Does Pep find it diffidult to bench the likes of Kroos and Piggy at bayern? because that's what i heard when he said today that next year he wont play as people want him to... it made no sense to start them together in that game. Maybe he got a call from Uli before the game...

halamadrid2 wrote:

The Franchise wrote:

halamadrid2 wrote:I do believe in plan Bs honestly. Plan A is obviously the one you use all the time but sometimes there is a need to shake things up abit to avoid being predictable when things don't work

I'll give you an example. Carlo after the game against Bayern said that he knew Bayern played predominantly through the wing so he put extra emphasis on having our wide players track back. If anyone watches it closely Coentrao forced robben onto his left and DiMaria and Alonso were waiting there, so they gave him no time to cut in and shoot like he always does and forced him to pass the ball back or sideways due to the lack of options. In this instance it was important for Bayern to change their approach by targeting the middle of our team where we hadn't prepared to stale them.

Another perfect example of needing a plan b is Atleti who can do one thing only and thats to push up their fullbacks and cross, they fail that and they fail to score, it was obvious against Chelsea in the first leg when Mou used Willian and Ramires as two wing backs to stop those crosses and throughout the whole game Atleti kept putting in hopeful balls none of which worked

This is not plan B, this is just tactics.

Exactly, an entirely different approach to the one they are used to. I wouldn't call a plan b putting in entirely different players at all. Some players are flexible and so different ways of playing is possible with having the exact same players on the pitch.

Ok but to say Pep doesnt have tactics would be wrong. He most certainly does.

Getting them right or wrong is another thing, but people in this thread talking about Plan B dont make any sense in those terms.

VivaStPauli wrote:Against Chelsea, though, you tried, and failed. And everyone was angry as f*ck after it. Against Madrid, you kind of tried to have possession, which you did, never really attempted to score, and got absolutely trounced.

The only thing I liked about Bayern were the first 19 minutes in the first leg, and even there, I was screaming at the screen quite a bit, in a vain attempt to convince the football gods to make someone shoot a ball in Ikers general direction.

Yeah well, the difference of course that Chelsea were utter shyte except at parking the bus and having Drogba, whereas Real have incredible quality everywhere.

So we tried, and failed, too.

I don't disagree with you on how clueless we were, and how boring, and that Pep made A LOT of mistakes recently.
But it's not that easy.
Also this Jupp hagiography is a bit revisionist.
We had ONE season under Jupp where everything fell into place, before we had some of the exact same problems we have now. Or under Van Gaal, lol, it was the exact thing like in the Real ties over and over again, without much of the positives.
It's not like there is this massive Jupp era that is being demolished lol. One season. Whatever you make of it.

This year we won the league even faster, and we weren't boring doing it.
If you win 3:0 with 80% possession, like we did time and time again, it maybe is boring because the opponent doesn't stand a chance.
If you lose 0:4 with 80% possession you are no doubt utterly outsmarted.

But what in that equation makes it possible to put the reason for winning or losing at the 'possession' point?

Depends how you define "Plan B". For me, it's about being able to adjust your tactics based on the opponent and game conditions...

Also, is it a Barca- taught thing where you are absolute crap at defending set pieces

Mr Nick09 wrote:Does Pep find it diffidult to bench the likes of Kroos and Piggy at bayern? because that's what i heard when he said today that next year he wont play as people want him to... it made no sense to start them together in that game. Maybe he got a call from Uli before the game...

Nah, we're not Madrid, where Ronaldo plays although "some people [team doctors] don't want him to".

Or Barca, where everytime Pep puts Messi on the bench "the city is lighting up in rage".

With us, his lineups are his responsibility.

The Franchise wrote:

Zealous wrote:

The Franchise wrote:

Eyy?

I dont think you understand what I am saying.

I am saying, the specific tactics on the night were not correct.

Allowing 2 v 2 at the back, no numerical superiority for example.

Only 2 midfielders, neither being a protector or a ball carrier. No interchanging of the lines, never did Bastian move from one zone of the pitch to the other to create superiority for example.



In terms of the players, he didnt have Thiago nor Gotze in the type of condition he probably would have liked and his further error was playing Muller and Mandz. His team looked very linear and rigid, un Pep like.

Not about asking them to do things they arent good at. Some of the players are very good at playing Pep's way..and I think people are being lazy to compare Bayern to Barca and come to the conclusion that he has turned them into a worse version of us.

