Live Match Discussion 2017/18

[YoungWolf]

Three semi finals at Bayern? And they really should have won the whole thing in his last year, they were a phenomenal team.

I think it shows the high level that Pep is held to that 7 semi finals in 9 years is a poor european record. People are so desperate to find a way to criticise him :icon_lol:

He won't be happy with the results against Monaco and Liverpool in his two years at City so far. But there have been some pretty fine margins in both those ties, where they ultimately haven't been good enough. They will only get stronger.

 

[Alan]

The manner in which his Bayern teams went out of the UCL was shocking. Unacceptably shocking. Their supporters hated him and it wasn't for no reason.

What I want to see from Pep is him win something against an opponent that is relatively equal to him. I'm not sure he ever really has won something when he was properly challenged.

 

[YoungWolf]

They absolutely destroyed Atletico in the second leg of that semi. Muller scores the penalty and it's completely over. Then Alaba makes the slightest mistake and they are out. It's fine margins, the Champions League is incredibly hard to keep winning. Which is why what Madrid and Zidane are doing is so amazing.

Bayern fans did not hate Pep :icon_lol:

 

[Alan]

They definitely didn't like him.

 

[YoungWolf]

They definitely didn't like him.

They may not have loved him but they clearly didn't hate him. Such a load of nonsense tbh.

What I want to see from Pep is him win something against an opponent that is relatively equal to him. I'm not sure he ever really has won something when he was properly challenged.

When he came to England the (very, very Brexit) rhetoric was 'he'll struggle in England', 'he will have to change his ways' and the rest type rubbish that Wolves fans should actually be able to understand given some of the rubbish spouted about our own squad and manager before the start of this season.

Lots of people refused to respect him until he did it in England. He's absolutely walked the league like pretty much no other has done before. They are on course to get 100 pts and 100 goals. Now he has to do something else.

And then if he wins the Champions League people will just make another statement about him needing to do it elsewhere etc.

This isn't even me trying to claim he is perfect, he even says he is fortunate to have worked with great players and have great resources (and he certainly is) but the lack of praise I find so bizarre.

 

[Alan]

I don't know what to tell you if you missed the rhetoric around him at Bayern. They didn't particularly like the way he played, they didn't like his attitude with the press, and they really didn't like the way he treated people like Mandzukic and Muller-Wohlfhart.

If he wins the UCL at some point again then fair enough, but he makes enough tactically mystifying decisions and has fucked up with some gloriously talented sides so consistently that I think the pedestal he gets put on is barely earned. His last four UCL exits have been against weaker sides than his, especially the last two, and the last one against Liverpool the most ridiculous of all.

 

[YoungWolf]

I don't know what to tell you if you missed the rhetoric around him at Bayern. They didn't particularly like the way he played, they didn't like his attitude with the press, and they really didn't like the way he treated people like Mandzukic and Muller-Wohlfhart.

If he wins the UCL at some point again then fair enough, but he makes enough tactically mystifying decisions and has fucked up with some gloriously talented sides so consistently that I think the pedestal he gets put on is barely earned. His last four UCL exits have been against weaker sides than his, especially the last two, and the last one against Liverpool the most ridiculous of all.

Did you watch that Bayern team? They were outstanding to watch and not in a way like his Barca side, in a way that really worked in a very demanding league in Germany.

City fans seem to like him...

I don't think he makes tactically mystifying decisions at all tbh. When you read enough about him they tend to make sense.

The fact he has to win ANOTHER Champions league to get your approval says it all. The same people who think he is a fraud are the same ones who hold him to a very high standard. It's a compliment I guess

23 trophies in 10 years, I wish I could fail like him!

 

[Tony Towner]

Benfica lost at home to Porto with a last minute winner. Based on his earlier post SLB is going to need counselling.

 

[YoungWolf]

Benfica lost at home to Porto with a last minute winner. Based on his earlier post SLA is going to need counselling.

He's not a happy bunny!

 

[jdrodrigues]

Still reeling that one in, tbh.

Was in the front row watching that whole freak show rolling in front of me.

Probably lost the title as well. Oh well.

