Pep Guardiola - 2021/22 Performances

[Bill]

Biggest mistake is not replacing sane, sergio and dave with equivelent players or any players in the striker dept , big mistake

good luck with that .

 

[Bill]

This is very reminiscent of last season situation when we had several fixtures against Chelsea in a short span of time and Pep started tinkering with the team and do his usual stupid overthinking. The avoidable loss against them in the cup got into Pep and players head prior to CL final and cost us a title that we could have clinched easily ! I do not buy into the “ I do not care about CL” nonsense and winning the PL title won’t make up for it in any way shape or form. I won’t forgive him if he bottles it again and he will go down in history as a stubborn, clueless and overrated coach as far as I am concerned. Not winning the PL and CL this season will be criminal and will tarnish all Pep’s achievements with City as that would offer the titles to the dippers on a silver platter. My take might be unpopulare among Pep’s worshippers on here but i don’t care.

bit OTT but in the main you are spot.
fair to say he isn't "clueless", sometimes he's too clever for his own good .
oh and I couldn't give a rats arse about the CL. it's a cup comp and a corrupt one at that .

 

[Kadour75]

Biggest mistake is not replacing sane, sergio and dave with equivelent players or any players in the striker dept , big mistake

When I read this post I just confirm that you know nothing about football ! Sergio is irreplaceable, Haland and Mbape do not even come close to him. Dave is one of a kind. Sane is just a one season wonder and is only rated by some City deluded fans. What I find ridiculous is that some people on here who considered him a clear-cut ballon d’or contender are still praising him although he has flopped with Bayern and Germany. The fact of the matter is that we have gone the extra mile without him in the CL and we are winning PL titles for fun. If he was that good, why didn’t Pep bat an eyelid when he forced a transfer ?

 

[K-Bo]

I think Pep got hosed by our board this season, addressed none of the problems in the market and just asked pep to do it again with a hand behind his back. I think he's made errors but anything lost this season is on the boardroom not Pep.

 

[ninjamonkey]

Nothing wrong with peps selection yesterday. Didn't really have any other options, the scheduling combined with the injuries and fatigue picked the side for him and he had to try and create a gameplan that was always going to be fighting an uphill battle.

No idea what's going through his mind not making subs though. Dinho put in an admirable shift but he was done by 60, I'm convinced he made that challenge that he got booked for expecting it would be his last action and wanted to just leave his mark before being subbed off. He was kept on and by 70 minutes he could hardly move.

He only replaced jesus because he took a knock and had to come off.

Subs to refresh the side could have made a big difference towards the end, a bit of energy and something different for them to consider could have given us a chance.

Even in the unlikely event he had mentally wrote the game off then you still make subs to spare the players who were goosed. Making players who are on their arses play for an extra 10-15 minutes requires so much more recovery time and is much more dangerous and susceptible to injuries than bringing on a player who might be starting midweek for 10 minutes, they can do that without it having any adverse effect on their condition for midweek, they do longer warm downs.

If gundogan and kdb weren't available/deemed too risky then why are they on the bench? leaving us with just mahrez and Delap as attackers because we've filled the bench with unfit players is something beyond my understanding.

 

[ScottSinclair]

When I read this post I just confirm that you know nothing about football ! Sergio is irreplaceable, Haland and Mbape do not even come close to him. Dave is one of a kind. Sane is just a one season wonder and is only rated by some City deluded fans. What I find ridiculous is that some people on here who considered him a clear-cut ballon d’or contender are still praising him although he has flopped with Bayern and Germany. The fact of the matter is that we have gone the extra mile without him in the CL and we are winning PL titles for fun. If he was that good, why didn’t Pep bat an eyelid when he forced a transfer ?

Listen, I usually disagree with most of what that particular poster posts, but she does have a point there I think. It is obviously hard to replace great players because they are great but the biggest flaw of our recruitment over the past few seasons is that we have lost players that have offered something different and then signed players in a similiar style to what we already have in the squad, or waited a year or two which has left us light in some positions.

