Pep Guardiola's adventures in Manchester City

-------------------ter Stegen
---Walker---Boateng---Bonucci---Sandro
----------------------Weigl
--------------Verratti-----Silva
------Jesus----------Aguero-------Alexis

@Winter

If you have to use that amount of hypothetical to justify signings, then they are poor.

Hart was removed to sign Claudio Bravo, only to end up playing Caballero.

Stones was signed for the 1st or 2nd highest ever amount for a CB. Flopped.

Gundogan was the only midfielder signed. He had no impact on City this term. As Pep knows how specific the players he requires are, then why go into a season having to rely on Yaya and Fernandinho?

No fullback was signed.

Nolito. Enough said.

Poor.


The only good signings so far were Sane and Jesus.

Casciavit wrote:

Bravo was a massive flop, and no one could see that coming. At Barca he was considered the better shot stopper between him and Ter Stegen...

I don't agree with this, i have always thought he was massively overrated tbh. Also the only thing he was ever better than Ter Stegen was box control.

Onyx wrote:

-------------------ter Stegen
---Walker---Boateng---Bonucci---Sandro
----------------------Weigl
--------------Verratti-----Silva
------Jesus----------Aguero-------Alexis

Can't wait to sell half of our defence to City. Will go down well with the fans i'm sure.

Tomwin Lannister wrote:

Onyx wrote:

-------------------ter Stegen
---Walker---Boateng---Bonucci---Sandro
----------------------Weigl
--------------Verratti-----Silva
------Jesus----------Aguero-------Alexis

Can't wait to sell half of our defence to City. Will go down well with the fans i'm sure.

Probably going to take all of the revenue from this season and the player sales from when we sell our defense to Manchester City and buy Inter and Milan and just merge them together so that Manchester United has competition in the Europa League next season. Milan United vs. Manchester United, I can see it now.

Is it really worth it changing 10 players in a season? Isn't 6 enough? You need some core & team chemistry too. And then you have FFP & City have already spend more than 150.

Clichy, Zabaleta, Sagna have contracts till 2017 & Kolarov till 2018 (if I am not wrong !!) - So who does Pep sell? He hasn't even trained with these folks. I am sure he tried to get full-backs & probably didn't get his 1st choice (no1 really knows !!)

In the end, it is better for Pep now to have some base, qualify for the CHL & get another 5-6 players. 1 Winger/CAM, 1 CM, 1 RB, 1 LB, 1 CB - That is 5. Perhaps 1 GK in addition.

I haven't heard of a team with 10-12 new players & winning trophies immediately. Pep has a vision, tactics, he needs team chemistry. People nowadays are so impatient. You have to give him time, atleast 2 to 3 seasons. I never judge a new transfer for atleast 6 months, some case 1 full season. Martinez was a total disappointed for 6 months & then exploded (same with many other players - There is a lot of adjustment to a new coach, country, league, team-mates etc & sometimes 10-12 new players will only cause panic & chaos ) !

Luca wrote:

Tomwin Lannister wrote:

Onyx wrote:

-------------------ter Stegen
---Walker---Boateng---Bonucci---Sandro
----------------------Weigl
--------------Verratti-----Silva
------Jesus----------Aguero-------Alexis

Can't wait to sell half of our defence to City. Will go down well with the fans i'm sure.

Probably going to take all of the revenue from this season and the player sales from when we sell our defense to Manchester City and buy Inter and Milan and just merge them together so that Manchester United has competition in the Europa League next season. Milan United vs. Manchester United, I can see it now.

How generous are we ffs, absolute heroes. Just hope we have enough left to buy Roma's new stadium for them.

City finished last season with 66 points and in 4th place. They scored 71 and conceded 41.

City today at GW36 have 72 points and are likely to finish 3rd. They're also likely to get 6 more points ending with a definite improvement. With 2 games to go they have already scored more (72) and conceded less (38).

Pep is a victim of his own success, by every metric he has left City in a better place than he found them, the only reason he is a "flop" is because he is expected to win it all every year.

he isn't expected to win it all, just something

he was expected to compete at least this season and didn't compete in any tournament

BarrileteCosmico wrote:City finished last season with 66 points and in 4th place. They scored 71 and conceded 41.

City today at GW36 have 72 points and are likely to finish 3rd. They're also likely to get 6 more points ending with a definite improvement. With 2 games to go they have already scored more (72) and conceded less (38).

Pep is a victim of his own success, by every metric he has left City in a better place than he found them, the only reason he is a "flop" is because he is expected to win it all every year.