 

[Tom Hark]

A report, of sorts: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-5618561/Benfica-0-1-Porto-Hector-Herrera-nets-dramatic-winner.html

I love the way Daily Mail thinks its readers need to be told which players are left, right and centre in the pics even though their names are on the backs of their shirts.

 

[Boozad]

Getting battered at Anfield 3-0 without a single shot on target isn’t really a fine margin. Neither is a 5-1 aggregate scoreline. Didn’t really follow him at Bayern so cant comment on that, but the fact remains he hasn’t won the CL without Messi!

 

[YoungWolf]

Getting battered at Anfield 3-0 without a single shot on target isn’t really a fine margin. Neither is a 5-1 aggregate scoreline. Didn’t really follow him at Bayern so cant comment on that, but the fact remains he hasn’t won the CL without Messi!

No but having a goal given against that was offside and a goal ruled out for offside (wrongly) is quite fine margins. And then in the second leg at one nil, with all the momentum having another perfectly good goal ruled out is too. My opinion is that Liverpool deserved to go through and that Pep could have got the first half of the first leg better, but we are allowed to praise the opposition sometimes!

Again, it's not exactly easy to win the Champions League. You can look at it as if Messi was the sole factor for winning it those two times (and he obviously was a major reason) but again, why are people taking away the fact that under Guardiola Messi completely exploded. So he doesn't get credit for improving Messi further and creating one of the best sides of all time? I know I'm a 'Pep fanboy' but the lengths people will go to not give him credit does amuse me.

 

[Johnny75]

I think Pep's ace. A visionary manager who has won and put a legacy into each club he's managed. Mourinho isn't in the same class and he's the second best manager right now.

 

[MARKakaJIM]

Think it's being generous to still have Mourinho at 2nd.

It's hard to argue with anything that Guardiola has achieved but at the same time he's only ever worked at really top end clubs with really top end players only looking to squeeze that extra 5% or so out of them to make an already great team into something really special, even then he's often had a ridiculous budgets to help plug any gaps too. It's highly unlikely to ever happen now but it would interesting to see how he'd fair working with a more mediocre calibre of player, would his ideas be too much for them? Would he adapt to make things more simplistic and allow for the errors that weaker players would inevitably succumb to? Think that's the only real thing to beat him with, not having worked his way up with lesser players/clubs gives an easy argument to his critics that he's only ever done it with world class players and big money to help him. I suppose similar to Warnock beating Nuno to the Championship manager of the year award despite the massive gap now between the clubs, there have been times where other managers have blatantly overachieved with the resources, Conte cobbling together something almost brilliant from a really ropey Italy squad, Klopp toppling the financial might of Bayern a few times, Mourinho's successes with Porto and Inter, given the level of clubs that Guardiola has worked at is there anything he could actually do to overachieve to the same extent and thus clearly display how much work he'd done?

All that said I still hated his tempo-sapping Barca side, 90% of their game was boring the opposition into submission and then you got to see the real magic, they played within themselves for massive amounts of times in some pointless display of technical and tactical prowess when they could've just taken the reins off and blown teams away if they wanted to. Didn't watch much of his Bayern side but at least that's been completely rectified now at City, they play with so much more drive and attacking impetus now, there's no longer possession just for the sake of it, they're much more ruthless and more entertaining as a result.

 

[Tom Hark]

With the real top guys I think it's not so much that they're able to polish a turd as that they can make diamonds shine even brighter. Pep at Ipswich might not have done any better than Mick, but Mick at Man City would have done a lot worse than Pep, I suspect. And this, albeit at a lower level, is what Nuno is doing here.

 

[Carrotdude]

Pep spent a hell of a lot of money to solve his issues from last season but then again one of the main signings in Mendy has missed most of the season so he’s done it with Delph at left back a lot of the time. Mourinho has spent crazy money at Utd and hasn’t really made them much better, they still seem miles away from City despite the win they got last week.

I think most of the sticks used to beat Pep with are just a reaction to people not liking how much pep fans love him. He can’t really do much more than he has to prove himself.

 

[Jack Regan]

Not surprisingly West Ham v Stoke is not a quality affair so far.

 

[Freddeno]

Stoke are going down, even West Ham dominate

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Not for the first time Lambert has me puzzled, what is the approach here? You need to win.