United (A) | PL | Post Match Thread

[Eccles Blue]

I thought you had a special exemption on that score Blue?

Shhhhh, I don't think there is, it's just that the lovely @jimharri gets so snowed under with other things I sneak through. :-)

 

[citymad]

Now I am not one of those who have been looking to replace Pep but how bad are you expecting it to be?

When Hughes was sacked after 18 games we had 29 points. Over the last 22 games Pep has won 29 points.

What sort of drop off are you expecting?

Possibly players looking for a change of scenery and a new challenge. How do you play for another coach after Pep? Part of the attraction of players coming here was to play under Pep. Getting a top rated coach thats of similar stature will help keep the squad together.

 

[Ajm1985]

At one point Kev won the ball in the middle and drove forward, Marmoush was close to the left of Kevin and beeded to make a run into space for the pass. Instead he slowed down and Kevin ran ahead of him and had nobody to pass to and lost the ball. De Bruyne is obviously not the player he was but without runners ahead of him what is he supposed to do.

Conversely, there were a couple of breaks where KDB ran with the ball, had Marmoush etc making runs he and couldn't pass water. He just doesn't seem to have the accuracy or power anymore

 

[Blue2112]

Conversely, there were a couple of breaks where KDB ran with the ball, had Marmoush etc making runs he and couldn't pass water. He just doesn't seem to have the accuracy or power anymore

Yes fair point. I'm genuinely staggered Pep played him for 90 plus minutes. He now needs to try and become an impact player for the last 20/30mins of a game. We should be managing him much better than we are.

 

[Uncle Wally One Ball]

Conversely, there were a couple of breaks where KDB ran with the ball, had Marmoush etc making runs he and couldn't pass water. He just doesn't seem to have the accuracy or power anymore

Its just time and age and he has played a lot of top level football. He is done. As much as I hate the horrible bastard, Ferguson recognised this in players. Or pwayers as the pissed up Glaswegian prick would say. I remember him saying he saw a physical change in Cantona and a few others, they thickened out. Our Kev undeniably looks heavier and slower and chunkier these days. Its just natural I suppose

 

[Ajm1985]

Yes fair point. I'm genuinely staggered Pep played him for 90 plus minutes. He now needs to try and become an impact player for the last 20/30mins of a game. We should be managing him much better than we are.

Can only think that Pep thinks he's the only player who could generate a chance against a back 5/7 and he's still got some magic somewhere in his boots. Towards the end it just seemed they didn't want to lose rather than anything else. United had 7 shots to our 0 from the 70th minute.

 

[noseve]

Possibly, I think last year was a great achievement considering what we had won before and the first signs of players coming towards the end. 4 in a row is historic and maybe having 2/3 years off it is then the price. Whilst I am not happy with our crap recruitment and preparation for a rebuild, I would take 4 in a row over it.

Understand that, but 4 in a row and strengthening the obvious areas needing it were not mutually exclusive.
Why not both?

My blind optimism can still see us pulling through, but at the risk of being cyber-attacked I'd suggest that Liverpool and United fans of the early 90s and post-Ferguson eras respectively probably also assumed that they were merely going through a 'blip'.

Liverpool didn't win a title for another 30 years (which would have been inconceivable at the time) whilst United are still crap a dozen years later, obviously.

The difference between adding players now is that they can't just be adopted into a winning machine, with the 'golden nucleus' still in place, but instead are joining players with no obvious team identity, and seemingly no continuity in coaching either, from what we've seen on the pitch this season. It feels more like starting from scratch.

I still think we have to give Pep another season, because he is what gave us that air of superiority - our USP if you like - and to get rid of him now would risk us becoming just another one of those teams that used to be dominant (AC Milan, Juventus, Man United etc).

But I'm not taking anything for granted next year (and I still wish we'd been overlooked for CWC :-( )

 

[Shirley]

Its just time and age and he has played a lot of top level football. He is done. As much as I hate the horrible bastard, Ferguson recognised this in players. Or pwayers as the pissed up Glaswegian prick would say. I remember him saying he saw a physical change in Cantona and a few others, they thickened out. Our Kev undeniably looks heavier and slower and chunkier these days. Its just natural I suppose

Commonly known as the GPC or bacon face amongst many others!

 

[Blue2112]

Can only think that Pep thinks he's the only player who could generate a chance against a back 5/7 and he's still got some magic somewhere in his boots. Towards the end it just seemed they didn't want to lose rather than anything else. United had 7 shots to our 0 from the 70th minute.

