as those games tend to be played in the opposition half.

But that does not happen against the best teams, like Bayern, Chelsea … and Barca.

That is why the decision to play Dzeko was so startling. The Bosnian has scored no goals and has one assist in six Champions League appearances this season – and in his City career he has six goals in 30 games.

As a player who contributes goals, and little else, Dzeko has yet to prove he belongs at this level.

City look better with five midfielders, and with David Silva slotting in behind Aguero as a number ten they lose no attacking potency at all.

That was obvious in City’s goal, as a sharp pass from midfield into the velvety feet of Silva brought a superb cushioned touch for Aguero to finish.

Pellegrini gambled on Dzeko, possibly because the Bosnian had a turbo-charged 45 minutes against Newcastle on Saturday. It is hard to believe he would otherwise have picked a player who had scored four goals in his previous 24 appearances, in an injury-hit season.

If that is the case, it begs another question – did Pellegrini actually start planning for Barcelona after the Newcastle game?

That would leave him a day off to think about his options, and one day in training to work on shape, pressing, set-pieces and everything else.

When asked last week about Barca, Pellegrini simply deflected the question by saying that he, and his team, would start thinking about Barca once they had played Newcastle.

It is right to take each game as it comes, but if City had so little preparation time for Barca, no wonder there was “a bit of confusion”.

While the decision to start with Dzeko may have been slightly surprising, I can't agree with much else that's written there - not least because it's based on the strange idea that there is only one way to play in a particular system or formation. In that Bayern game, we played with four in midfield, including Navas as a touchline-hugging winger and got overran. That he mentions the Chelsea game is bizarre, given that we completely dominated that match from the first whistle playing with two strikers. The other night, we played with four in midfield, but more narrowly and with the intention to press higher up the pitch and to get the ball forward more directly (i.e. we didn't just 'stick to our normal gameplan'). Against Roma, as Exeter Blue has said, we essentially played with four in midfield in a much more 'orthodox', even defensive fashion, with Navas and Milner out wide and with clear instructions to double up with the fullbacks.

Whether you agree with Pellegrini's selections or otherwise (and I certainly wouldn't have picked the team he did for the Barcelona game), there's something slightly ironic in seeing him being chastised for tactical naivety by people who, in the course of levelling that criticism, reveal the limitations of their own understanding.

Sorry for nitpicking, but if I recall correctly we played with Kun up top by himself in the Chelsea game, or are you saying that you are counting Silva as a striker?

In the recent away game we played like that. But Brennan refers here to the home game back at the start of the season, when I'm fairly sure Aguero and Dzeko started together.

 

[OB1]

I think the performance in Rome showed that he can play in a 4-4-2, but as with all out and out defensive midfielders he needs a very mobile and industrious support cast around him against the better sides. Milner, Fernandinho and Navas proved ideal. Milner, Silva and Nasri last night manifestly did not. Pairing him with Ya Ya is another non-starter most of the time. The point is though, this problem isn't unique to Fernando, but all specialist players. The problem at City is that instead of accentuating his strengths (not that he appears to have many), we put him in positions that highlight his shortcomings, eg at West Ham and at home to Hull, where our monopolisation of the ball was such that he ended up as a de facto playmaker, something that he was, predictably, ill equipped for......and then of course everyone says he's shit and he can't do this and he can't do that

He didn't play in a 442 in Rome though. Nasri isn't a centre forward. One of the reasons Fernando is so shit in a 442 is because he hasn't got the range of passing, and he's got too much ground to cover defensively from box to box. He's better when he has a small ten yard area to cover and can close down players when they come in to his zone.

Against Roma, Nasri was playing as a third, central attacking midfielder. He was in front of the Ferns, and behind Dzeko. That meant Nasri was responsible for defending the area between our midfield and our centre forward. This meant Fernando had a much smaller area to patrol than in a 442. Nasri also regularly dropped deep and showed feet, giving an option of a ten yard ball which Fernando is well capable of playing. Again, when we play 442, that option is not always there, Aguero, Jovetic, and even Dzeko will show feet, but they don't drop in to midfield like Nasri did. The difference between a 10 yard and a 25 yard pass is huge for a player of Fernando's ability.

