Manuel Pellegrini

[Bluewonder]

Much though I dislike Mourinho I think that had he rather than Mancini taken the job after Hughes we would now be looking at winning our fourth straight title.

We wouldn't have needed a 93rd minute goal against QPR and we would not have had to rely on Gerrard fucking slipping either. Just like his early Chelsea triumphs he would have walked it given the superior players we have compared to our opponents. The title United won by 11, well I don't think we would have lost momentum like we did under Mancini.

We have had 2 average managers now employed to oversee probably the best collection of individual talent in the PL since the United treble winning side. We are in danger of wasting it.

I 100% agree with this. Mourinho, Ancelotti or Guardiola would piss the league with this squad.

 

[Rammy Blue]

Doesn't excuse switching off and letting Valencia run off him for the first goal, doesn't excuse passing the ball across into his own box (cardinal sin), straight to a West Ham player, also let his man beat him too easily for the 2nd goal, it also doesn't excuse him jogging back to the halfway line rather than trying to get back on more than one occasion and doesn't excuse his general lack of awareness, enthusiasm, engagement, positional sense, the way, like at Arsenal to cost us a goal, he continually chickens out of tackles like a coward instead of engaging his brain, positioning his body correctly and like Zaba and Vinnie often do, getting a toe on the ball to clear it away without giving away a penalty, and his lack of communication skills. Since he's moved back to LB he's played like he's just got out of bed every time he's stepped on the pitch.

I won't defend him, or have any sympathy. £55 for him not to even remotely try and do his job properly.

It's a very bizarre regression as he was awesome in his first season with us, I remember some of the runs he used to go on, proper length of the pitch bursts. What the fuck has happened to him?

 

[Quinny851]

Agree with most of that. Clichy seems to be made a bit of a scapegoat though. I have real sympathy for him this season. Whenever he's played, he's had Silva in front of him. Whenever Kolarov has played, he's had Milner in front of him. Who out of the 2 do you reckon offers more defensive??

Doesn't excuse switching off and letting Valencia run off him for the first goal, doesn't excuse passing the ball across into his own box (cardinal sin), straight to a West Ham player, also let his man beat him too easily for the 2nd goal, it also doesn't excuse him jogging back to the halfway line rather than trying to get back on more than one occasion and doesn't excuse his general lack of awareness, enthusiasm, engagement, positional sense, the way, like at Arsenal to cost us a goal, he continually chickens out of tackles like a coward instead of engaging his brain, positioning his body correctly and like Zaba and Vinnie often do, getting a toe on the ball to clear it away without giving away a penalty, and his lack of communication skills. Since he's moved back to LB he's played like he's just got out of bed every time he's stepped on the pitch.

I won't defend him, or have any sympathy. £55 for him not to even remotely try and do his job properly.

Totally agree. How he got another 4 year contract I don't know.

The first goal was a carbon copy of CSKA's 1st the other night so was Clichy blame then? Why is our left back forced to try and win a header against their striker for their 2nd? Where were our centre halves?

"doesn't excuse his general lack of awareness, enthusiasm, engagement, positional sense" this could be applied to a certain central midfielder who last season was incredible.

Poor tactics cost us today, not individual errors.

 

[JoeMercer'sWay]

People can ridicule me for this, I'm not bothered, it's my honest opinion.

I don't think we've played well in a game this season, certainly not throughout. We've not come close to the Pellegrini benchmark (Spurs away w/Aguero on the pitch). We've looked disjointed, we've not looked cohesive, we've not played, worked, defended as a team. We've not implemented our structured, calm, focuse attacking play anywhere near enough, especially not today, where it took us an hour to move the ball properly. Pellegrini, as I said all through last year that it would come back to hurt us if we didn't change, continues to play 4-4-2 with 2 strikers, it now doesn't work because Yaya does less work, is less effective and Fernando has nowhere near the skill set, or at least isn't demonstrating it, to do the unbelievable job Fern did through most of last season.

