Manuel Pellegrini

[ElanJo]

Who was the last CL winning team to play 2 strikers?

Infact name one top CL team which plays with 2 strikers.

Might be able to do it against minnows and lower tier teams like CSKA but against anyone half decent it's just fucking dumb.

 

[sam-caddick]

Pellegrini is a top manager and gets us playing some exceptional football at times but he isn't world class.

Twice he changed the team around tonight with Milner coming on to sort our left side out then putting Lampard on later in the game to help thr midfield out, plus he managed to sub both starting strikers which for me is baffling and tells me he didn't prepare well enough for Roma.

If he fails to get us out of the Champions League group then I wouldn't be surprised to see a new manager next season.

 

[FantasyIreland]

“Maybe today we started losing balls
and didn’t have enough midfielders to
recover it but I don’t think having two
strikers on the pitch was the reason
we didn’t win."

Now I am confused.....

 

[adrianr]

“Maybe today we started losing balls
and didn’t have enough midfielders to
recover it but I don’t think having two
strikers on the pitch was the reason
we didn’t win."

Now I am confused.....

Well we're not allowed 12 players Manuel..

 

[Mattyc55]

“Maybe today we started losing balls
and didn’t have enough midfielders to
recover it but I don’t think having two
strikers on the pitch was the reason
we didn’t win."

Now I am confused.....

Seems like he's never going to learn from our European failings. Surely he's watched footage of us getting trounced by the likes of Dortmund and Ajax in similar fashion. I can't get my head around his inability to recognise our tactical issues in the competition.

 

[cookster]

From the official site

The Chilean opted to field two strikers against last season’s Serie A runners-up and, at times, the City midfield appeared to be overrun by their Roman counterparts.

Looks like everyone else knows except the guy who picks the team!!

 

[Burtonblue]

“Maybe today we started losing balls
and didn’t have enough midfielders to
recover it but I don’t think having two
strikers on the pitch was the reason
we didn’t win."

Now I am confused.....[/
I think he's just defined contradiction for us.

 

[robbieh]

Yet again completely outnumbered in midfield. When's he going to learn.

If we had Baresi, Maldini and Costacurta at the back we might be able to get away with this. But it is is just suicide.

Absolutely no chance of winning the CL. If our owner wants to win this competition he needs a new manager.


90% of us on here knew what was likely to happen if we played two up top against a team of talented midfielders. How did we know? Because we have seen it again and again against top opposition. We get overun. I thought that with only 3 strikers available, and two of these often injured our default line up would be 5 in midfield. But no,

And to compound the problem Pellegrini plays a midfield 4 containing 2 players who don't really defend, Silva and Yaya and one, Navas who tries but is really a winger. It is fucking insane.

 

[Deleted member 58678]

Didn't fucking learn from Bayern away: Champions League, good teams, who play 5 in midfield and will exploit our space if we only play 4...what did he do?...played 4 in midfield, there was a Roma man spare all the time exploiting the space we were leaving against their 5.

Wrong decision!

Then he takes Edin off who was one of our stand out players.

Wrong decision!

He did finally match them up in midfield when he brought Lampard off but they were too settled and we'd lost Edin.

Poor from him tonight in my opinion.

 

[jimmygrimblesboots]

pellers has managed over 80 champs league games , got villareal to the semi's and malaga to the quarters with squads nowhere near our quality , but he never played 2 all out strikers , he keeps making this mistake with us , 4-4-2 does not work in the champs league , 4-4-1-1 , is a possibility . But if the opposition put 5 in the middle , you have got to do the same in europe , (we will get away with it , in 75% of league games) , just very surprised pellers keeps on making this very basic mistake.