Manuel Pellegrini

[Marvin]

He really is the perfect manager for City.

Not some tosser like Mourinho.

Yet they are 4th bottom.

He may well be a good manager but the point is that the best of managers are in charge of teams which lose games from time to time.

We lose, we don't seem able to handle it. I've done it myself, I know

 

[JoeMercer'sWay]

Real Madrid had Kroos and Modric as a midfield two today... neither is very good defensively at all. Just much more hard work, pace and intensity around them than our style seems to have. Oh, and the fact both are masters of ball retention and passing. Maybe this is what Pellegrini envisions, Yaya is especially good with the ball but hasn't been at his best.

which makes Fernando completely redundant in that case.

 

[Marvin]

Real Madrid had Kroos and Modric as a midfield two today... neither is very good defensively at all. Just much more hard work, pace and intensity around them than our style seems to have. Oh, and the fact both are masters of ball retention and passing. Maybe this is what Pellegrini envisions, Yaya is especially good with the ball but hasn't been at his best.

which makes Fernando completely redundant in that case.

Areyou going to give Fernando and mangala some time to settle in?

Demichelis, Kompany, Silva, most of our best players took a little while to play at their best.

 

[M18CTID]

I like Navas but I think Milner should've started today. You know pretty much what you're getting with an Allardyce-managed West Ham and Pellers ought to have picked a starting XI that would've been more capable of bullying their flair players out of the game. Navas should've been an option for later if needs be, not a starter.

 

[chris85mcfc]

Real Madrid had Kroos and Modric as a midfield two today... neither is very good defensively at all. Just much more hard work, pace and intensity around them than our style seems to have. Oh, and the fact both are masters of ball retention and passing. Maybe this is what Pellegrini envisions, Yaya is especially good with the ball but hasn't been at his best.

The ball retention is the reason Yaya and Fernandinho worked for us last season. They moved for each other and created space, Fernandinho is a very clever footballer and I don't think Fernando has that footballing brain.

I was under the impression that fernando was brought in to make us tougher in away games and in the CL, not as a straight replacement for Fernandinho, as personally I don't think he's fit to lace his boots.

 

[JoeMercer'sWay]

Real Madrid had Kroos and Modric as a midfield two today... neither is very good defensively at all. Just much more hard work, pace and intensity around them than our style seems to have. Oh, and the fact both are masters of ball retention and passing. Maybe this is what Pellegrini envisions, Yaya is especially good with the ball but hasn't been at his best.

which makes Fernando completely redundant in that case.

Areyou going to give Fernando and mangala some time to settle in?

Demichelis, Kompany, Silva, most of our best players took a little while to play at their best.

I haven't criticised them at all, merely pointing out we can't be envisaging a Real Madrid style line up with Fernando in a 2 man midfield, because he's not that type of player, he works best in front of the back 4 with plenty of players in front to lay the ball off too, we're not playing him to suit his attributes imo. He certainly isn't going to play in 2 man midfield in a Kroos or Modric role.

 

[cleavers]

A 2 (with YaYa) and without Milner somewhere else on the pitch.

Thanks, but you said "never", yet we have already won twice in the league this season with exactly that team, and we'll win more I'm sure.

Milner can't play every game, no player can when its every three days, he played all of Villa, Spurs, and CSKA, plus half of Roma, and we need players available midweek this week v Newcastle, and against united, then CSKA, so MP has to manage the squad, so some players have to be given breaks, no matter how good they are playing, or we burn them out, and they're either injured and/or under performing. Milner is having a great season, but he also had a full England game in there too.

No matter how poorly we played today, and it clearly wasn't good enough, the stats (a favourite of yours) tell you we should still have won the game, we just simply didn't take the chances we got, that's a player problem.

 

[cleavers]

The top and bottom of it is that Navas just isn't good enough

Would have done to be honest, an impact sub at best, not a great upgrade on Johnson for me, almost every time he plays in front of Zab, Zab looks below par, same with Silva in front of Clichy (Clichy looks below par), and both cases today.

Milner cant possibly play every three days, the way he plays, and as I've posted above he's been over played in recent weeks, as have others.

 

[BobKowalski]

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.

People always say 'xyz' would piss the league with this squad.

Yet Ancelotti did the double at Chelsea in his first year and then did anything but piss the league with his (then) excellent squad in the following season. Most Chelsea fans wanted him out. Tempo was too slow. play too pedestrian and due to his inability to do anything meaningful in the CL he was sacked. Mourinho hasn't won anything for two years. He did win the title with Real (no pissing it though) and then he imploded. Pep is an odd one given he is a obsessive control freak who ends up falling out with key players in a very un-holistic way. We say we want to play with an identifiable style yet Pep is forever tinkering with tactics and formations from match to match and would end up playing Clichy as DM in a lopsided 3-6-1 formation which would lose to Stoke and this place would disappear up its own arse in the mother of all meltdowns.

I sometimes think this vision we have of 'a great manager' that will lead us to the promised land is a bit of a myth. And lets be honest, the promised land just means someone who will never lose a game. Like forever. We chuck names about without really having the faintest idea of whether they would be any good. Under Mancini we always struggled against Everton so Moyes's name got thrown into the ring. Swansea win a League Cup hey lets employ Laudrup as he is a 'class act' whatever the fuck that means. Or De Boer as Ajax did us in the CL. Southampton are doing well and people now think Koeman could do a job for us. Klopp used to be everyones darling until Simeone came along. Now Klopp is fighting relegation he is suddenly effing useless.

We could have a Clough/Mercer/Mourinho combo with Pep on tactics and Mancini on defensive drills and sometimes like today the other team will still play better than us and win. It happens.

 

[Balti]

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.

People always say 'xyz' would piss the league with this squad.

Yet Ancelotti did the double at Chelsea in his first year and then did anything but piss the league with his (then) excellent squad in the following season. Most Chelsea fans wanted him out. Tempo was too slow. play too pedestrian and due to his inability to do anything meaningful in the CL he was sacked. Mourinho hasn't won anything for two years. He did win the title with Real (no pissing it though) and then he imploded. Pep is an odd one given he is a obsessive control freak who ends up falling out with key players in a very un-holistic way. We say we want to play with an identifiable style yet Pep is forever tinkering with tactics and formations from match to match and would end up playing Clichy as DM in a lopsided 3-6-1 formation which would lose to Stoke and this place would disappear up its own arse in the mother of all meltdowns.

I sometimes think this vision we have of 'a great manager' that will lead us to the promised land is a bit of a myth. And lets be honest, the promised land just means someone who will never lose a game. Like forever. We chuck names about without really having the faintest idea of whether they would be any good. Under Mancini we always struggled against Everton so Moyes's name got thrown into the ring. Swansea win a League Cup hey lets employ Laudrup as he is a 'class act' whatever the fuck that means. Or De Boer as Ajax did us in the CL. Southampton are doing well and people now think Koeman could do a job for us. Klopp used to be everyones darling until Simeone came along. Now Klopp is fighting relegation he is suddenly effing useless.

We could have a Clough/Mercer/Mourinho combo with Pep on tactics and Mancini on defensive drills and sometimes like today the other team will still play better than us and win. It happens.

no-one is talking about one game