Last season City won a title while getting through the semis of CL losing with the champion only for a deflected goal, i think last season was better for City, and you have to consider Pep was named in January which brought down to City players giving a shit for the whole season

Firenze wrote:he isn't expected to win it all, just something

he was expected to compete at least this season and didn't compete in any tournament

why is that even the expectation though? To me it was always clear this would be a transition year: new League, new team, new style, and City finished 4th last year to top it off. It would be incredibly rare to win the league or the CL under these conditions. Next season will be the real test.

BarrileteCosmico wrote:City finished last season with 66 points and in 4th place. They scored 71 and conceded 41.

City today at GW36 have 72 points and are likely to finish 3rd. They're also likely to get 6 more points ending with a definite improvement. With 2 games to go they have already scored more (72) and conceded less (38).

Pep is a victim of his own success, by every metric he has left City in a better place than he found them, the only reason he is a "flop" is because he is expected to win it all every year.

I guess deep champions league runs and actually winning trophies aren't relevant metrics? City did better in both last season.

It's safe to assume that City expected a little bit more than a one spot bump in the league after hiring the highest paid manager in the world and spending a staggering £170 million on new players.

I feel like what BC is saying could be applied to some seasons in Guardiola's career but not this one

He failed, there's no way of getting around it. I don't expect it to be repeated next season but none the less he failed this season.

Every manager has them and there's nothing wrong with it.

BarrileteCosmico wrote:City finished last season with 66 points and in 4th place. They scored 71 and conceded 41.

City today at GW36 have 72 points and are likely to finish 3rd. They're also likely to get 6 more points ending with a definite improvement. With 2 games to go they have already scored more (72) and conceded less (38).

Pep is a victim of his own success, by every metric he has left City in a better place than he found them, the only reason he is a "flop" is because he is expected to win it all every year.

that's not much improvement for a £150mil investment tbh.

farfan wrote:

BarrileteCosmico wrote:City finished last season with 66 points and in 4th place. They scored 71 and conceded 41.

City today at GW36 have 72 points and are likely to finish 3rd. They're also likely to get 6 more points ending with a definite improvement. With 2 games to go they have already scored more (72) and conceded less (38).

Pep is a victim of his own success, by every metric he has left City in a better place than he found them, the only reason he is a "flop" is because he is expected to win it all every year.

I guess deep champions league runs and actually winning trophies aren't relevant metrics? City did better in both last season.

It's safe to assume that City expected a little bit more than a one spot bump in the league after hiring the highest paid manager in the world and spending a staggering £170 million on new players.

As if City have a record of "deep CL runs"

They got out of the group stages like 2 times before, and the semis last season were the first meaningful achievement.

Are you going to tell me beating this Monaco side should have been easily expected? Not to mention City went out very narrowly.

@BC is of course right. Pep is always measured by the expectations his haters pluck from straw men.

I think it was a poor season from him, as quite a few things didn't work out.
His GK call, for example, backfired, Bravo was a huge flop.
His tactics and set up often lacked balance, compounded by the bad finishing.

But then, are we really going to pretend that replacing Hart with Bravo, who was by all measures a top keeper for the La Liga champions, could be expected to be such a blunder?

The surprising thing about Bravo flopping at City is not that he failed to 'adapt', to BRITISH PREMIER LEAUGE CROSSES, or some shit; it was that he failed at the things he was arguably supposed to be good at - shot stopping and playing with his feet.

So while the call to change GKs backfired, only Captain Hindsight could claim to have known it to be the wrong move.

Ah yes, as usual people think spending money means you should have immediate success next season, that's not how it works. That's never how it works. Is that how it worked for the galacticos? Is that how it worked when Spurs splurged on 7 players after Bale left? Is that how it worked when City starting buying players like crazy? What about Man U after multiple seasons of this?

I have been critical of Mourinho so let me get that out of the way first before anyone says I'm being a hypocrite. My issue with Mou this season is the same as any other season, primarily,  his football has been dire. Despite such awful football, he failed domestically and has only wins against weak Europa League competition as his accomplishment this season. I think he has failed this season just as Guardiola has failed in his first season. Just that, you know, at least City are fun to watch. However both will stay on longer and we'll see what happens.

It's not as easy as spending tons of money and getting results. It takes time. I'm tired of people seeing a commitment of a hundred million pounds and expecting instant results. It's never worked like that. That's not to say there shouldn't be high expectations placed on teams with such expenditure, but people should be more understanding that this might take a full year or two. Players have to adapt. Some will flop, some will take prosper.

