Pep Guardiola - 2024/25

[Dazzle84]

Some big thinking needed from him now - relentless fixture list for the rest of the year and he'll need to figure out how to tighten us up

 

[Damanino]

him wanting a small squad and happy faces all around when we knew extra CL games and added club world cup will me immensely hard on the fixture list and cause more injuries as we especially with the shit pre season most our players missed due to Euros.

 

[citymad]

You what, he gets paid handsomely, we want players to sign 5 year contracts, not 2 year contracts. No wonder we are struggling to sign quality players (and we are), if the manager keeps saying he's going to go in two years time.
No wonder we look a shambles and players don't look arsed, the manager (as good as he is), is taking the piss.

You might get one or two with that one, made it too obvious with that ridiculous last comment.

 

[super_city_si]

Watched the goals back and they were all pretty much bad mistakes. Even the last one, grealish gives it away on the half way line. He never does that. We were so sloppy. Injuries, yes, but it looks like everyone’s concentration has gone. Maybe the cost of 4 on the run has caught us.

This is why we needed fresh blood. Quality fresh blood.

 

[Ajm1985]

‘This is not a team created to do box-to-box 40 times in a game - we are not good at that.’

Which begs the question what was the team created to do? We’ve been signing players that aren’t best suited for patient, possession football (Phillips, Nunes, Doku, Savinho) and allowed others to leave who were.

Very good point

 

[VOOMER]

You might get one or two with that one, made it too obvious with that ridiculous last comment.

It's a forum. I've made a comment, and got it out of my system.

 

[VOOMER]

Fookinell. Who ever thought the best manager in football would spend 10 years in M11? We have been blessed.

We have, but it's City not Pep who we follow.

 

[kaz7]

We have, but it's City not Pep who we follow.

You are only interested when things are going wrong , a joke

 

[69FACUPfinal]

We’re playing twice a week now until the end of the year, that’s nine games.

He won’t have enough time on the training ground to drill a new system so he needs to start picking the players that suit one of his drilled set ups

Yesterday we went with the 2-3-5 in possession with Gvardiol and Walker providing the width , walker hasn’t got the legs anymore and Gvardiol was our best attacker but worst defender

Lewis , Bernardo and Gundogan has no physicality and were constantly late on the press when we turned over posession

Foden and Savinho were shite as inside forwards and could affect the game at all apart from the first 10 mins


I think the biggest issue is the midfield 3 , we need at least two players in there who can get about the pitch and squeeze the play . He’s going to have to bite the bullet and play either Nunes or on or two of the kids

If not we’re staring down the barrel of going on a long winless run

His comments about trusting older players also worries me as it’s plain they don’t have anything left to give at the moment.

Ideally we need at least one midfielder and a right back in January, probably a back up striker as well

For me the mid - or lack of is the main problem. I still wonder why we didn't go for McAllister the other year. Need a gutsy tackling player with am eye for playing the right ball forward. Whose name is not Rodri.

Injuries don't help, but neither does constantly changing the defensive line up.

 

[Blue_Lightsaber]

‘This is not a team created to do box-to-box 40 times in a game - we are not good at that.’

Which begs the question what was the team created to do? We’ve been signing players that aren’t best suited for patient, possession football (Phillips, Nunes, Doku, Savinho) and allowed others to leave who were.

It's obvious in big games teams play us man to man so we bet on players who could beat their man.

Nunes, Doku, Savinho can do that..

But Philipps is the major disaster.
Rodri's ACL disaster ^2
Gundo struggling ^3
Kovacic injury ^4

I guess it's fitting we lost 0-4

 

[Chak19]

We struggle so badly against teams that transition quickly from defence to attack. The worst thing for us is that teams have just started playing that this season. Quick transitions and counter attacks have become popular again from managers.

Remember Pep saying that it’s so important to win the ball quickly to stop teams quickly breaking, we just don’t have the players to do that in the team right now. So teams have a free hit at our defence

We can't even get close to commit the good old tactical fouls.

 

[Blue_Lightsaber]

We can't even get close to commit the good old tactical fouls.

That's a really good point..

Who's committing the tactical fouls or trying to?

I seem to remember Bernardo, Nunes, Rico and Stones try to do it.

Not seen Foden, Gundo, Grealish, Gvardiol, Walker, Savinho do it once..

 

[Gabriel]

It's obvious in big games teams play us man to man so we bet on players who could beat their man.

Nunes, Doku, Savinho can do that..