Poor selection, poor attitude, lack of motivation, concentration and ultimately desire from several players, that is letting the team down (Clichy was an absolute disgrace today, complete disgrace). It didn't take much for Pelle's system last season to come unstuck, as seen by early away defeats, and we had to really master it and every player really perform for us to make it work, Demi had to step up, so did Javi Garcia, so did Nasri, Kolarov etc. This season the balance of our squad has shifted slightly, and we're now putting guys like Mangala and Fernando under the cosh, only guys like Clichy are hampering the learning process by being useless.

We need to control games, we need to stop let our matches turn into a scrap or an end-to-end ding-dong and letting the other teams have a sniff. We need to utilise Fernandinho and Fernando together, control games, accentuate the abilities of our best players (moving Silva inside to feed Kun) and hiding or dumping the dead weights. Note I think Yaya was one of the ones who tried to get us back in the game in the 2nd half, but I said last season we'd have to move to the 3 to accommodate him this season, and I don't think I'm wrong, the best we've looked is the last 20 mins away at Villa in my opinion, controlled possession and probing.

For me Pellegrini is getting it wrong, we've made 1 or 2 errors in the summer that are now biting us and the only way round it is to hide the weaknesses, we may not end up as rampant, but our season could be over by Christmas if we don't change. Chelsea are on the verge of running off and we haven't a hope of taking 9 points in our final 3 CL games if we keep playing the way we have so far this season. Ultimately, Pellegrini's job is on the line in the next 2 months, whether you like it or not, and we seem to be suffering the same 2nd season syndrome that we did last time we were champions, and it's not acceptable.

Ultimately like the 3-5-2 farce back then, the formation and tactics aren't working, and the mentality from some players is not conducive to a title winning, dominant, elite team. These players have been left in the squad from the last time this happened and they're pulling the same stunt again, and I only hope Txiki takes action in due course. But for now, they either need a really serious motivational and attitude shift, or they need hiding, and I know this line will garner plenty of attention and criticism, but Pellegrini needs to stop being an old man like Wenger and learn from his mistakes, learn that the opposition changes and moves on and learns that your best setup from one season doesn't mean it will be the best the next, you need to evolve and develop and we haven't done that. We have not done that, and I'm really frustrated. We were beaten by the much better team today, they had all the energy, desire, cohesiveness and enthusiasm we lacked.

I agree with some of this but not all. I don't think West Ham were much better. We hit the bar twice and Aguero really should have scored which would have changed the game for me. It was a bad bad miss from a world class player and it cost us big time. That's not to say I think we played well,because first half we were shocking and defensively we are a mess at the moment.

I also don't agree that we haven't played well. I thought we played well at villa, against Liverpool and against Chelsea.

We haven't done it consistently enough though and have been poor in too many games recently. Today first half, Moscow second half, roma at home.

What has happened to Zabaleta and whichever LB who plays overlapping and getting into the box?

For me now we have to play both Fernandinho and Fernando with Zab and Kolorov as the FB's. I totally agree that Clichy was wank but for me he has never been better than average.

West Ham were the better side imo, they were much the better team in the first half, and even though under pressure from Champion players they defended better than us as well when under the cosh. Aguero's miss was incomprehensible, but there's the whole rest of the game to put another sitter at his plate and we really didn't do enough of it. I thought we were awful at Villa till we switched to 3, Liverpool, we were decent but there were the signs that we weren't close to top gear, and Chelsea, yeah it was our best performance and moving the ball about, but we really didn't create much, and again it was one lazy piece of tracking at the back that meant we went 1-0 down, in a game where for once we had full control and had shut them down. We've become afraid of tackling for some reason, it caused the Stoke goal and plenty of other goals besides, I don't know what they're being coached on the training ground in that regard but it's bobbins and needs to stop.

I agree with the rest.