That is lazy analysis. Bayern play differently and attack through different areas.

Oh on the night the tactics were shocking, that goes without question.

What I meant was Bayern have players in crucial positions that don't look comfortable with their roles. Schweinsteiger is a bad defender in my opinion, Kroos isn't much better and both don't have the agility or industry needed to fill in gaps when they need to. I also don't think Thiago could have carried Bayern on is own in that sense and Pep just refused to use Goetze as anything other than a sub. As for the centre backs, Dante and Boateng looked lost at sea in both games and frequently made bad decisions when defending.

I'm not saying Guardiola's method or style is wrong btw, it obviously is one of the best when a team can pull it off, however I don't think this Bayern team can do that, at least not yet.

Schweinsteiger is a suspect defender imo also, which to me means he has to either play with someone more adpt defensively (Bayern dont have)..or the actual best way (considering the way Pep plays) is him in the pivot and 2 others ahead of him. Which Pep did not do, which is a mistake.

No one player can carry Bayern, you already know this. The point was they played a formation and line up which had no possibility to create overloads in defence and crowd out the counter attacks. Even with that, they let in 2 headed goals...something formation and tactics do not factor into.

Yup, I agree with all this. He could have played Lahm in midfield again which would have fixed that issue to an extent but it seems he didn't really trust Rafinha.

Not starting Martinez also sort of shows that Pep considers him a centre back. When he brought him on it was only for damage limitation.

I think its pretty clear by now that Pep is too obsessed with the Plan A tika taka and that he doesnt really have a plan B. His comments after the game saying that posession isnt the problem its just the players didnt play well with it.

I really think Real setup very well and countered so deadly, Pep had to attack though 1-0 down, and poor set piece defending I dont know if its down to him or the players (u cant help but feel its the former though), once it was 3-0 down, the game went even more in favour of Reals setup....

Next season will be clear for all to see if he will evolve or improve, if he doesnt, I think he will be 'found out' again that his philosophy is flawed.

sportsczy wrote:Plan B is not a myth.  It doesn't mean that you change your system necessarily if your system is very specific...  but you can make personnel changes that make you execute your system in a different manner.

For example, instead of having Kroos and Piggy in the midfield where it forced Alaba and Lahm to be overly conservative out of fear of the counter...  but Javi Martinez in there and ask him to play a lower/covering role.  That frees up one of your fullbacks to attack more.

Another example is to play Goetze as the false 9 obviously.  Pepe-Ramos have issues against quickness, athleticism and skill.  They have absolutely no issues with defending a tall statue in the middle.  It would also allow Mueller to make better runs since Mandzukic isn't creating a traffic jam in the middle.

The great managers are able to have a couple of formations they can use and a couple of player lineups.  For example, Madrid can play a 433 with BBC or a 442 with one of BBC on the bench and Isco in there.  Comfortable in either formation.  Just depends what we need.  We've adjusted in-game with this type of change too.

Plan B is not a myth... it's just not something as drastic as people conceive it to be.  It's about adapting within your base scheme(s).

Agree totally, and thats why Real is so devastating atm and effective, flexible too.

sportsczy wrote:Everyone in Munich...  fans, management, players, etc....  knew that Pep has a specific system and that there would be a revolution in playing style.  Everyone was also excited about it (i had my doubts because making Ribery and Robben play tiki taka is the height of stupidity to me).  So you can't blame Pep for being who he is...  he has a system and he needs to find the players that make it work, which is obviously not several of the current ones.  If you wanted to continue what Heynckes had built, then you should have kept Heynckes.  

Tiki taka is neither something you perfect overnight nor a system that every player can thrive in.

Sport do u think Tiki Taka is still a system that works today? I just think it demands so much of the players to play it well and get results consistently now, considering how teams have slowly learnt how to counter it now, I think being able to change style and playing different game according to opposition or during a match would be the ultimate, of cos u need the players that can do that too.

I think that being effective requires a lot of synergy between players and a lot of practice... so it requires to commit to a core for several years so they can build that synergy and allow for the growing pains.

I think Pep needs to recruit players who have been formed in tiki taka. Every Spanish kid basically, Ajax players, Barca players, players developed by Rudi Garci, Arsenal players, etc. I just don't feel that Bayern have the patience needed to train the players that have no past in the system into becoming effective at it.