But Philipps is the major disaster.
Rodri's ACL disaster ^2
Gundo struggling ^3
Kovacic injury ^4

I guess it's fitting we lost 0-4

We used to have a team of players who could keep possession indefinitely and shift teams around until we exhausted them and openings appeared. Now, we have team of players who have less patience and give possession away cheaply, especially across the front line. When we do that, we are going to do as much running as the ball and as much running as the opponent. Somewhere down the line somebody thought this was a good idea.

 

[Chak19]

That's a really good point..

Who's committing the tactical fouls or trying to?

I seem to remember Bernardo, Nunes, Rico and Stones try to do it.

Not seen Foden, Gundo, Grealish, Gvardiol, Walker, Savinho do it once..

I remember Bernardo a few times, that's it.

 

[Chak19]

We used to have a team of players who could keep possession indefinitely and shift teams around until we exhausted them and openings appeared. Now, we have team of players who have less patience and give possession away cheaply, especially across the front line. When we do that, we are going to do as much running as the ball and as much running as the opponent. Somewhere down the line somebody thought this was a good idea.

Our press has been garbage as well, we should just drop it.

 

[Blue_Lightsaber]

I've got another question..

Ruben's been out injured for a while..

Is our defense totally shit without Ruben shouting at them and constantly telling them what to do??

I mean even tactical fouls.. instead there seems to be apathy and just quietly jogging back!

 

[Gabriel]

Our press has been garbage as well, we should just drop it.

I think we need to retain it, but we need to drill them into pressing as units especially the front three, and as a team. If one person takes it upon himself to press half-heartedly, then an opponent will be free and the rest have pointlessly wasted their energy. Sometimes sides play out of it under their own steam, Southampton in October, but, generally speaking, if they break the press, then it’s either down to someone not understanding their own angles/their teammates’ angles or not doing it with conviction.

 

[Chak19]

I think we need to retain it, but we need to drill them into pressing as units especially the front three, and as a team. If one person takes it upon himself to press half-heartedly, then an opponent will be free and the rest have pointlessly wasted their energy. Sometimes sides play out of it under their own steam, Southampton in October, but, generally speaking, if they break the press, then it’s either down to someone not understanding their own angles/their teammates’ angles or not doing it with conviction.

I don't think we can press with Haaland upfront, he just isn't built to press.

 

[nellyonthewing]

We used to have a team of players who could keep possession indefinitely and shift teams around until we exhausted them and openings appeared. Now, we have team of players who have less patience and give possession away cheaply, especially across the front line. When we do that, we are going to do as much running as the ball and as much running as the opponent. Somewhere down the line somebody thought this was a good idea.

The theory that we are the best run club with the best football brains is rapidly evaporating.

 

[Gigant]

First things first.

The culprits for all the trouble we're facing are the senile old man Tixi and Pep Guardiola himself, to the extent that he has had an influence. All the chaos began after winning the treble, with a disastrous transfer window (only one player brought in) and the contract extension for Walker, which is even worse. If we had any sense and luck, Walker would have been Bayern’s problem by now, not ours. Forget all his current shortcomings as a player—he’s a rarely unintelligent person, and that’s an even bigger problem than him losing his speed.

After the first two culprits, injuries come into play, which we can’t control, but we’re still back to those two because we have no backups.

The problems are so challenging that even if the club were ultra-active in the next two transfer windows (winter and summer), we still wouldn’t have a clear squad situation:

• Walker – Old, slow, the biggest defensive liability, opponents target him and exploit it to the maximum against us.
• Stones – Injury-prone, a player you simply can’t rely on.
• Gundogan – It’s pure luck that he has just one more year on his contract, and hopefully, he won’t be an issue next season. He’s old, slow, and a shadow of the player he used to be.
• Lewis – Probably the most overrated talent ever, and Pep has had many like him throughout his career: think of players like Rode, Gaudinho, Højbjerg, Krkić, Tello, Rafinha, Cuenca, etc. I actually think some of these players have had a more successful career than Lewis will ever have. Sorry, kid, but the maximum role he can realistically play is the one that Sergio Gomez had.
• Bernardo – He’s a dead player now. Many have already said everything that needs to be said about him here. He’s been unusable for 18 months, even though he’s not exactly old yet. The 30,000 minutes he’s played under Pep have taken their toll. He’s lost his speed, his sprint, his dribbling. He passes the ball backwards, has no crossing ability, his pressing is useless, and he loses the ball more than ever.