Pep Guardiola - 2023/24

Goldust said:
Or just buy an adequate replacement,
Click to expand...
But there is no replacement. Ideally, we would already have someone like Luiz or Paqueta, players who could do something similar in terms of their rotation and who have good movement and vision. However, neither has the physical presence of Rodri, and that is why we need to perm the others and find a solution from within for now.
 
A new "low"? Start of his "Mou-Era" also on the pitch? The game could have easily ended 3:0.

If someone told me one year ago Pep would start a game in 5-4-1 formation (when Villa had the ball, 4-3-3/3-4-3 when we had possession) with 4 CBs+Walker then I would have mocked him. But it`s an embarrassing reality. It signaled fear from the get-go & it was "only" Villa. Add Bernardo, Foden on the wings & our midfield+creativity was non-existent (crazy to write this about a Pep-team). Lack of tactical changes (till the goal) & risk-averse subs were the icing on the cake. Unreal that 4 CB+ Walker were still on the pitch after 95 min. Honestly his new found obsession with CBs is weird. We bought 3 midfield players for over £120m & he only trust Stones/Akanji to replace Rodri?

Each idea/system is at one point outdated. The 3/4 CB idea which I always disliked lasted 4 months & it was very successful but I hope he will bin it sooner than later.
 
Too much chopping and changing of players for me this season.

I recognise some of this out of Pep's hands with injuries / suspensions, but I think the players are always going to struggle when there's no consistency in the line up.

In our treble run last year, you knew who would be playing and what their role was if everyone was fit and available. Yes, the tactics / positioning may have been fluid (i.e Stones moving to RB/CM), but it was the same consistent 11 generally for the big games.

This season I have no idea what our system is going to be and which player is going to (rightfully or wrongfully) get dropped/rotated the next game. There isn't a clear identity to this side this season.

I think we were always going to struggle with some big players moving out and some winning fatigue setting in. I also expect things to pick up considerably once we can get KDB and Stones back in this team as starting players. But I want to see consistency and allow the players to gel to a way of playing instead of whatever variance we seem to be seeing at the moment.

I am not going to panic though, because I feel I was having this exact conversation around this time last year when things weren't clicking and Pep found a solution.

We're very much still in it, but we just need to sort things out fairly quickly.
 
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