Pep Guardiola - 2025/26

Paul1970 said:
We only win one because pep decided to fucking tinker in our biggest game ever and fucked it up . Absolute fuck up
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And that still totally annoys me 4 years on. And as I posted during the summer enabled the Chavs to become club World Champs. ( and I had them as winners from the start of the competition, posted on here loads about that premonition), they are jammy/ perform well in cup competitions.

But yes it took me about 3 months to ' recover' from that 2021 final. I don't get depression ( and I do so feel for folks who do) but I certainly had what felt like it for about 2/3 weeks in the June following the final. I rate Pep, but to my final days, I will never, ever forgive him for that final selection feck up. I'm just reading Marti Peranau ' Pep Guardiola The Revolution'. That final is covered and half of the players didn't buy into/ agree with the stupid non selection of Rod/ Fern and were also totally confused about the roles they were asked to play in the game. Add that to nerves anyway and perfect storm for Havertz to take advantage after thug Rudiger damaged Kev.

It's giving me mild trauma now even writing about it!!
 
69FACUPfinal said:
And that still totally annoys me 4 years on. And as I posted during the summer enabled the Chavs to become club World Champs. ( and I had them as winners from the start of the competition, posted on here loads about that premonition), they are jammy/ perform well in cup competitions.

But yes it took me about 3 months to ' recover' from that 2021 final. I don't get depression ( and I do so feel for folks who do) but I certainly had what felt like it for about 2/3 weeks in the June following the final. I rate Pep, but to my final days, I will never, ever forgive him for that final selection feck up. I'm just reading Marti Peranau ' Pep Guardiola The Revolution'. That final is covered and half of the players didn't buy into/ agree with the stupid non selection of Rod/ Fern and were also totally confused about the roles they were asked to play in the game. Add that to nerves anyway and perfect storm for Havertz to take advantage after thug Rudiger damaged Kev.

It's giving me mild trauma now even writing about it!!
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It certainly was head scratching, I thought we'd win comfortably, made me dread the team announcement against Inter
 
alexmcity said:
It seems pointless to explain what I mean. You don't want to get it. For example, I didn't say that finishing 6th would be acceptable. You didn't understand the sentence where "(6th?)" appeared. (6th?) refers to "nowhere near what's acceptable", not just to "what's acceptable". Also, I'm wondering there about what you mean under "nowhere near what is acceptable", hence the question mark after 6th.

For me, the aim this season is to build a new team that can win big trophies next season, PL and/or CL. 6th wouln't be enough to play in the CL. But I don't think that it is impossible to compete for the title this season. Yes, as things stand, we may be, say, 12 pts off the top in 2 weeks or months. But if we are 7-8 pts off the top in February, as we were in 2023, then we may have a chance to compete for the title. The season is very long and very surprising things may happen.

My last reply to you. Good luck.
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Thats fair enough, I may have misunderstood your earlier point yeah. But my point still stands, we won't be anywhere near competing for the league come February unless something changes sharpish and the only way that change can come about is through Pep. I'd have hoped to have seen a lot more in our last two games given the time he had with the team at the club world cup (which you could argue was another failure on his part) - yes we barely had a pre-season but you can't blame anyone else for that either.

You will probably be right that we will improve as the season goes on but given what we are seeing at the moment we are a long way off being able to compete to win the league. Obviously I hope your prediction is right and we will be in the title race but as it stands we are a million miles off in terms of quality and mentality it seems. I'm sure a lot of people would snap your hand off for a top 4 place right now. All the best anyway
 
Txiki Txiki Bang Bang said:
We should have 2 UCL titles easily if Pep favoured the practical approach, however calling him an absolute fuck up is out of line
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I agree it's out of line. But there's nothing easy in winning a CL final. Many of our fans severely underestimated Chelsea and thought it would be a walk in the park IF Pep played the right team. That was naive on their part and they decided that the loss was entirely on Pep.

Back then Fernandinho was more popular than Rodri. So, many thought that having a 36 yo in the starting XI would guarantee a win. That's naive at best (Ferna was poor in the FA Cup semi vs Chelsea several weeks earlier, and Rodri lost form in the final 4-5 weeks of the season, to the extent that some thought we need to sign another 6.)

Even if the Treble team played on the night, it might have lost. Given the success Pep has had with us, including in the CL (perhaps no Treble without that loss in Porto, who knows?), it's small time to blame him 4 years later, after the Treble and 4 in a row.
 
JewelZee said:
That depends on how we set up...I don't believe Nico G to be any slower than Gundo...
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Gundo is faster when turning though. That’s the main point. Nico G takes too long + he can’t play 1 overhead pass. Only short passes
 
King Jay said:
Gundo is faster when turning though. That’s the main point. Nico G takes too long + he can’t play 1 overhead pass. Only short passes
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I've seen him play longer balls over and through. Not sure where you've gotten that impression?
 
JewelZee said:
I've seen him play longer balls over and through. Not sure where you've gotten that impression?
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Ive never seen him doing that. Seriously. He had the option so many times and refused and played the safe 5 meter pass instead
 
alexmcity said:
I agree it's out of line. But there's nothing easy in winning a CL final. Many of our fans severely underestimated Chelsea and thought it would be a walk in the park IF Pep played the right team. That was naive on their part and they decided that the loss was entirely on Pep.

