I'm far from pep's biggest advocate or apologist, but yesterday was not on him. Had more to do with our players and their character than anything else. Even tactically, Carlo made the right subs but it wasn't some tactical turn around. Guys just kept fighting and after the equalizer Benz just had to get his name on the sheet for it to be complete. While two things can be true, in this case it's more of don't blame pep, praise madrid

Now that Pep isn't even winning the Carabao Cup there's really not much left of which he is King

The thing with Pep is that he is a perfectionist, a marathon coach, and leagues are marathons, while the Champions League is a sprint. By that I mean Pep calculates every move every pass and every role, players need to make the exact moves as told.

That is why his teams are 'boring' to watch, it's like you can predict the way they will play(doesn't mean that you will stop him even if you know his tactics). They work most of the times until they don't, until a high pressured game, an intensive battle and mentally high. That is where you need to 'not stick to the plan' and be more expressive, let your instinct drive you. That is why some, including me, enjoy coaches like Klopp, Ancelotti, Zidane, and such, because they let the players express themselves, follow instincts, and the coaches even are open to suggestions most of the times and being on level with the players, rather than a role higher than them.

You always see Pep giving instructions to his players and be in their ass for even an inch of a wrong pass.

Pep's flaw is simple. Once you have a lead it's best to actually play with the result and defend and look for more on the counter. Pep had the lead not once, nor twice, but thrice. In all of those situations he choose to increase his lead further and maintain the same tactic instead of pulling back and protecting the goal which allow Madrid to always have that opportunity to claw back the result. The rest is history.

In contrast to Ancellotti, once he had the lead, what did he do? Protect the goal. That's why he won and it aint the 1st time this happens to Pep and we all know it.

To say it ain't Pep's fault is an oversight.

This is turning out to be a real classic thread with many great posts, agreeing a lot with what ppl are saying n some are also so damn funny

He might not be blamed for incidents in these fine margins game but when they keep repeating in what feels like a decade now there has to be factors with him as a coach thats hes instilled in his teams in terms of weaknesses that results in these losses time n again.

We all know what they are I mean he just takes things too far n too one dimensional. One big one is as ppl have already said which is having too many ball players over everything else, thats just his philosophy. Even at his peak at Barca with MessiXaviInesta, we actually had so many huge weaknesses which were prolly less obvious becos at the time we were so good at our game including having Messi who did everything n others havent figured us out yet. In fact we prolly had more mix of physicality at the start with likes of Yaya/Keita/Abidal/Puyol/young Pique to ensure we could compete v the best teams whatever they threw at us. Of cos he shipped out Yaya n brought in Busquets, n shipped out Eto'o n had Messi to score instead n played possession to defend But all these despite being successful at the time actually meant us being so one dimensional n reliant on Messi. Still remember being frustrated often watching that we didnt have any kind of plan B when things didnt go well in some games.

This Man C has similar problems just too packed with one type of player, ball players n creators but not enough real scorers n physicality bar Rodri n Fernandinho. Giving up Aguero a real goal scorer n then signing another ball player creator type Grealish for 100M we all knew it was gonna come back to haunt him The other big thing is obviously all this means often it takes a lot for Pep teams to score with a million passes needing to be precise, whereas oppositions could always score from just a simple cross or corner or a mistake or whatever since they are playing vs a team of ball players who just arent good at defending

https://football-italia.net/guardiola-compares-manchester-city-spending-to-mourinhos-roma/

Lmao man has lost it

Pep Guardiola has launched a fierce defence of his Manchester City players after Patrice Evra questioned their character and mentality following the last-gasp Champions League defeat to Real Madrid.

"I played against them (Evra, Berbatov, Seedorf) and when I played against them I didn't see this kind of personality when we (Barcelona) destroyed them in the Champions League final against United. It's the same character and personality. We don't have personality because we concede two goals in two minutes when we had two chances to score and we don't have personality? After the last four games we score 22 goals we have incredible personality. I'm sorry but I completely disagree about this."

M99 wrote:https://football-italia.net/guardiola-compares-manchester-city-spending-to-mourinhos-roma/

Lmao man has lost it

Late to see this but wtf is that bald idiot on? Didn't know that the other idiot mourinho lives rent free in his mind but that comparison... Jesus Cristo wtf did i just read?

