Pep’s Spurs (H) Post-Match Interview

[blue61]

We are way better than Liverpool
But when they had their success against us at anfield (every year) it’s because the crowd intimidate the ref, their players, our players, pep
We need to do that now to teams
Beat arsenal in the cup and plant seeds of doubt in them for the two league games

Liverpool fans are no different to City fans. Just like us they are at their most vocal in the big games and that will never change.

They do harass the officials for no reason but we do a fair share for what is seen as ref bias.

The crux of the matter is that you will never get the crowd going by playing safe but to date successful football in the main. When it is chaotic by necessity, that is when you get the best atmosphere

If City want a vocal end then they need to encourage the 16-30 age group by giving them cheaper access and grouping. The best group I have seen is at Crystal Palace. It doesn’t take many but just a group who would like to support in a vocal way, regardless of what is happening in the game

 

[Brightwell Bros.]

Atmosphere was flat for the first 45 last night. It was must win game that the season hinged on against a team that most of us can't stand and who did us home and away last year, knocked us out cruelly of the CL a few years ago, and fucked us around with Kane. And we stood around politely appluading while they kicked around our academy lad. He's totally, 100% right: the players didn't treat like the game it was and neither did the fans. If we don't want to win the league this year, if we are a bit bored or tired or just want a break from the pressure of it all, then that's fine. Pep doesn't. If he needs to drag us kicking and screaming into a title challenge then fucking great in my opinion.

 

[CC1]

Maybe pep if your obsession of controlling the game and playing a tactic where our front three hardly ever sees the ball and our most creative players aren’t too scared to lose possession and our back four know they aren’t going to be rotated each game maybe just maybe we would have more to shout about

OMG. WHY do we need Pep when we have fans like you who know so much more. After all, Pep’s done f*** all since he arrived whereas you never stop supporting “your” team

 

[beehive_bob]

Brilliant interview. A few home truths and the truth sometimes hurts. The club, players and fans now need to display the character we do have by stepping it up. Starting on Sunday.

 

[Stockton Heath Blue]

That I’ll agree with. Where was a Kompany or Fernandinho at that point. Only Jack seemed fired up. The older heads should have been protecting him big style at that point.

Holbjerg (or however the fuck you spell it) was the main offender on Rico, yet he went down quicker than a cheap prostitute if anyone so much as breathed on him. The ref set out his stall early doors, and it felt like the Everton game all over again, but with a better quality of opposition. I couldn't believe it when he booked Mahrez, yet 1 min later a worse foul against happened the other side of the pitch with no card issued. Twat.

 

[Brightwell Bros.]

Thing is Pep Thursday 8pm is for us £140 tickets, two days holiday, a premier inn and travel costs.

All this to watch a training game of attack v defence.

Its Citys fault that teams wont play football against us because we are to good.

But football is entertaining the public, our opponents dont want to entertain.

He obviously isn't talking about people who weren't there, he's talking about the 95% full stadium that treated the first half like a pre-season friendly.

 

[SebastianBlue]

Neither can Pep have it both ways?

I booed them off at half-time because it was not up to our standards and hasn't been for weeks.

Booing the performance is an important distinction, demanding the team find the level it has set and trying to get a reaction.

We played shit at Southampton and for an hour at United, and neither were in front of our own fans.

Pep sprinkled a few home thruths into his rant, some more than valid, but it lies somewhere in between.

It's reverse psychology for dummies and another example that Pep is also not the same person and easily triggered, whether citing net spend trophies, publicly digging out an overweight player, or playing Cancelo on the right wing and then hooking him.

The crowd is disengaged at times, but he's out of order for a few things and he would know it if he didn't live in a complete footballing, lavish bubble.

Our brand of football can be beautiful, but lacks intensity, pace and power, so the majority of the crowd mirror our football, passive until it produces an outcome or reaction?

Other factors will always include the ridiculous cost of tickets. If the Club wants middle class fans and foreign tourists, you will get the crowd you deserve.

City don't want some twentysomething off the local estate spitting bile and spending nothing at the tills while they are there.

Pep doesn't need to tell me this team is way off it.

Guess what, you are paid £20m a year, you see them every day in training, you pick the team.

Sometimes it is simply on Pep, or the players.

I would never tell another fan how to support the team, whether it be at the game or in their own front room.

I'm as hungry as ever for success, never complacent about what we have won.

I'm now 48, however. I'm not the stupid 18 year kid who once shamelessly hissed gas noises at Spurs fans, simply because everyone else did it, sang Munich chants and stood outside the away end goading away supporters.

I'm a dad, I want to sit and enjoy the game with my son, I've lived a fan era which has long since passed. United, Liverpool, I am out of my seat a lot more.

Performances and rivalries will always dictate an atmosphere and level of hostility, same goes for a sense of injustice.

Otherwise we are just self-aware Scousers or Palace fans.

I completely understand all of the frustration you have outlined. It could and should be better for match going fans.

But I still think booing the team off the pitch because of a relative short bad run in the midst of some of the best football we have seen in decades (arguably ever) is not who we want to be. For me, it’s something I would expect the rags or the dippers to do. And they could currently only dream of the dominance and success Pep and the players have achieved over the last 5 years.

And take it from some who has had the match going experience taken away from them completely: the old saying “you really don’t know what you have until it is gone”, as tired as it is, is more true than most realise.

I think it is very much a case of “be careful what you wish for” when it comes to some of the criticisms being voiced recently.

We have a very good example of how quickly things can go wrong—and how badly—right across the way.