 

[JoeMercer'sWay]

Doesn't excuse switching off and letting Valencia run off him for the first goal, doesn't excuse passing the ball across into his own box (cardinal sin), straight to a West Ham player, also let his man beat him too easily for the 2nd goal, it also doesn't excuse him jogging back to the halfway line rather than trying to get back on more than one occasion and doesn't excuse his general lack of awareness, enthusiasm, engagement, positional sense, the way, like at Arsenal to cost us a goal, he continually chickens out of tackles like a coward instead of engaging his brain, positioning his body correctly and like Zaba and Vinnie often do, getting a toe on the ball to clear it away without giving away a penalty, and his lack of communication skills. Since he's moved back to LB he's played like he's just got out of bed every time he's stepped on the pitch.

I won't defend him, or have any sympathy. £55 for him not to even remotely try and do his job properly.

Totally agree. How he got another 4 year contract I don't know.

The first goal was a carbon copy of CSKA's 1st the other night so was Clichy blame then? Why is our left back forced to try and win a header against their striker for their 2nd? Where were our centre halves?

"doesn't excuse his general lack of awareness, enthusiasm, engagement, positional sense" this could be applied to a certain central midfielder who last season was incredible.

Poor tactics cost us today, not individual errors.

They both cost us, hence the rest of my first post, but sorry, he was absolutely abysmal today, he defends like the opponents have Ebola and he can't physically go near them.

 

[cleavers]

We could always sack MP, and get Klopp in, another bad result and he should be both in the bottom three, and shortly after (if not before) available.

For me now we have to play both Fernandinho and Fernando with Zab and Kolorov as the FB's. I totally agree that Clichy was wank but for me he has never been better than average.

The only decent amount of time these two have spent on the pitch together, we've looked worse not better, so not for me thanks, at the moment I'd leave Fernando out completely, and play Fernandhino with Milner playing.

Another issue for me is Kompany, he's way too pumped up, but not focussed enough, and is making silly errors of judgement (sorry Vinny but you need to relax a bit more and just play your game), Mangala looks great at times, but he's prone to lapses of concentration that we can ill afford, and meanwhile Dzeko wouldn't be near my first team right now either.

 

[Deleted member 58678]

Much though I dislike Mourinho I think that had he rather than Mancini taken the job after Hughes we would now be looking at winning our fourth straight title.

We wouldn't have needed a 93rd minute goal against QPR and we would not have had to rely on Gerrard fucking slipping either. Just like his early Chelsea triumphs he would have walked it given the superior players we have compared to our opponents. The title United won by 11, well I don't think we would have lost momentum like we did under Mancini.

We have had 2 average managers now employed to oversee probably the best collection of individual talent in the PL since the United treble winning side. We are in danger of wasting it.

Agree to a certain extent but Mancini and Pellgrini are good managers, it's the fact that they aren't great is the issue. I also think United between 2007-2009 were better than they were between 1998-2000 and I think Arsenal between 2002-2004 were better than United between 1998-2000.

 

[Quinny851]

Totally agree. How he got another 4 year contract I don't know.

The first goal was a carbon copy of CSKA's 1st the other night so was Clichy blame then? Why is our left back forced to try and win a header against their striker for their 2nd? Where were our centre halves?

"doesn't excuse his general lack of awareness, enthusiasm, engagement, positional sense" this could be applied to a certain central midfielder who last season was incredible.

Poor tactics cost us today, not individual errors.

They both cost us, hence the rest of my first post, but sorry, he was absolutely abysmal today, he defends like the opponents have Ebola and he can't physically go near them.

He wasn't great today but there were a number of players who weren't great either. Vinny was lucky to stay on the pitch. Mangala is still adjusting to the pace of the league. Yaya was his usual sluggish half hearted self. Dzeko - see Yaya. Aguero - how a player of his ability in the form he's in missed that chance i'll never know. Navas - didn't offer anything.

If we play the same tactics against Utd will Kolarov at left back instead of Clichy and we'll get battered.

 

[Love Bites and Everything]

We're no better now than when he took over.

There's really nothing else that needs to be said when appraising his performance.

I personally think we're a worse team than the one he took over due to out defensive frailties.

 

[kaz7]

We're no better now than when he took over.

There's really nothing else that needs to be said when appraising his performance.

I personally think we're a worse team than the one he took over due to out defensive frailties.

we are doing better than your lot