Pep Guardiola - 2023/24

Status
Not open for further replies.
JDV said:
It's not an easy task. These last 3 losses we are without our starting midfield for the past 3 years. Put Gundogan, Rodri and KDB into any team and your almost guaranteed a win.

I think we really missed out by not being able to sign Paqueta. I think he would have been an excellent replacement for Gundogan and would be a leader and a creative threat in these types of games.
Click to expand...
Think you’ve hit the nail on the head here - you take those three players out of your midfield and you’re always going to be a lot weaker.

Gundogan’s contribution was key to a lot of games last year - either scoring the first goal or setting it up - and we simply haven’t replaced him. Kovacic may prove a useful signing later in the season and Nunes looks like he has the raw ingredients to be a good player, but neither of them are going to replace Gundogan, and equally neither look capable of deputising for Rodri at this stage either.

So of the two players signed in midfield - and it’s early days yet - neither appear capable of filling the two obvious gaps in the squad, and of course we couldn’t ship Phillips out either, so there’s three players there who don’t address the immediate needs of the team.

We were unfortunate with Paquetta but from Guardiola’s comments in his press conference he seems a bit pissed off that we didn’t make a bigger push for Rice. Personally I think we’ll have to be a bit more forceful regarding moving on Phillips and hopefully we’ll be able to go back in for Paquetta in January, because the balance of the midfield looks way off.
 
  • Like
Reactions: JDV
Hes changed how we play again by removing width. Too many players central. We had no wingers till doku came on and then we had one. We have fuck all width.
 
Today was a case of crowbarring players in because they've played well recently and not trusting some others

- He's been brilliant recently but Julian shouldn't be starting RW, let Phil play there and play one of our 2 left wingers instead if we aren't playing with a CAM/CF
- Bernie shouldn't have to play at 6 when we have Nunes, Kova and Phillips.
- Needs to limit what he is asking of Lewis in a game like this. What even was his role today? Expected to be everywhere and ended up phased out for large parts.
- Haaland just straight up wasn't working today. I get leaving him on when we are actually getting ball into dangerous areas ect but we could still be playing now and he'd still not have had a sniff today. It's ok to sub him in a performance like this when we NEED a different approach/focal point up top, be that Julian or a false 9, he can't always be the untouchable, he's not got the something out of nothing in his locker like Kev.
 
Last edited:
01cravend said:
Today was a case of crowbarring players in because they've played well recently and not trusting some others

- He's been brilliant recently but Julian shouldn't be starting RW, let Phil play there and play one of our 2 left wingers instead if we aren't playing with a CAM/CF
- Bernie shouldn't have to play at 6 when we have Nunes, Kova and Phillips.
- Needs to limit what he is asking of Lewis in a game like this. What even was his role today? Expected to be everywhere and ended up phased out for large parts.
- Haaland just straight up wasn't working today. I get leaving him on when we are actually getting ball into dangerous areas ect but we could still be playing now and he'd still not have had a sniff today. It's ok to sub him in a performance like this when we NEED a different approach/focal point up top, be that Julian or a false 9, he can't always be the untouchable, he's not got the something out of nothing in his locker like Kev.
Click to expand...

Haaland was the ultimate false 9 today.
 
He’s obviously hamstrung by the lack of proper options in the centre of midfield - Gundogan gone, De Bruyne out, Stones out, then Rodri out for the last few. Arguably our four most important players in the run-in last year - always going to be a huge miss. Others not up to it - yet.

Looks like a case of getting through the next run of matches dropping as few points as possible, then hopefully things will click once we get a couple back and up to speed.

For the time being, I’d use Bernardo next to Rodri, Walker as an orthodox full back, and play a front 4 of Haaland + 3 of Alvarez, Foden, Grealish and Doku.

If we can get everyone back, no reason we can’t be as good/effective as last year:

——————————-Ederson——-
—Walker/Akanji—Dias—Gvardiol/Ake
————-————Stones—-Rodri———
Bernardo—-KDB-Foden/Alvarez—Grealish
—————-————Haaland————
 
super_city_si said:
Hes changed how we play again by removing width. Too many players central. We had no wingers till doku came on and then we had one. We have fuck all width.
Click to expand...

That was my main complaint all the way through the game yesterday. It's almost like we stifled ourselves by jamming too many players into a narrow area.

One of our best chances was when Gvardiol got into a wide advanced position and put in a cross. All Arsenal had to do was realise when our fullbacks were advanced or not and if not, they knew there was only a possibility us playing through the middle and they could defend it easily. They barely had anything to think about. We needed an extra option out wide instead of leaving it solely to the full backs.

I was a bit baffled then the game started and saw how we were set up. I think it was over-thought and it back fired.

But Pep has forgotten more than I'll ever know so who am I to really question his tactics? but for me it just looked like we made Arsenal's job much easier than it needed to be, and caused congestion in our own attacking play by being so narrow most of the time.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Unread Posts

Don't have an account? Register now and see fewer ads!

SIGN UP
Back
Top
✖
  AdBlock Detected
Bluemoon relies on advertising to pay our hosting fees. Please support the site by disabling your ad blocking software to help keep the forum sustainable. Thanks.