Your quite right with your points about Hull, West Ham, and I would add Burnley, he's ill equipped. But your argument that Nasri played as a centre forward against Roma, I'll never agree with because it's simply not true.

If you wish to argue black is white that's your choice, but hopefully you might believe UEFA's own website on the matter. See the attached link, scroll down to the 'Press Kits' section, and then open the 'Tactical Line Ups' pdf.
You'll note that Nasri's average position for the game is that of a forward, tucked in alongside Edin Dzeko........


<a class="postlink" href="http://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/season=2015/matches/round=2000548/match=2014387/index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague ... index.html</a>

Ha, ha, ha.

You can present people with absolute fact that they are not the football geniuses that they think they are and they will still won't admit that they have got anything wrong.

Pellegrini has on several occasions used players that are normally midfielders and have the skill set of a midfielder as strikers. Obviously this is different to using two recognised strikers but using Bony and Dzeko together rather than one of them with Aguero is also different. What is not different though is that in most cases, the central midfield two are being asked to do very much the same job as they would whichever two are ahead of them. When Silva plays up front, he does not usually drop back to help midfield any more than Dzeko does. A lot of people seem to think that we play one upfront far more than we actually do.

I still think that against Barca, we should really have played with one upfront but, more importantly, we should have used different personnel and been more aggressive and mobile.

 

[daztrueblue91]

I would agree with those slating Pellegrini for playing 4-4-2 if the whole game would have been as bad as the first. But the fact that we took the game to Barca and were arguably the better team in the second half shows that it is a mentality problem rather than any tactical ones.

If anything the second half shown that we were more than a match for Barca. Compare that to last year where we didn't even look like causing them problems. Then it seems to suggest that Pellers got the 4-4-2 spot on. Not playing Fernandinho and Navas is a different matter.

 

[aguero93:20]

I would agree with those slating Pellegrini for playing 4-4-2 if the whole game would have been as bad as the first. But the fact that we took the game to Barca and were arguably the better team in the second half shows that it is a mentality problem rather than any tactical ones.

If anything the second half shown that we were more than a match for Barca. Compare that to last year where we didn't even look like causing them problems. Then it seems to suggest that Pellers got the 4-4-2 spot on. Not playing Fernandinho and Navas is a different matter.

I agree with this, 4-4-2 imo is actually a better formation for pressing high up the pitch than any variation of 4-5-1, we just didn't do it in the 1st half and allowed Barca to build from the back too easily.

 

[daztrueblue91]

I would agree with those slating Pellegrini for playing 4-4-2 if the whole game would have been as bad as the first. But the fact that we took the game to Barca and were arguably the better team in the second half shows that it is a mentality problem rather than any tactical ones.

If anything the second half shown that we were more than a match for Barca. Compare that to last year where we didn't even look like causing them problems. Then it seems to suggest that Pellers got the 4-4-2 spot on. Not playing Fernandinho and Navas is a different matter.

I agree with this, 4-4-2 imo is actually a better formation for pressing high up the pitch than any variation of 4-5-1, we just didn't do it in the 1st half and allowed Barca to build from the back too easily.

We also created a lot of opportunities and it was criminal that we didn't take them. The chance Fernando missed was similar to the chance for Suarez's 1st goal. In the sense that the ball fell kindly to him. However whilst their chance fell to an £80 million striker, ours fell to Fernando. There there was the free header Dzeko missed from 5 yards out. We score either of them and it's game on.

There were far more positives to take from the game than negatives IMO. We are not as far away from Barca as some people have suggested. The players just need to get the correct mindset.

 

[Manchester_lalala]

I would agree with those slating Pellegrini for playing 4-4-2 if the whole game would have been as bad as the first. But the fact that we took the game to Barca and were arguably the better team in the second half shows that it is a mentality problem rather than any tactical ones.

If anything the second half shown that we were more than a match for Barca. Compare that to last year where we didn't even look like causing them problems. Then it seems to suggest that Pellers got the 4-4-2 spot on. Not playing Fernandinho and Navas is a different matter.

I also think this is the case. Funny how we start playing after the second half. The first half the team was ball watching, just had no fight. If we hadn't of gone down to 10 men we could be looking at a different score line. We should defintley go 442 in Barcelona and play with right attitude from the off. It's about time we stepped up in these games.