As someone else on here brilliantly put it has made us a bit one-dimensional, a fantastic specific dimension yes, but one-dimensional none-the-less. Sergio and Sane's(you obviously don't rate him at all but I find that a bit odd) skill-set would be a cutting edge in any team, and without trying to replace any of those skills specifically we are bound to have less strings to our bow as a team.

Funnily enough we seem to have identified Haaland who with his attributes seems to be the perfect replacement in one player for those two players specifically.

 

[Kadour75]

Listen, I usually disagree with most of what that particular poster posts, but she does have a point there I think. It is obviously hard to replace great players because they are great but the biggest flaw of our recruitment over the past few seasons is that we have lost players that have offered something different and then signed players in a similiar style to what we already have in the squad, or waited a year or two which has left us light in some positions.

As someone else on here brilliantly put it has made us a bit one-dimensional, a fantastic specific dimension yes, but one-dimensional none-the-less. Sergio and Sane's(you obviously don't rate him at all but I find that a bit odd) skill-set would be a cutting edge in any team, and without trying to replace any of those skills specifically we are bound to have less strings to our bow as a team.

Funnily enough we seem to have identified Haaland who with his attributes seems to be the perfect replacement in one player for those two players specifically.

Torres could have been a good replacement or even a better option than Sane , for some reason that did not work. I consider Grealish to be head and shoulders above Sane and we should not judge his performance this season. Foden is better than Sane by a country mile. Anyway, let’s agree to disagree mate and thanks for your reply.

 

[Lovebitesandeveryfing]

Stood by his word to play his 'cup keeper' and paid the penalty. In my opinion, Steffen never looked comfortable at any point in the match.

If he'd picked Ederson, we'd probably be in the final. We could say exactly the same about last season

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Pep should have learned from it last season. There's no room for sentiment if you want to win trophies.

I don't know if it's true that he gave his word, but in my opinion no manager should ever give their word to any specific player that they are going to play in any specific match. If the player doesn't like it, tough.
They assess each match on its merits, or they should do. And Pep usually does. In this case, apparently, not. But I certainly hope he didn't promise anything in advance to Zak Steffen (who I generally like as a second-choice keeper, as I have said a number of times) about playing a semi-final against the second-best club side in Europe (and therefore probably the world).

 

[Lavinda Past]

I don't know if it's true that he gave his word, but in my opinion no manager should ever give their word to any specific player that they are going to play in any specific match. If the player doesn't like it, tough.
They assess each match on its merits, or they should do. And Pep usually does. In this case, apparently, not. But I certainly hope he didn't promise anything in advance to Zak Steffen (who I generally like as a second-choice keeper, as I have said a number of times) about playing a semi-final against the second-best club side in Europe (and therefore probably the world).

As I recall, Pep has referred to Zach Steffen as his 'cup keeper' a few times in interviews when asked why Ederson wasn't playing.
The only time Zach wasn't picked, was due to him being injured.

While there's no written evidence of a 'promise' being made, I think it's reasonable to conclude from his selection ahead of a fit Ederson, that an 'understanding' was in place.

I doubt very much that it mattered at all who we were playing against, or at what stage of the competition. Zach Steffen has been as good as guaranteed to play in every FA Cup game for the last two seasons.

As I've said before, Pep's stubbornness is probably his Achilles heel.

 

[Johnny Mars Bar]

As I recall, Pep has referred to Zach Steffen as his 'cup keeper' a few times in interviews when asked why Ederson wasn't playing.
The only time Zach wasn't picked, was due to him being injured.

While there's no written evidence of a 'promise' being made, I think it's reasonable to conclude from his selection ahead of a fit Ederson, that an 'understanding' was in place.

I doubt very much that it mattered at all who we were playing against, or at what stage of the competition. Zach Steffen has been as good as guaranteed to play in every FA Cup game for the last two seasons.

As I've said before, Pep's stubbornness is probably his Achilles heel.

When did this trend of playing the backup keeper in the FA Cup start anyway? I swear until a few years ago the backup keeper only played in the league cup.

Or is this just a Guardiola thing?