From leaving the house this morning and speaking to a City fan neighbour, I've been asked quite a few times by various customers of mine for my thoughts on yesterday's game and apart from it being the worst derby performance in living memory from both teams i've been at a loss to offer up any other opinion.

However out of all the varying discussions today I've now come to the opinion that Pep doesn't trust the new signings, he also doesn't fully trust some of the signings from 12 months ago and it can be the only reason he is playing his trusted old guard. I'm coming round to thinking he's lost twice to Amorin this season and he didn't want a third defeat on the bounce and so put out a team to nullify the opposition, take as few risks as possible, leaving nothing exposed for the counter and settled for the draw. It's not Pep and it's not the City of the past 10 years but I think he settled for a pragmatic and dogged performance. There have been games I wish we had taken this approach before now but yesterday wasn't one of them.

I can't fathom any other reason for that team selection and performance.

 

[BlueMonkey79]

I don’t think you can overstate how much we have missed Rodri. I know we shouldn’t dip as far as we have without him, I also know the cover we have brought in needs to be better. But you simply can’t replace him. Any team would have a dip without their most influential player. I do think Pep is as frustrated as we are.

No way Rodri fixes this mess. He's a colossus no doubt, but he ain't a magician.

I reckon we would be 5 or 6 points better off at best.

He can't carry half a team.

That's the trouble with us this season. In our pomp, we could afford the odd couple of players to have an "off" day, as the others were that good.

Now we have 5 or 6 players all having absolute stinkers and the other players ain't good enough to carry them.

That Derby yesterday was the final hope I had of seeing if we had any top performances in our locker left.

The squad is finished. It will be a luck more than anything if we stumble to a cup final and finish 5th.

The re build next season is off the scale. A proper post mortem of this season needs to be had with all senior management and how they are going to go about fixing it.

 

[goalmole]

Embarrassing from pep not the players!

Kev does not deserve to end that game when we need 3 points for champs league.

All on pep if we don’t get top 5. Utd was there for the taking.

Shocking team selection & tactics.

I'm not sure what you mean by there for the taking.
I only watched the last half hour and they seemed to have us under the cosh the whole time.

 

[meltonblue]

Now I am not one of those who have been looking to replace Pep but how bad are you expecting it to be?

When Hughes was sacked after 18 games we had 29 points. Over the last 22 games Pep has won 29 points.

What sort of drop off are you expecting?

It’s less about the drop off in terms of short term severity, it’s the longevity. He’s earned the right to have at least one off season just as some of the players have.

There’s quite a big difference between what Hughes had done previously in his career for us and others compared to Pep too…

 

[meltonblue]

No way Rodri fixes this mess. He's a colossus no doubt, but he ain't a magician.

I reckon we would be 5 or 6 points better off at best.

He can't carry half a team.

That's the trouble with us this season. In our pomp, we could afford the odd couple of players to have an "off" day, as the others were that good.

Now we have 5 or 6 players all having absolute stinkers and the other players ain't good enough to carry them.

That Derby yesterday was the final hope I had of seeing if we had any top performances in our locker left.

The squad is finished. It will be a luck more than anything if we stumble to a cup final and finish 5th.

The re build next season is off the scale. A proper post mortem of this season needs to be had with all senior management and how they are going to go about fixing it.

He’ll make more of a difference than that if he stays fit and performs at similar levels to what he did for us previously. He’s been so pivotal to how we play, everyone else will immediately improve with him back.

We still wouldn’t have won the league this year I don’t think but we wouldn’t have been anywhere near as far off

 

[Kippax1973]

No way Rodri fixes this mess. He's a colossus no doubt, but he ain't a magician.

I reckon we would be 5 or 6 points better off at best.

He can't carry half a team.

That's the trouble with us this season. In our pomp, we could afford the odd couple of players to have an "off" day, as the others were that good.

Now we have 5 or 6 players all having absolute stinkers and the other players ain't good enough to carry them.

That Derby yesterday was the final hope I had of seeing if we had any top performances in our locker left.

The squad is finished. It will be a luck more than anything if we stumble to a cup final and finish 5th.

The re build next season is off the scale. A proper post mortem of this season needs to be had with all senior management and how they are going to go about fixing it.

Be careful m8 about having an opinion that goes against the grain on here,,, the personal insults will follow

 

[theres only one carlito]

From leaving the house this morning and speaking to a City fan neighbour, I've been asked quite a few times by various customers of mine for my thoughts on yesterday's game and apart from it being the worst derby performance in living memory from both teams i've been at a loss to offer up any other opinion.