Back then Fernandinho was more popular than Rodri. So, many thought that having a 36 yo in the starting XI would guarantee a win. That's naive at best (Ferna was poor in the FA Cup semi vs Chelsea several weeks earlier, and Rodri lost form in the final 4-5 weeks of the season, to the extent that some thought we need to sign another 6.)

Even if the Treble team played on the night, it might have lost. Given the success Pep has had with us, including in the CL (perhaps no Treble without that loss in Porto, who knows?), it's small time to blame him 4 years later, after the Treble and 4 in a row.
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That team wasn't ready in 2021.

The club wasn't and as fans, I don't think we were.

There was a video going around about a year ago of someone analyzing the body language of both the Chelsea and City players and it was evident as day that our lot were psychologically not in that game.

Chelsea lost their first final in 2008, as did PSG in 2020. Some things happen.

Bayern lost to an arguably even poorer albeit more experienced Chelsea team in their own backyard in 2012 despite having by far the best set of players any club side had during that 2012-2013 period. Bayern should have gone back to back.
 
King Jay said:
Ive never seen him doing that. Seriously. He had the option so many times and refused and played the safe 5 meter pass instead
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When he first got here he did it quite a bit. A little birdie may have told him to knock it off...
 
Txiki Txiki Bang Bang said:
We should have 2 UCL titles easily if Pep favoured the practical approach, however calling him an absolute fuck up is out of line
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We shoulda had 4 in a row honestly.. and 5 total

2019: that fucking Spurs hand ball pisses me off to this day.

2021, 2022 (Cancelo offside fuck up), 2023, 2024
 
alexmcity said:
I already answered that point. We were in a similar situation in December 2020 in the following sense: 1. the previous season was poor by our standards, David left in the summer, Aguero and Ferna were oldish, Rodri and Gundo were terribly slow (remember?), Liverpool looked much stronger than us, having won 99 pts the previous season, and so on; 2. our start to the season was very slow, we looked off the pace, many were very pessimistic, especially after the draws with United and WBA in December. Read the threads from that time and you will get the similarities. Then...we won 21 games in a row in all compets and were just 3 wins off the quadruple.

Now, one can argue that despite the bad results at the start of 20/21, we had a much better team, but that's only because of hindsight. Back then many thought Pep had peaked and the future wasn't bright.

This doesn't mean we are going to repeat 20/21. It only means that people are too quick in their judgments. Nobody at this stage last season would predict that Liverpool would win the league in March and City would lose 4-5 consecutive games in the league.

My expectation is that we'll improve significantly over the season. Whether we can compete depends also on our rivals, their form, injury problems, and so on.
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Listen. It’s a lovely positive spin and I wish more than anything that happens. We both can back up our arguments with isolated examples. The truth is that city team. With aguero, kdb, sterling, Fernandinho, ederson etc was in a much better position than we currently are. We are a very new, young side. Again it may be premature to say so but in my opinion. Based off what we saw last season, what we’ve seen this season/ we won’t be near a title run in. That’s also without comparing the difference in competition to your example. Liverpool are champions and have strengthened with quality.
 
Paul1970 said:
Think he knew he’d be fucked if he tinkered with it .
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He did tinker though. He mixed things up against Inter too, playing Stones in a position he hadn’t played in before.

Thankfully it all worked out but realistically we should’ve beat that Inter team comfortably. Instead it was a tight game that we just about edged out. Lukaku being Lukaku and Ederson having the game of his life played a huge role. If Lukaku had put away one of his chances we’d have all been talking about how Pep tinkered and bottled a final again
 
Grealish’s Shinpads said:
He did tinker though. He mixed things up against Inter too, playing Stones in a position he hadn’t played in before.

Thankfully it all worked out but realistically we should’ve beat that Inter team comfortably. Instead it was a tight game that we just about edged out. Lukaku being Lukaku and Ederson having the game of his life played a huge role. If Lukaku had put away one of his chances we’d have all been talking about how Pep tinkered and bottled a final again
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Ederson definitely won the CL for us, but Pep and Rodri got all the credit. Such is the world of 'in-house' media hype.

It was a poor performance by City standards, all forgotten as soon as the trophy was lifted.

Pep got away with it thanks to Ederson. That was the day Pep should have stepped down at City imo.
 
thegoatsthegoat said:
You need to put some distance between supporting the team and pointing out our failures and weaknesses on an internet forum. I was there yesterday, cheered them to the last whistle, clapped them off and started my journey home stating how shite it was and how I don't think Pep is up to it anymore. Everyone is behind the team every week they play, in a safe place of your own clubs forum we are allowed to voice concerns.

You are repeating the same nonsense many have about thinking we expect to win the title every season. WE DO NOT. We expect a world class manager, with world class players who gets backed every window to improve to put in good performances. Win, lose or draw. If we play well, put the same level of effort in as the opposition and fall short, no dramas. Playing like yesterday, the week before and most of last season is simply not good enough.
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The minimum I want to see is effort so can’t argue with you on that ……yes last season wasn’t good enough, but I’m saying I still back Pep and the club to sort it out - I can handle us not winning anything again for another season without wanting the board and manager sacked.

The worst thing we could do as a club is overreact and become utd-esque - sack Pep, get a new head of football or whatever the hell and say we need success again NOW

I also enjoy the challenge of seeing us progress youth, bed in new signings and build a squad capable of winning the prem again……I don’t want us to sign the very best at 200m a go and bring in a new manager and win the title this season.

I disagree with you - Pep is still the world class manager he always has been, if we give him time and the players then he will bring a shed load of more trophies.
 
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