Pep Guardiola - 2025/26

[vincent]

As others have said, too soft in the midfield. That’s where games are won and lost.

 

[.db.]

Pep can’t put the ball in the net for them.

We had more than enough chances off the back of Pep’s tactics to win two games of football. But the players let Pep down by fluffing them.

 

[bhayes]

Another away performance he’s fucked up.

Whoever’s defensive coach (kolo maybe) needs sacking.

Pep seems to have lost it.

Blaming kolo toure is not the take

City were awful last year and the mentality still lingers from last year.

 

[hertsblue]

Pep can’t put the ball in the net for them.

We had more than enough chances off the back of Pep’s tactics to win two games of football. But the players let Pep down by fluffing them.

It’s an ongoing issue, our lack of finishing bar Haaland and it’s down to him to spend the time in training to try and improve it. But also like our set pieces which are easily the worst in the PL, he seems to totally ignore these aspects of the game.
It’s also concerning that we simply cannot beat a decent side away anymore and that’s down to him.

 

[Saddleworth2]

He wears his ‘I will say nothing about the referee’ as a badge of honour.
Fuck that, I wish he would say it as it is and take the consequences. Time he really went for the cheating bastards. It might make no difference or it might make them think twice. The least he should be demanding is an explanation about two incidents yesterday (their second and Phil pen). Maybe the refereeing of fouls as well.

 

[surprisedbygrass]

Even a tired Doku is more use than Savinho’s current cameos!

I think he was taken off to protect him . Cherki and Phil also .Let's face it , the ref wasn't interested and they had free reign. If we could all see what was happening on the pitch so could Pep . He knows how long the season is and who he can't afford to loose . I'm just glad we got out without any major injuries. We could have done with Khusanov and/or Kova for a bit of bite but Pep will have judged them not ready . Pity as I think Khus would have galvanised our defence / team . He is a warrior . For this reason I'm optimistic . We only need a couple of big strong players to be at our best .

 

[TurboDuo]

I don’t really blame him for yesterday’s starting XI — we all wanted that team, and I still think it’s our best lineup without Rodri.


What I do blame him for, and what he really should’ve worked on, is the lack of energy and what looked like poor motivation. We should’ve gone into the game with far more intensity; it all looked a bit lethargic.


And there’s one more important thing: we’re missing that flexibility. We’re missing the Pep from the early seasons, the one who constantly switched systems when needed. We need to bring back the 3-5-2 from time to time for unpredictability and to be able to change things instantly during games. With Aït-Nouri, for example, that setup could be very useful, as well as for a few other players. Bringing on Savinho didn’t really add anything.

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[Roachy]

The teams a bit too passive at the moment with not enough players of the right skill level to make amends for this deficiency.

 

[Rammy Blue]

Pep has sorted a way of playing at home imo, but thinking the same team and formation can get results away is folly.

I knew we’d be too lightweight in the middle yesterday, it’s tough picking the correct games for Bernie to start and also for Cherki to influence.

Not even going to discuss the substitutions, they were fucking ridiculous and predictably bad. Both Bobb and Savio are not good enough, but if you are going to bring Savio on then at least stick him on the right.

 

[garyCTID]

I don’t think you can go away to teams the likes of Newcastle and play Foden and Cherki in the same midfield. Neither are interested in putting the leg work in. You see when they lose the ball that there is no urgency whatsoever to win it back. Gonzales has been excellent this season but yesterday he was left so isolated on his own by those two.

 

[TonyM]

We are getting better in a lot of ways imo. But we don't have a title winning squad at the moment. Maybe we have 75% of one.

Pep's strength imo is in developing a more effective squad over a long period but in a game by game basis he is rarely great imo.

Pep's substitutions did't help us yesterday. He basically threw the game. But maybe in the long term that'll be 3 points lost and many more gained.

The dilemma of Pep.

 

[B\connellblue]

Just once it would nice to see him fire either Gvardiol or Nico o'Reilly up top to help Haaland when we're looking an equaliser and pump the ball Into the box. The tippy tappy shite rarely gets it done. We have a very poor record of coming from.behind now especially away from home.
Truth be told yesterday is about where we are now. Not a title winning squad.

 

[Love_Each_Day]

I don’t think you can go away to teams the likes of Newcastle and play Foden and Cherki in the same midfield. Neither are interested in putting the leg work in. You see when they lose the ball that there is no urgency whatsoever to win it back. Gonzales has been excellent this season but yesterday he was left so isolated on his own by those two.

