Premier League 2023/24

Arsenal after having their best season in 20 yearspic.twitter.com/WwrbmStXdi

— Troll Football (@TrollFootball) May 19, 2024

S wrote:So many clubs are hunting for a new manager this year.

Barca, Bayern, Juve, Milan, Pool, possibly United now, maybe PSG as well

Managers available right now:

Conte, Allegri, De Zerbi, Tuchel, Motta, Zidane, Klopp etc

Who do United bring in as new coach?

I won't look beyond Conte right now if you ask me. Has a history of resurrecting teams back to the top.

Pool already signed some bald fraud Arne something

Myesyats wrote:First team ever to win 4 PLs in a row.

Throw any amount of money at any manager ever, he wouldnt be able to do it.

Pep is eternal.

You say that, and yet he's literally had the cream of the crop to work with ever since he started his coaching career. Pep is clearly a talented manager, but the weakest club he's managed was a Bayern side that won the treble the year before.

I do think it matters a damn lot how much money or talent you have at your disposal, and in terms of throwing money at a manager and expecting results, Pep might actually be the only manager right now who, together with Txiki, are able to pursue whatever names they want without having to go through layers of people to get their thumbs up first. The only other managers that I'm aware of who's had that level of privilege are SAF and David Gill, and to a lesser extent, Mourinho when he hustled that privilege into his contract when leaving Inter for Real Madrid.

I do suspect that Klopp also has some talent scouts at Liverpool to thank for his success to a large extent, and I don't appreciate his insistence that Liverpool supposedly operate on a ghetto budget compared to other clubs, which I don't believe they do, but if anyone's turned a club's fortunes around in modern times, it's him and his staff.

Hardly anyone seems to rate Zinedine Zidane all that highly as a manager, but you can just as well argue that his record is unprecedented and unachievable by any other manager.

I mean, Klopp admitted as much. Earlier this week he said "put any other manager in Pep's shoes and he doesnt win 4 in a row". He knows how insane it is to do it even with money.

The more pressing question is, have you come around on Foden or no? What else is this goon have to do

I think Foden is a good, occasionally great player who seems to be hyped up at least once every season when he’s going through a patch of great form. My issue with him is his lack of consistency throughout a season, and if I had to compare his performance level to someone, it would be Marcus Rashford.

I think people had a similar view on Dele Ali as well, who I also never thought was very consistent, although he showcased high levels of technical ability on occasion, and also went through patches of great form until he stopped performing altogether.

It’s probably no secret by now that I value consistency above all else. I don’t expect everyone to be CR7 or Messi-level consistent, but I try to avoid falling for recency bias or flashy moments that often seem to overshadow periods of poor performances from an individual.


Pep does deserve a lot of credit for how his teams are able to churn through fodder teams even when his team isn’t playing well, they’re dealing with injuries, or several players are out of form. His possession based football is perfect for long, league seasons. But I think it also makes players like Foden and Mahrez seem like they have a more sustainable performance level than they actually do have. In that sense, Foden is a relatively poor man’s KDB in my eyes. Granted, he’s much younger. I do think Man City will look like a shadow of themselves once KDB leaves or retires. By then, I’d be mighty surprised if Pep hasn’t left already.

Goldbridge.... Who made Man City a juggernaut? He brings up Ortega as an example of being a sub for Man City but better than most starting keepers in the league. Does he know that they got him for free after he was relegated to Bundesliga 2? Is that down to oil money?

KDB was rejected by Chelsea. Anyone knew who Akanji was before they got him? BVB fans were laughing at Man City for buying an error-machine. You need to buy the right players and get the best out of them. Or you can buy Maguire and cry wolf.

Definitely rivals n haters gonna criticise Pep n Man C for all the success... but gotta admit, just like Real, its a combo of both money n management n luck prolly resulting in consistent success. As Myseyats said, there are basically countless examples of players n performance Pep made n vastly improved where hardly any other manager could make, what Klopp was referring to

The infrastructure of a club matters as well

Ortega was a great, highly underrated goalie before Man City acquired him. The emergence of Akanji was more suprising to me. I watched Akanji a lot at Dortmund. I'm pretty sure I described him as their best defender when City bought him. But he was the best defender in a completely dysfunctional defence. They were a top club in the league, but their defensive record was down with the bottom table teams.

I would never have expected him to perform as well as he has done since his transfer to England. I assume both are the work of Txiki. He's got a special eye for talent, and that really is key to building a successful club - especially in this inflated, player market.

Thimmy wrote:

The infrastructure of a club matters as well

Ortega was a great, highly underrated goalie before Man City acquired him. The emergence of Akanji was more suprising to me. I watched Akanji a lot at Dortmund. I'm pretty sure I described him as their best defender when City bought him. But he was the best defender in a completely dysfunctional defence. They were a top club in the league, but their defensive record was down with the bottom table teams.

I would never have expected him to perform as well as he has done since his transfer to England. I assume both are the work of Txiki. He's got a special eye for talent, and that really is key to building a successful club - especially in this inflated, player market.

Well maybe Man Utd should have signed Ortega and Gvardiol instead of Onana and Maguire then? They would've spent LESS money

So simple

Myesyats wrote:

Thimmy wrote:

The infrastructure of a club matters as well

Ortega was a great, highly underrated goalie before Man City acquired him. The emergence of Akanji was more suprising to me. I watched Akanji a lot at Dortmund. I'm pretty sure I described him as their best defender when City bought him. But he was the best defender in a completely dysfunctional defence. They were a top club in the league, but their defensive record was down with the bottom table teams.

I would never have expected him to perform as well as he has done since his transfer to England. I assume both are the work of Txiki. He's got a special eye for talent, and that really is key to building a successful club - especially in this inflated, player market.

Well maybe Man Utd should have signed Ortega and Gvardiol instead of Onana and Maguire then? They would've spent LESS money

So simple

I do think so, but they've had no permanent sporting director since SAF and David Gill left their positions at the club, and no one has cared about it since they just scapegoat their managers. We likely wouldn't even have been aware of their declining facilities if Cristiano hadn't pointed it out in that interview with Piers Morgan.