 

[Coatigan]

Our home support is no worse than Old Trafford, Anfield, Stamford Bridge, Emirates etc….i can live with that!
So why does Pep have to tell the whole fucking world live on tv that were shit (and not for the first time)
Does Ten Haag? Klopp? Arteta? I’ve also missed Potter mentioning how poor Chelsea fans were in his interview after City sang “is this the Etihad” at Stamford Bridge the other week.
Maybe try not to mention the fans (again) Pep. This shit sticks on the walls and your giving rival fans ammunition FFS
£70.00 for a ticket and the manager has a pop at you after his team put’s a peformance like that first half.

Were not perfect but which supporters are on a freezing Thursday night?

Partly, I think he honestly believes that he can call to arms and get an atmosphere that stimulates him and the players. Or even if he doesnt that the call itself can act as a kick. And doesn't see it reflecting badly, if he can feel he orchestrated a push.

But, partly it is also just a fucking distraction, and a ready-made excuse. From his own tactics, and stubborn refusal to budge even if it means losing a game. As is this players' lack of hunger chat, which he himself started some time ago.

But, at the end of the day, he is fucking trying, and putting it all out there right or wrong (or both), and I love it. Hope the team can respond. Including him.

 

[Inter Me Nan]

I see Pep doesn't get us has raised it's head again, i couldn't give a fuck if he does or doesn't he's not here to be our friend, he's here because he's a trophy machine.

 

[ytic04]

Over hyped press reaction to a half arsed bit of booing due to conceding with virtually the last kick of the half.
Don't think there would have been boos going in 1-0 down.

Pep caught having a wobble and takes the bait.

 

[half & half derby scarf]

OMG. WHY do we need Pep when we have fans like you who know so much more. After all, Pep’s done f*** all since he arrived whereas you never stop supporting “your” team

He's bang on though. It is Pep's job to motivate the players and he's failed miserably to do that this season.
Stones and Cancelo were visibly coasting in the pre world cup game and they weren't the only ones. Pep has finally admitted his mistake publicly and so I'm hoping we'll see a change from now on.

 

[flb]

I'm glad Pep said what he said, it needed saying.
But there's also truth to what you say. The variety of side-to-side possession-based football that characterised the first half — and it was slooooooowwwww side-to-side, by God it was! — and has characterised so many other halves this season is not exactly designed to get any stadium rocking.
Might be wrong, but I think we had one actual on-target shot in the first half. And that was by our marvellous right back! Who is, so far, the single best thing about this season.
Just out of interest — I wasn't there, saw it on the telly, (can't get over at present, finances won't allow) — was the place rocking in the second half? Because if it wasn't, given what was going on, then I don't know what people want as a spectacle. I was doing my nut (and made a fool of myself in front of strangers…)

We shouldn't be a team that only turns up in the second half-and its becoming a pattern this season, rouse them in the dressing room before kick and just maybe the team will get the atmosphere they deserve throughout the 90 minutes. The only game i can think of where we blew a team away this season at home was the derby.It has to be the team that gets the crowd going and tbf vice verca, something just doesn't feel right behind the scenes at the moment, it was evident in Peps reaction last night, Kev has a face like a slapped arse at the minute on the pitch for some reason,it seems more than just adapting to a new style of play to me.

 

[Keeper!]

I see Pep doesn't get us has raised it's head again, i couldn't give a fuck if he does or doesn't he's not here to be our friend, he's here because he's a trophy machine.

He calls some of our fans out and rightly so, we have always had a blue tinted percentage who would never call anyone out, even if it was right in front of their eyes.

Delighted to say we have a manager and Chairman that simply won't allow complacency at ANY level of the club.

 

[Coatigan]

I bet the players got a bit of a shock hearing Pep complain about their lack of passion, fight and desire. Considering they had just completed an amazing second half fightback.

They got lucky. Tonight.

Apparently.

 

[snorky]

I think someone forgot to get him a birthday cake.

 

[bennyboy]

We need a nasty twat of a Centre Mid. A Craig Bellemy / Paul Dickov to kick off and grab ppl by the throat when needed.

It's something we not had in this era that I can recall and I honestly think it would go a long way.

Two bang average players.
Have you forgotten about Fernandinho already.
We are missing him more than any other of our greats.
That's the man's big boots we have to fill.

 

[meeesh]

yeah but he's ignited something in you hasn't he.

Oh yes he has done that alright,but I'll be the same supporting bloke on Sunday,shouting and screaming my bollocks off to help the team

 

[SebastianBlue]

That I’ll agree with. Where was a Kompany or Fernandinho at that point. Only Jack seemed fired up. The older heads should have been protecting him big style at that point.

I’ve said this in a few other threads, but this is another manifestation of the shite officiating we have been getting.

Things don’t happen in a vacuum—the players see how we get cards for our first our second fouls whilst the opposition get 6 or 7 before being cautioned (if ever, in the case of the likes of Milner or Malacia).

Just because they weren’t putting in tackles on Hojberg and co doesn’t mean they didn’t want to do it.

In fact, I can almost guarantee that Rodri wanted to leave a boot in on the **** but knew he’d be on a yellow immediately and wouldn’t be given three more fouls after that for his second.

This is the insidious effectiveness of the clandestinely shite refereeing we get.

 

[Dogtanian]

Agree with what Pep said, we was shite last night, the club was shite last night, £70, fuck off and the team 1st half was shite

 

[give it to gordon]

He obviously isn't talking about people who weren't there, he's talking about the 95% full stadium that treated the first half like a pre-season friendly.

Yea I get that and he is right but I am a gobby loud singing fan but cant afford to go ;(

How many like me cant afford football now ?