Pre Pep Plans Put in Place By Pep?

[Trautmann's Chiropractor]

Been thinking about Pellegrini’s last season recently and how much of an impact Guardiola may have had on it. Not in terms of Pellegirini downing tools, but how the transfers and tactics were adjusted to suit Pep coming in, even before it was announced.

The summer before Guardiola arrived we signed De Bruyne and Sterling. Thinking back were these two really signings for Pellegrini? How did they suit his 442, two touch style of play? Add the fact that we went head to head with Bayern for De Bruyne (who Guardiola really wanted there) and came out on top. We’ve seen that Pep phones the player he wants directly to convince them to sign for his team, did he not bother because he knew he’d be coming here so was happy for us to sign De Bruyne?

Also this was the first summer we started loaning players to Girona, and buying players specifically for them too. A token gesture for Pere Guardiola?

January comes around and we’re heavily linked to Weigl. Probably the antithesis of a Pelligrini player. There’s no way he could’ve held that single pivot role with Toure rampaging ahead of him. Surely this would’ve been at Guardiola’s request?

This was Pellegrini’s 3rd season, and it was the first time we’d seen him adjust his game plan. He played a 3 man midfield with Toure, Fernandinho and Fernando at the swamp, then used it in the CL. It was more of a 4141 but much more similar to Guardiola’s set up than the one Pellegrini used prior.

The only thing that downplays this is that the club gave Pellegrini a one year extension in August of that year, only to tell him he’s being replaced 6 months later. If we were planning for Pep to come in, why did we extend Pellegrini’s contract?

Any thoughts on this or am I looking into it too much?

 

[feedmpenzaandhewillscore]

Looking back at the transfer window of 2015 what a summer it was De Bruyne, Sterling, Otamendi and Delph all brought in. It could be argued it was a close second to the 2010 transfer window.

We used to complain we never bought players who improved our first 11 in previous years but everyone of these has. All these signings barring Delph maybe were Pep signings, Sterling under Pellegrini didn’t feel he had as much freedom to go at players and go for a safe option instead. Probably why we would always see Navas run up the wing then dribble back to the half way line to give it to a centre half.

Pep knew he was coming and I bet he was in the ears of Txiki laying out what he wanted.

 

[blue b4 the moon]

If he had a lot of say in what went on he was only average at thinking outside the box, we were never 'at it' last season as he didn't look at the full backs.

 

[blueparrot]

If he had a lot of say in what went on he was only average at thinking outside the box, we were never 'at it' last season as he didn't look at the full backs.

Think he did, he has said somewhere the full backs would have been too many changes to make so they decided to wait a year. Cant remember where I saw that though.

 

[Ban-jani]

We surely would have bought several full backs had this been the case. It’s where we’ve been short for the last few years, since Zaba in his prime anyway.

 

[Vienna_70]

Been thinking about Pellegrini’s last season recently and how much of an impact Guardiola may have had on it. Not in terms of Pellegirini downing tools, but how the transfers and tactics were adjusted to suit Pep coming in, even before it was announced.

The summer before Guardiola arrived we signed De Bruyne and Sterling. Thinking back were these two really signings for Pellegrini? How did they suit his 442, two touch style of play? Add the fact that we went head to head with Bayern for De Bruyne (who Guardiola really wanted there) and came out on top. We’ve seen that Pep phones the player he wants directly to convince them to sign for his team, did he not bother because he knew he’d be coming here so was happy for us to sign De Bruyne?

Also this was the first summer we started loaning players to Girona, and buying players specifically for them too. A token gesture for Pere Guardiola?

January comes around and we’re heavily linked to Weigl. Probably the antithesis of a Pelligrini player. There’s no way he could’ve held that single pivot role with Toure rampaging ahead of him. Surely this would’ve been at Guardiola’s request?

This was Pellegrini’s 3rd season, and it was the first time we’d seen him adjust his game plan. He played a 3 man midfield with Toure, Fernandinho and Fernando at the swamp, then used it in the CL. It was more of a 4141 but much more similar to Guardiola’s set up than the one Pellegrini used prior.

The only thing that downplays this is that the club gave Pellegrini a one year extension in August of that year, only to tell him he’s being replaced 6 months later. If we were planning for Pep to come in, why did we extend Pellegrini’s contract?

Any thoughts on this or am I looking into it too much?

The one-year extension for Manuel was to damp down the speculation that was everywhere during the summer of '16; that was obvious.

Mrs Vienna and I have discussed this a few times, and we’re both of the opinion that Raheem and KdB were signed for Pep 12 months early.

 

[Hoghead]

Pellers was ever only a caretaker until Pep rocked up. The one year extention for Pellers was his payoff for going gracefully and without rancour.
So yes, Pep could well have had a say in the squad and signings 12 months before he took over.

 

[MarsLlama]

It's generally accepted that fullbacks are the easiest position on the pitch to 'make do' and I imagine we knew we needed Gundogan, Nolito, Stones, Bravo and Sané but didn't have the money to secure our fullback targets on top of that, and they'd have been the lower priority.