It's 2017 and only in 2015-2016 did Spurs really start to see the fruits of their invest post Bale start to mold into a fantastic team. If I recall correctly, Bale was sold in 2012 or 2013.

Pep and Mou will both be more fairly judged on their exploits next season, and the one after. This is a stance I'm willing to defend even if it means defending flops like Mou and Pogba tbh

Bale was sold in 2014.

Hapless_Hans wrote:

farfan wrote:

BarrileteCosmico wrote:City finished last season with 66 points and in 4th place. They scored 71 and conceded 41.

City today at GW36 have 72 points and are likely to finish 3rd. They're also likely to get 6 more points ending with a definite improvement. With 2 games to go they have already scored more (72) and conceded less (38).

Pep is a victim of his own success, by every metric he has left City in a better place than he found them, the only reason he is a "flop" is because he is expected to win it all every year.

I guess deep champions league runs and actually winning trophies aren't relevant metrics? City did better in both last season.

It's safe to assume that City expected a little bit more than a one spot bump in the league after hiring the highest paid manager in the world and spending a staggering £170 million on new players.

As if City have a record of "deep CL runs"

They got out of the group stages like 2 times before, and the semis last season were the first meaningful achievement.

Are you going to tell me beating this Monaco side should have been easily expected? Not to mention City went out very narrowly.
@BC is of course right. Pep is always measured by the expectations his haters pluck from straw men.

I was talking in general about how champions league results should be included in the success " metrics " that BC was talking about.
Claiming that City did better this year compared to last season while ignoring the CL is convenient cherry picking.

Nope he was sold in 2013. Which back up my statements. 13-14 and 14-15 and no results. 14-15 only got slightly better near the end because of Poch. 15-16 and Spurs finally saw the fruits of their labor.

Claudio84 wrote:

BarrileteCosmico wrote:City finished last season with 66 points and in 4th place. They scored 71 and conceded 41.

City today at GW36 have 72 points and are likely to finish 3rd. They're also likely to get 6 more points ending with a definite improvement. With 2 games to go they have already scored more (72) and conceded less (38).

Pep is a victim of his own success, by every metric he has left City in a better place than he found them, the only reason he is a "flop" is because he is expected to win it all every year.

Last season City won a title while getting through the semis of CL losing with the champion only for a deflected goal, i think last season was better for City, and you have to consider Pep was named in January which brought down to City players giving a shit for the whole season

I'll have to agree that winning a title by default makes it a better season, I was mostly talking about the PL. To put it into context, if City win their next 2 matches, had they played exactly the same way last year they would have been 2nd and only 3 points short of 1st place.

Also giving up halfway through the year because of a managerial change just screams of weak mentality. Good players want to win everything regardless of who the boss is.

The "new manager in January so they stopped trying" thing is the dumbest thing I've ever heard and I haven't an idea why people still say it.

Being a footballer isn't like a different job where you have a boss and knowing the boss is outgoing means you don't have to give a crap at your job for a bit until he's gone. Footballers have goals and titles to win for MILLIONS of fans, for the board, and for their own personal ambition. If you're a player who gets sad that their manager is being replaced and decides to give up on your season, you should stop being a footballer because you're the most mentally weak person I've ever met in my life.

You literally have to think about it for about a second to realize what dumb rationale it is

Pep is finally managing a normal team like 99% of the managers in the world have done. As of right now he has shown he is no better than all the other top coaches in the world. He is not special but still a top coach.

However if he goes through another year without a trophy having spent hundreds of millions of pounds on players then you will have to wonder if he is even a top coach at all. We will see.

CBarca wrote:Ah yes, as usual people think spending money means you should have immediate success next season, that's not how it works. That's never how it works. Is that how it worked for the galacticos? Is that how it worked when Spurs splurged on 7 players after Bale left? Is that how it worked when City starting buying players like crazy? What about Man U after multiple seasons of this?

Except that is exactly how it works you halfwit, this is exactly how entities use financial indicators, cashflow forecasts, NPV, Payback periods etc to measure the level of return for their investment. No one spends money to make to make a return in 5 years team, in the case of football, intangibles such are factored in. Those examples you mentioned mean nothing.

CBarca wrote:It's not as easy as spending tons of money and getting results. It takes time. I'm tired of people seeing a commitment of a hundred million pounds and expecting instant results. It's never worked like that. That's not to say there shouldn't be high expectations placed on teams with such expenditure, but people should be more understanding that this might take a full year or two. Players have to adapt. Some will flop, some will take prosper.