I agree but it's not just those two. Doku is even less interested in putting in the leg work, a lot of his "effort" is trotting around up front often further forward than Haarland. Bernardo becomes a bit of a non entity when we're getting bullied and have to make lots of hard runs back towards our own goal. It really looked like 4 lightweight forwards ahead of Gonzalez.

One of Pep's mantras you used to hear repeated from the likes of Gungogan was "When we don't have the ball, everybody runs". Since the treble we've been filling the side with players that can't/won't.

 

[Paul1970]

Pep has sorted a way of playing at home imo, but thinking the same team and formation can get results away is folly.

I knew we’d be too lightweight in the middle yesterday, it’s tough picking the correct games for Bernie to start and also for Cherki to influence.

Not even going to discuss the substitutions, they were fucking ridiculous and predictably bad. Both Bobb and Savio are not good enough, but if you are going to bring Savio on then at least stick him on the right.

We need a destroyer in midfield like a David batty

 

[Ajm1985]

Was happy with the XI and we created enough in the first half to justify it. The chances we gave up are the risk from starting Phil. Cherki & Bernardo in midfield against a combative midfield like that. We were alos fucked over by the officials.

Too many players were shite in front of goal and the defending was laughable at times.

Pep was slow to change it up and the subs he made reduced our threat. As others have said, a move like bringing on RAN to allow O'Reilly into midfield might have been worth seeing.

 

[alexmcity]

Pep is still trying to find his best team and is experimenting, the influence of the other Pep is important too. He was right to play the same XI as vs Liverpool, relying on our attack and Donna to bail us out. But Haaland and Foden had a bad day at the office, and the plan misfired. Of course, it wouldn't be fair to Pep to ignore the officiating. It was scandalous.

We need more stability away from home, for which we need Rodri. There are no magical solutions.

Maybe there are pragmatic solutions: play a bit more defensively and rely on counters. This may get us some wins, but betraying our style of play for results is likely to back fire long term.

 

[Craig]

Pep can’t put the ball in the net for them.

We had more than enough chances off the back of Pep’s tactics to win two games of football. But the players let Pep down by fluffing them.

That’s true about our chances but then they had a daft amount too. Nobody would have complained about the team pre match. I did think we were getting over run down the flanks due to having 2 wide players playing inside and Newcastle having 2 very good fullbacks. I thought at h/t he should have addressed it and taken Cherki off. Doku inside was justified as he should have had about 3 assists first half. Having 2 playing so narrow was problem yesterday and Pep just left it and seemed to hoe for the best as we were creating too.

 

[Sam69]

Donnarumma did the job, creating a lot of chances, but let's be honest, yesterday's match saw Foden and Haaland each needing to score at least two goals but not doing so. It becomes almost impossible to win a match when you miss all those clear opportunities.

 

[.db.]

It’s an ongoing issue, our lack of finishing bar Haaland and it’s down to him to spend the time in training to try and improve it. But also like our set pieces which are easily the worst in the PL, he seems to totally ignore these aspects of the game.
It’s also concerning that we simply cannot beat a decent side away anymore and that’s down to him.

Two of our better finishers (Haaland and Foden) are the ones who are missing most of the sitters though.

Haaland is an incredible goslscorer but just in recent months alone he missed two 1on1s with the keeper against Everton, missed a 1on1 with the keeper at Villa, missed a sitter at Villarreal, missed two near post headers from corners against Bournemouth, had a penalty saved against Liverpool, and missed a chance with the keeper 20 yards off his line and then missed a point blank chance that he hit with no finesse straight at the keeper at Newcastle.

We lost two of those games by a single goal.

Foden missed two sitters at Brentford, and missed two sitters in the first half and skied one under no pressure in the second half yesterday at Newcastle.

We hung on for the win by a single goal at Brentford but lost at Newcastle by a single goal.

These chances have fallen to our better finishers. It isn’t a case of Doku, Nico and Cherki being the ones missing sitters who need to improve their finishing because they rarely score, it’s been Haaland and Foden.

Set pieces aren’t ignored, you can see we work on things and Foden has improved his corner taking and now takes better corners than De Bruyne ever did. He just isn’t elite at it. We should have scored from three first half corners against Bournemouth, two free near post headers from Haaland that he didn’t connect with properly and one that dropped right in front of two of our players (Dias and Gvardiol, maybe, can’t remember?) in the box, neither of which got a shot off.

 

[Kippax Street 1880]

Bad subs yesterday but he needed to look after Cherki and Doku with us having 3 games in a short space of time. The subs need to step up, Pep gave them a chance and they didn't take it. No complaints with the selection yesterday. Would have been nice to have Rodri and Kova but we didn't.