Tempering the Guardiola Optimism

[Machiavelli]

lets hope he is better than Mancini

Providing there isn't a best hair category, I'm sure he will be.

 

[Neville Kneville]

I don't understand why people think this is going to happen.

If Vieira is going to succeed Guardiola, then why have they sent him away to New York for the duration of Guardiola's contract?

Why isn't he Pep's assistant, soaking up his knowledge, learning how he coaches the team and does things? We know Guardiola's methods are unusual, his insistance on doing all training with a football, his crazy positional drills are talked about in great detail in Pep Confidential.

If we are going to have a smooth transition then we want a coach who is going to carry on Guadiola's work and just tweak things here and there, someone who coaches in the same way - we want a Tito Villanova/Luis Enrique type.

What we really don't want is a coach who will turn up and try and change everything Guardiola has done.

If Vieira fails at NYCFC it's going to do his prospects here no good and he's not going to be ready for us, if he succeeds, he's not going to be Pep's assistant and he'd be a poor choice to take over.

I don't see it happening if Pep is only here for 3 years.

Because we now get the chance to see, if Vieira genuinely has anything special about him, with Pep as someone who helps evaluate. It surely doesn't matter what NYC win, it matters whether he is getting the right message across & doing what we want from a manager. Can Pep take over & turn NYC into Barca ? No fucking chance. Turd polishing is not what we are after. We want to see evidence of future ability, to work with quality players, post Pep.

 

[Bluwhit]

Pep isn't a slave to one way of playing. He's the complete pragmatist.

If we can't play one way he'll coach the team to play another. That is the beauty of Pep he will coach the team to win against whoever we are playing. Of course, it doesn't always work but his track record shows a very high % of success.

Spot on. In a run of 10 Bundesliga games this season he played 10 different formations.

 

[OB1]

Would people accept 3 at the back with this team?

Silva and KDB as full backs? I don't think so.

 

[sh249]

Silva and KDB as full backs? I don't think so.

Seems daft. But Munich did play a kind of 3-2-4-1 formation a couple of weeks back (against Hoffenheim, I think), that wasn't too dissimilar: Kimmich, Badstuber, Alaba at the back, Alonso and Lahm in front of them, then a four of Coman, Costa, Müller and Robben in behind Lewandowski.

On a side note, having such tactical flexibility will obviously be a weapon at our disposal. But part of me thinks that we'd be advised to try and use a fairly consistent system, particularly in the early weeks of the season, as the players get used to what Guardiola wants of them. Watching PSG this week, it was striking how well they know each others' games, where to move, which angles to make etc. - it all looked so easy and instinctive. Even for all his obvious attention to detail and incessant drilling of the players, I'm not entirely sure that Guardiola will be able to make such a huge (and necessary) change to our game, while playing three, four, five or more different systems.

But then I'm also not quite sure that I grasp the full extent of his ability, so who knows.

 

[stonerblue]

Fuck off. If the fucker doesn't win 'The' double, the FA Cup and League Title (not that Carling Cup and League nonsense), then he can do one. Yep he can fuck right off, and take Silva and Aguero and KdB and Sterling...........and Bony..........with him.

He's only a caretaker anyway. Everyone knows Chuckle number one is being groomed for the job by Trixi whatsit. It's the worst kept secret in football.

 

[stonerblue]

I know he'll right our wrongs and do things we all want to see at the club (playing youth and good football) at the same time. A bad start won't make me curb my optimism because he's the type of manager where if something is going wrong, you'll instantly see him try and fix that. He's basically the manager that we have moulded our club around since the owners came in, there's been a Pep shaped hole in that dressing room for the last few years. He's the one manager that deserves whatever time he needs because if he can't do it here then at the moment I don't know who could.

On the improvement of players I think we'll definitely see that, for players like Sterling it won't happen over night but with the type of possession football Pep plays he'll certainly get enough time on the ball to improve. At the moment we're spending so little time on the ball against the top teams that we have very few chances to do something with the ball. However with Pep because of his teams' ability to keep hold of the ball we're more than likely going to see a massive technical improvement in the players he keeps on.

jeezuz h jeezuz....

 

[OB1]

Seems daft. But Munich did play a kind of 3-2-4-1 formation a couple of weeks back (against Hoffenheim, I think), that wasn't too dissimilar: Kimmich, Badstuber, Alaba at the back, Alonso and Lahm in front of them, then a four of Coman, Costa, Müller and Robben in behind Lewandowski.

On a side note, having such tactical flexibility will obviously be a weapon at our disposal. But part of me thinks that we'd be advised to try and use a fairly consistent system, particularly in the early weeks of the season, as the players get used to what Guardiola wants of them. Watching PSG this week, it was striking how well they know each others' games, where to move, which angles to make etc. - it all looked so easy and instinctive. Even for all his obvious attention to detail and incessant drilling of the players, I'm not entirely sure that Guardiola will be able to make such a huge (and necessary) change to our game, while playing three, four, five or more different systems.

But then I'm also not quite sure that I grasp the full extent of his ability, so who knows.

I haven't watched Bayern much but am starting to try and catch some of their games - bit of a pain that BT Sport is only on our main TV and I am the only football fan in the household - but have just finished Pep confidential and watched Barca extensively when Pep was there. He does seem to have become ever more flexible in his formations but I think he likes to have full backs in most of them. Even that line-up above does include two guys - Lahm and Alaba - who have a little bit of experience at FB :-)i

I think Pep will have to go slowly at first with City in terms of formations and tactical changes; it's one of the reasons that I am already hoping Pep falls in love with the place and we can squeeze a fourth year out of him. To start with he is going to have to focus on getting the team to run more, to pass better and quicker, to mark zonally, to move as a unit and master his positional play basics. I think doing all that will be enough at first; without complicating it with three at the back formations. I would expect him to go with back fours and a 4-3-3 base but push the full backs into midfield and have the pivote frequently act like a CB so that we often resemble a 3-4-3 when we attack. I certainly hope that is how he starts and builds the foundations in the first season and slowly but surely adds layers of sophistication as the players either grasp what he wants or get replaced by ones that do.

 

[OB1]

Providing there isn't a best hair category, I'm sure he will be.

I much prefer Pep's hairdo.

 

[MCFC1993]

jeezuz h jeezuz....

In my defence I was talking shite but the Spurs game got to me. I've had to edit that.

 

[stonerblue]

In my defence I was talking shite but the Spurs game got to me. I've had to edit that.

Yeah, that fucking tottenham result was a real pisser.