Instead of repeating like a maniacal wind up toy, maybe justify your point? Chelsea had an expenditure of 115m pounds in summer of 2016. Where is the understanding, time, grace, honor, etc needed for Conte to adapt? You make it seem as if Mou landed in England for the first time when he joined United.

CBarca wrote:It's 2017 and only in 2015-2016 did Spurs really start to see the fruits of their invest post Bale start to mold into a fantastic team. If I recall correctly, Bale was sold in 2012 or 2013.

You make it seem as if the fruits were bore out of the 100m spent by Spurs, when in actuality it was bad investment

Paulinho £17,000,000
Nacer Chadli £7,000,000
Roberto Soldado £25,800,000
Etienne Capoue £8,600,000
Christian Eriksen £11,000,000
Erik Lamela £25,800,000
Vlad Chiriches £8,500,000

What was borne out of this? Only Eriksen? It was the following seasons(s) purchases of Alderweireld, Dier, Delle Ali, Son Min, that boosted Spurs. Not the fallacy of the 100m fruits of labor that you make it out to be.

CBarca wrote:Pep and Mou will both be more fairly judged on their exploits next season, and the one after. This is a stance I'm willing to defend even if it means defending flops like Mou and Pogba tbh

You do that, you keep defending one of the worst clubs when it comes to transfers. When stats like these start to pop up:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C_dp8vRXoAAxyiU.jpg

SAF's magic dust isn't here anymore, meanwhile, Pep spends 100billion (give or take) ever window and rever him for winning the DFB-Pokal, my asian neighbor who's always high would win that if you give him the reins. Now watch Pep, spend near clownish amounts and finish first, then people bow to him, and pray for that their firstborn doesn't have a receding hairline.

ES with a savage rebuttal

Unreal domination by ES.

You've gone through all of this and I don't think you've actually made a point?

ES wrote:Except that is exactly how it works you halfwit, this is exactly how entities use financial indicators, cashflow forecasts, NPV, Payback periods etc to measure the level of return for their investment. No one spends money to make to make a return in 5 years team, in the case of football, intangibles such are factored in. Those examples you mentioned mean nothing.

If you want to throw out a bunch of buzzwords go ahead. You're wrong. I'll call up every club and tell them to stop buying young players. I will tell teams like Madrid that they should have sold Modric after a year because he flopped his first year in La Liga. They should have replaced him with someone Spanish who would have delivered instant results. I will tell Man City to sell John Stones ASAP because even though he is young, since he has not provided instantaneous results, he should be sold. The return on investment for him has been lost. If this was supposed to be your point, it's incredibly stupid.

City started spending like crazy in the summer of '09. It took them until 2011-2012 to win the league title and become a powerful team in the EPL. They finished fifth the season after they started spending like crazy. Real Madrid spent insane amounts of money in 09-10 and didn't win anything worthwhile until the 11-12 season. You say my examples mean nothing but you've completely ignored them. Why do the mean nothing? Because they don't fit your agenda?

You've literally gone on a tangent to my entire post, ignoring the most important part. You had two relevant points, Spurs and Chelsea. For Chelsea, the fact remains that the examples of teams spending insane money and achieving instant results is much less than the other way around. I can concede Chelsea because there are occasional exceptions.

The other relevant point is that of Spurs, which is pretty fair. Most of them flopped. However Eriksen and Lamela have been very good signings (Eriksen especially is now one of the best in the league). It was my mistake as I had misattributed the signings of Dembele, Lloris, and Vertonghen to Bale when they had previously been funded by the sale of Modric. When you combine Bale and Modric's money, you see that Spurs have spent over a hundred million pounds on the spine of a team which would only become a good team 4-5 years later.

My point is that Mou and Pep will be more fairly judged next season than this. This is why I never judge the worth of a transfer until a full season has passed, and usually wait to judge until that next season. Even though Andre Gomes is the most useless player I've ever seen, I still want him to stay on and I would like to see him playing with us next season. I cannot be more critical of Mourinho than I have been. I have said Pep and Mou's first seasons have been failures. However, the idea that both clubs spent a lot of money in the summer and should have expected to win the title is flawed. Should they have both done better? Probably, and Pogba too, but ask any Man U fan whether they regret spending the cash they did on one of the world's best midfielders, who can give them multiple years of prime service because of his young age, and grow and adapt, I don't think they'll say they regret it. The same thing applies to the managers and to the clubs who have spent this money.

Patience is a virtue and you don't seem to understand that simple concept.