Greatihex:
Guys, what has happened to neymar the starboy. I saw hin on the bench during barca's last match. What is d problem? Is he injured? Or is he no longer good enough to start?
Cc
Dmcdad, homesteady, debroslink, and co.

CONTEDDICTED:


Hazard's tricks, skills and goals for this season hasn't been fully uploaded on YouTube

The latest complete season out in Spain is last season's, which was poor

Can you blame Neymar?? The poor boy has nothing to copy from his Idol

Maybe they should make Hazard's weekly skills and goals a weekly TV series on Barca TV,sure would help Neymar

Ibime:


He was given £180m and went to buy 5 wingers (Sane, Nolito, Jesus, Moreno, Kapuztkis) and only 1 CM (Gundogan), 1 CB (Stones) and 1 basket (Bravo)

He was given the money and he failed.

Instead of strengthening the spine of his team, he was busy buying wingers to join Silva, Sterling, DeBruyne, Nasri and Navas he already found there. Is he Emenalo in disguise?

CONTEDDICTED:


Hazard's tricks, skills and goals for this season hasn't been fully uploaded on YouTube

The latest complete season out in Spain is last season's, which was poor

Can you blame Neymar?? The poor boy has nothing to copy from his Idol

Maybe they should make Hazard's weekly skills and goals a weekly TV series on Barca TV,sure would help Neymar

hensben:
The truth is this, it is the first time Pep is 100% handling transfer dealings.

Nihilist:


Pep isn't 100% handling transfer dealings. Basically City are actively aping the Barcelona model.

They signed a former Barca vice-president to be their CEO and former Barca Director of Football 4 years ago to start shaping the club in the image of Barca tactically and in the transfer market.

Pep is really just the head coach- though he has a say in who gets bought, Soriano and Gbegiri-stain are the key men in player acquisition.

dmcdad:

The same way Iniesta is no longer good enough to start, right? Smh for you.

So when a coach decides to rest a player because of the running-fixtures every 3 days, it's now the talk of the town. Besides, it was a good time to rest him as we played a lowly placed side, at home for that matter. If you can't rest him in such a match and give others playing time, then I wonder when he would be rested. Plus, the last time he didn't start a game (in the league) was over a year ago barring injuries or like when he was at the Olympics. So you guys should take a chill pill. Suárez was taken off 30 minutes before the end of the game too. Just watch and see, if we can kill our game tonight, then I can bet Suárez and even Messi would be rested in the return fixture at the Camp Nuo next week.

nitlad:



In other words, they were building the team in his direction. Preparing the ground for him. Yet, here they are. . .

Greatihex:
how can you rest someone who just came back from a break.

Nihilist:


Exactly...

It's not really Pep's fault that City started the season with four 30+ year old fullbacks, Virtually no DM, and only one serviceable centre-back..

Pep's main mistakes have been Hart/Bravo, and insisting on playing a style that he doesn't seem to have the legs for. I don't think I can blame him for City's failings in the market.

dmcdad:

Come on bro, don't be myopic, you should know better than this. Accumulated fatigue is the answer bro. I need not preach much on that, as much as I know, you know what accumulated fatigue is, hence no point overflogging this.

Nihilist:


Exactly...

It's not really Pep's fault that City started the season with four 30+ year old fullbacks, Virtually no DM, and only one serviceable centre-back..

Pep's main mistakes have been Hart/Bravo, and insisting on playing a style that he doesn't seem to have the legs for. I don't think I can blame him for City's failings in the market.

airmark:


Pep knew about the man city's job, months before his arrival. I dont think he wouldn't have informed city the players he needed to add before the season started. For a coach who advised chelsea to add 11 players, i dont think he would have accepted city's offer without telling them his targets to execute his plans. His problem was that he underrated the epl. May be, seeing leicester winning the league gave him a wrong impression and confidence, that was baloney. He was informed about the importance of second balls very late, among other stuffs. He personally forced hart out and brought bravo in. He is mainly responsible for the failure.

diggz:


How exactly is it not peps fault city started the season with 30+ fullbacks with no Dms? I mean this guy knew for months he was heading to manCity. He made stones his only option not minding the 30+ full backs plus CBs in mangala, otamendi and Kompany.

There is no excuse for Pep bruv. None.....