Guy should see a therapist. Forget him being a bald hipster, this man needs to seek professional help. If that's how he is now I can't imagine how he will be when his team gets knocked out of cl again next year even with haaland on the team.

This was already investigated and found to be false. His English is just bad.

He said not was "normal" for people to be upset, and didn't mention Roma in any capacity. Roma already putout a statement to that effect.

Myesyats wrote:Pep Guardiola has launched a fierce defence of his Manchester City players after Patrice Evra questioned their character and mentality following the last-gasp Champions League defeat to Real Madrid.

"I played against them (Evra, Berbatov, Seedorf) and when I played against them I didn't see this kind of personality when we (Barcelona) destroyed them in the Champions League final against United. It's the same character and personality. We don't have personality because we concede two goals in two minutes when we had two chances to score and we don't have personality? After the last four games we score 22 goals we have incredible personality. I'm sorry but I completely disagree about this."

he is right, and i like that he brought that up. if berbatov had that intensity, alex wouldnt have left him on the bench in a ucl final, and evra wouldnt have gotten cooked over and over and over by pep's barca in that final. they had no intensity for 90 mins in that final. i like seedorf, and at least when he was at milan he gave 110 percent. but good on pep to fire back, i might not like him, but you gotta defend yourself, i support that

Tbf these sorts of comments aren't even worth a response. Former players who lack the analytical ability to provide any insightful takes on the game have to resort to these incendiary comments to stay relevant, it's their only possible angle if they want a career in punditry. Just look at the hot takes from guys like Van Der Vaart and Cassano.

10th league title in his 13th season

Change thread title to King of the Premier League

He wins this more often than Carabao cup now

He deserves some praise, everyone including me jumps on him for the CL n today at HT, but winning things are often very thin margins. His game has weaknesses but hes largely been very successful n play nice to watch football still. I guess hes so good we get used to it n demand more together with those repeated failures in the CL we unfairly evaluate him often?

BarcaLearning wrote:but winning things are often very thin margins

City dominated Madrid in the first leg and could’ve scored a lot more than 4 (IMO 6-2 would have been a fair result based on performance so the team was prepared very well) and then were in near complete control in the 2nd leg for 90 minutes. I struggle to come up with what else Pep as manager was supposed to do. I think his game plan for both legs was excellent and I don’t think City fans had reasons to be anxious that the tie was falling out of their hands for 99.9% of 2nd leg regular time.

You can put on extraordinary performances the entire season but then it comes down to virtually 10 minutes of play that decide whether your season was a failure or success.

With regards to money spent. Don’t tell me lads from the red part of Manchester couldn’t sign Walker, Mahrez, Bernardo, Stones or De Bruyne instead of Shaw, Wank Bissaka, Pogba, Lukaku, Maguire or Depay. They absolutely could have but did not. Same for other top teams, really. Man City's wages aren't insane either, they dont pay 70 or 100 million to KDB or Mahrez like PSG does.

I think so, all in all a pretty well run club that doesnt go beyond its means unecessarily.

I think it was from watching those YT interviews with the coaches or something, have to keep reminding oneself that one shouldnt focus too much on winning/losing in terms of trophies or being no.1 in a particular season, since so many factors are involved N it can be somewhat superficial from a long terms pov. Liverpool is definitely a team thats shown they dont win it all but come close n are consistently there n ppl appreciate them. Prolly same thing should be viewed towards Pep more...

Casciavit wrote:10th league title in his 13th season

Should be 14 out of 13 with the money he's spent everywhere he's coached.

Like Laporta-era Barca and notoriously frugal Bayern Munich are heavy spenders He never had a limitless budget until joining City

Tbf Hans himself could coach Bayern to the title

Warrior wrote:Tbf Hans himself could coach Bayern to the title

Considering Felix Magath won a title, yeah, I could see that happening.

There will never be another like him. When his teams are on song, i have never seen a better drilled machine in football. Relentless and killer positive football.

Double hat-trick in the derby.

Farmers league.

German Legacy

How good was Stefan Ortega last year? City signed him as their backup to Ederson, but he’s legitimately a better shot stopper than him. He needs to start in the CL. He was super clutch against Chelsea tonight.

I didn't really see him play much for Arminia Bielefeld, but I do recall reading somewhere that he was very highly rated. Probably went under the radar of most people since he was playing for such a humble club.