Ribery should get sold to start. He couldn't do it that well under Van Gaal and is struggling a bit under Pep. His style is the antithesis of what you would want. Robben is a better fit. Thiago is critical since he's the only CM that has the perfect profile.

I'm still stunned that Goetze isn't getting more time over Mandzukic.

As far as countering it... i personally feel that the success of tiki taka is not the attack persay.... it's about effectively pressuring high, getting turnovers if very good positions and then transitioning to the attack before the defenses can settle themselves. The recent failure has more to do with the pressure defense not being that great. The mental toll on the opponent is not as intense as it needs to be...

Pep always said that he valued possession at Barca because Barca were terrible without the ball. For Barca it's always been a proactive form of defence.

Pep is now the coach of a team who were at their best without the ball last season, I believe that is his problem atm. Keeping the ball with Barca was justifiable but now it isn't at Bayern considering the players they have.

This summer should be interesting.

I honestly don't get why everyone claims we were best 'without the ball' or some sort of counterattacking team last season

We played possession football as well, difference is we were not UNCOMFORTABLE without the ball and able to counter quickly after winning the ball through pressing.

The probably only tie where we had less possession last CL was the one against Barca. I'm sure someone could get the stats for the other game.

This year in the knockouts we didn't play Barca, we played teams which were happy to sit back, without the ball.
Different constellations.
But when we played Man City away, who didn't sit back, we both dominated them with possession AND hit them with quick breaks/ long balls to a Müller run etc.

People are making things out to be clear cut now on the basis of selected performances, but they aren't.

On the plus side, this would suggest that next season will become another Bayern crisis year that some other team can capitalize on.

You also had less possession against Arsenal at Emirates. Don't know about Allianz. Too lazy to look it up.

Bayern chairman Rummenigge to German newspaper Welt: "FC Bayern will never sack Pep Guardiola. I give you this in written form today."

They'd sack him after a single trophyless season. They're still Bayern, no matter what they say. They've sacked bigger coaches faster.

Nice sig, Viva

VivaStPauli wrote:They'd sack him after a single trophyless season. They're still Bayern, no matter what they say. They've sacked bigger coaches faster.

Give me one.

zigra wrote:

VivaStPauli wrote:They'd sack him after a single trophyless season. They're still Bayern, no matter what they say. They've sacked bigger coaches faster.

Give me one.

Just one?

Hitzfeld, CL winner, sacked 2 seasons later.

lel Nice emo move by Guardiola anyway. He forced this kind of reaction from the Bayern board after publicly stating out of thin air that he might get sacked. Obviously that forced the exact opposite reaction from the board. They were not going to say: "Yeah, we might possibly sack him", were they? Pep, still the same old drama queen.

Phritz wrote:

zigra wrote:

VivaStPauli wrote:They'd sack him after a single trophyless season. They're still Bayern, no matter what they say. They've sacked bigger coaches faster.

Give me one.

Just one?

Hitzfeld, CL winner, sacked 2 seasons later.

They sacked him after a trophyless season. That's not faster than "They'd sack him after a single trophyless season.".

Try again  


Btw if you read what Hitzfeld later said about how he was close to a burnout, had lost all his energy and that it was a huge relieve when Bayern sacked him he probably wasn't just sacked because of a trophyless season.. Hoeneß and the rest certainly noticed that he could barely continue coaching the team.

First of all, Pep is indeed a drama queen

Second, of course he will be sacked if he needs to be sacked. That usually is when we are in danger of missing out on CL.
Since there are now 3+1 spots, that would take some effort lol.
Or if he seriously falls out with the board.

Third, I understand that with Viva it's a mixture of wish and reality, but Pep will not get sacked automatically after a trophyless season. No way.
Depending on the season of course.
Heynckes had a trophyless season in 2012, including a thumping by Dortmund in the Pokal final.

I rather judge Pep the way that he will leave after another year or two if things aren't quite successful., or if indeed frictions with the board should arise.


But let's just wait and see .
It's hilarious how people can conjure up the notion there are problems between him and Bayern, or that he's not successful, after the great season we had.

Well, Pep has a 3 year contract and is in his 2nd year now. It is just as likely that they will let the contract run out after the third year and no one needs to get sacked.