The Pep merry go round - why has no one replicated it?

[feedmpenzaandhewillscore]

There has been talk over the last week of if Pep will extend after his contract or take the family else where for a new experience in the coming years. Potentially when he does go how does the club keep up his ethos of how to play the game.

It’s really simple ideas in what he expects a team to do. Splitting the two centre halves at the either side of the box so teams have to come and engage then a few passes goes through the lines and opens a team up. Add to that a goal keeper who is comfortable when the ball returns and adjusting angles to go through the press.

Short passes never hitting it long, if the ball is lost there are enough players nearby to turn the ball back over.

Keeping hold of the ball, it physically and mentally drains the other team. Having to close and chase the ball when it is being moved around is lung busting. The GPC refered to it after their dicking off Barcelona in 2009 as a merry go round that you can’t do nothing about. It results in a defender ball watching and losing his man which Matic and West Ham’s left back yesterday will have plenty of experience of.

The system grinds an opponent down week in week out and the game is usually over by the 1st half.

Why has no one looked at Pep’s ideas in the last decade and tried to replicate it? Or the big question is is how does the club keep this way of playing long after he has gone? Does the club promote from within or rip the style up or bring a new guy in and let him bring new ideas?

 

[Stuuuuuu]

There should be no ideas. We need to maintain this model.

 

[Deleted member 77198]

You say we never hit it long, but we hit it long loads and far more than Pep’s Barça did. He’s evolved as well.

Plus they aren’t [solely] Pep’s ideas. They were firstly Mancunian Jack Reynolds’ ideas, then Renus Michels’ then Johan Cruff’s then Pep’s and maybe in the next generation of manager they’ll be Kevin de Bruyne’s or another of Pep’s men.

 

[Gorton_Tubster]

I think it has been tried but I dont think anyone else has the ingredients that make up Pep. The hard work, the almost cultish allegience from the players, the tactical knowledge, the man management, attention to detail, quality players... I dont think any other manager wuld havae so mnuch in his armoury

 

[aguero93:20]

Plenty have tried to replicate it mate, it's a lot easier said than done.

 

[Pigeonho]

How does the club keep it on after he’s gone?

I introduce you to one Mikel Arteta.

 

[blueparrot]

How does the club keep it on after he’s gone?

I introduce you to one Mikel Arteta.

We cant have any idea, it's all very well watching him work. A lot of coaches know what he does. The difference is though his intensity, attention to detail, his obsession with other sports. Things that are down to his personality . Not things anyone can just copy, they are things that set him apart. Arteta may have those things but we have no way of knowing.

 

[Deleted member 77198]

Plenty have tried to replicate it mate, it's a lot easier said than done.

Pep said when he first became our manager something along the lines of; “It’s easier to come into a club and get your players to play defensive football. It takes less time to perfect. But to come in and play the way I want, it takes time. Not one month or two, but maybe a year. It’s harder to learn, it’s harder to get fit for, it’s harder to concentrate at, it’s harder to be good at and keep doing over and over”.

Against United the other week, you could see in the second half that Mahrez hasn’t built the fitness for it up yet. He was blowing and Fernandinho came over to him and gripped him by the back of the shirt and pulled it up as if to say “come on you need to get with this if you want to succeed here”. Within a few minutes Mahrez was subbed.

The level of intensity that we play at is very hard to get to the level of and it took a few of our players a full season under Pep to get fit for and reach the levels of concentration needed.

 

[paul1963]

Give it to Giggsy.

 

[Deleted member 77198]

We cant have any idea, it's all very well watching him work. A lot of coaches know what he does. The difference is though his intensity, attention to detail, his obsession with other sports. Things that are down to his personality . Not things anyone can just copy, they are things that set him apart. Arteta may have those things but we have no way of knowing.

Arteta was very still and didn’t communicate very much to the players at all when he was on the sidelines against Lyon at home when Pep was banned.

Pep looks like he’s been plugged into a giant electric generator when he’s on the sideline at times.