However out of all the varying discussions today I've now come to the opinion that Pep doesn't trust the new signings, he also doesn't fully trust some of the signings from 12 months ago and it can be the only reason he is playing his trusted old guard. I'm coming round to thinking he's lost twice to Amorin this season and he didn't want a third defeat on the bounce and so put out a team to nullify the opposition, take as few risks as possible, leaving nothing exposed for the counter and settled for the draw. It's not Pep and it's not the City of the past 10 years but I think he settled for a pragmatic and dogged performance. There have been games I wish we had taken this approach before now but yesterday wasn't one of them.

I can't fathom any other reason for that team selection and performance.

I’m wondering whether pep has another title challenging season in him. Whether he has the hunger for it himself. All season he’s just let mediocrity slide. Hes watched game after game of piss poor play and mistakes and set us up with the intensity of a team with nothing to play for and settled for it. Where’s the passion from him? Wheres courage? Where is the pep that hooked players off for not playing well?. Where is the pep that had his team play with humility and pressure? From a performance perspective, I don’t recognise the players or the manger. Playing out of form players instead of inform ones? It’s very weird. He’s even having nice little chats with Luke shawe at the end like it’s a friendly! The body language from everyone is off and it shows.

 

[CPPSC]

Now I am not one of those who have been looking to replace Pep but how bad are you expecting it to be?

When Hughes was sacked after 18 games we had 29 points. Over the last 22 games Pep has won 29 points.

What sort of drop off are you expecting?

Comparing Mark fucking loser Hughes to Pep Centurion Treble winner 4 Domestic Quad and 4 n a row Guardiola ! I give up and will ban myself you fucking numpty .

 

[Blue2112]

I’m wondering whether pep has another title challenging season in him. Whether he has the hunger for it himself. All season he’s just let mediocrity slide. Hes watched game after game of piss poor play and mistakes and set us up with the intensity of a team with nothing to play for and settled for it. Where’s the passion from him? Wheres courage? Where is the pep that hooked players off for not playing well?. Where is the pep that had his team play with humility and pressure? From a performance perspective, I don’t recognise the players or the manger. Playing out of form players instead of inform ones? It’s very weird. He’s even having nice little chats with Luke shawe at the end like it’s a friendly! The body language from everyone is off and it shows.

He has also said on a number of occasions that City dropping out of the CL won't do us that much harm and that its happened to other clubs and they came back. Well apart from the Rags so far. Which is all well and good and I don't think City fans feel we have a divine right to be in the CL every season but this softening the blow before it happens does us no favours. We are throwing away easy games and not punishing crap teams like Leicester at home with more goals not only for the goal difference but for our own confidence. And it's being explained away with a season out won't be such a bad thing.

 

[theres only one carlito]

He has also said on a number of occasions that City dropping out of the CL won't do us that much harm and that its happened to other clubs and they came back. Well apart from the Rags so far. Which is all well and good and I don't think City fans feel we have a divine right to be in the CL every season but this softening the blow before it happens does us no favours. We are throwing away easy games and not punishing crap teams like Leicester at home with more goals not only for the goal difference but for our own confidence. And it's being explained away with a season out won't be such a bad thing.

He’s made some dodgy remarks all season. Especially that one in CL about us not having a chance to win it, right before a game! Just basically publicly admitting defeat before a balls kicked. Very strange behaviour this season.

 

[Scareye]

No way Rodri fixes this mess. He's a colossus no doubt, but he ain't a magician.

I reckon we would be 5 or 6 points better off at best.

He can't carry half a team.

That's the trouble with us this season. In our pomp, we could afford the odd couple of players to have an "off" day, as the others were that good.

Now we have 5 or 6 players all having absolute stinkers and the other players ain't good enough to carry them.

That Derby yesterday was the final hope I had of seeing if we had any top performances in our locker left.

The squad is finished. It will be a luck more than anything if we stumble to a cup final and finish 5th.

The re build next season is off the scale. A proper post mortem of this season needs to be had with all senior management and how they are going to go about fixing it.

That’s a very good post mate. Can’t argue with any of it. Still think Pep is the man for the rebuild.

 

[Blue Maverick]

If Pep does go he leaves us in a worse position squad wise than when he arrived, I can’t see him wanting to leave with a whimper, a rebuild for next season and hopefully get the title back and then he will go.