Pep took on the job because he knew that he would be able to work without feeling that he was shattering long-established customs and practices. City was a blank canvas and he would be free to create as he saw fit.

In a meeting in Dubai at the start of June he came to an agreement with club management that about 10 new players would be needed. The squad who made it to the last four of the Champions League and achieved fourth place in the league worried him for several reasons: more than half the players (12 out of 23) were over 30; 17 of them were 28 or older; just four men were 25 or younger.

At the same meeting, the coach also took the time to agree the playing model he would use and told the sports director and the president the kind of players he would need, dividing his list into three separate categories: the defensive spine of the team; new strikers; the full-backs.

As ever, his priority was to create the nucleus of his defensive organisation, which would be composed of four men: the keeper, two central defenders and an organising midfielder.

Pep had some players in mind and some deals were immediately successful (Ilkay Gundogan), while others turned out to be complete non-starters (Aymeric Laporte). The rest required many weeks of intense negotiation.

Greatihex:
why is he the only one being rested? Why is messi nt being rested? How many matches has he played since returning from break? If that is how serious a threat the accumulated fatigue can pose, what then is the fate of players in the epl who play in three or four competitions without a break?

Nihilist:




Of course Pep knew the squad he was going to be working with.

Marti Perenau followed Pep around for one full year at Bayern Munich when he was writing his book on the Bald Spaniard. He was allowed on to the training field, into the gyms and dressing rooms and into the players’ restaurant.

This is what he has to say:


If this account is to be believed, then it's not like Pep did not go in there and not ask for new fullbacks or other players.

dmcdad:

Seriously? Was he the only one benched? Was Iniesta not benched too? Haba na... Talking about accumulated Fatigue, tell me any EPL player who has played more matches than Neymar in the last 2 years. You forget we progress in lotta competitions that we end up playing many more matches than even clubs from the EPL.

Now tell me, Madrid played two-legged matches against Sevilla a fortnight ago and the return leg last week and Ronaldo didn't play any. Imagine playing an opponent like Sevilla, yet Ronaldo was benched both home and away. From what you have gasping on, it is safe to say Ronaldo is being benched now. Right?

diggz:
Wait oh!!! Are we saying sagna,zabaleta,clichy and kolarov are right offs bcuz they are 30+?

airmark:


There's every possibility that during pre-season when he evaluated the players on ground, he changed his mind on his earlier list. He reprioritised and contented with sagna and others. Also, just as conte chased some targets unsuccessfully in summer, it is possible pep might not be successful with his targeted full backs. Not having new full backs is not enough to say he wasn't allowed to run the market. What we are very sure of is, he personally brought stones, bravo,gundongan,sane, jesus, nolito and favoured iheanacho pushed bony out on loan. A great manager will still bring out the best out of what is on ground, that he has failed to do.

diggz:
Wait oh!!! Are we saying sagna,zabaleta,clichy and kolarov are right offs bcuz they are 30+?

Greatihex:
ok, let me just agree that you have won. We still dy here.

Nihilist:


That's entering the world of speculation. You don't know if he changed his mind to become content with those players.

The key thing being debated is how culpable for man city's failings in the market. The only thing that we know for sure is that Pep specifically asked for fullbacks from his team - He did not get them.

Greatihex:
For me, the only reason pep is nt doing as expected is because he underrated epl, because i think he can do beta than he is doing currently.
As for bravo, wat is happening to him is normal of what happens to almost every keeper that comes to the epl at first. Courtious, de gea and many others experienced it. He will come good. I believe that.

De Gea was never this bad nor was Courtois...Bravo is just shite and Guardiola is even shittier for putting Bravo in place of Hart.



How can two teenagers Lookman and Davies use your nEt shine in the same game....Did he come to The EPL to play Tiki Taka or save shots?...

airmark:


And that doesn't mean that he was not the one handling the signings. Two of his signings, have performed woefully and brought man city to her knees.

Nihilist:


I can only blame Pep for Bravo if I'm being completely honest... and i said as much in my original post.We all know that Pep chased Hart away for Claudio Basket.

I can't blame Pep for Stones - Stones was always going to go to a big club last summer. There was too much hype around him being a young English ball playing defender. We bid 40m for the boy if you recall. Manyoo and Barca were also reportedly chasing him too. City were just the only ones willing to pay Maga money for the boy, otherwise he would have been some other team's problem by now. So it's not as if Pep had identified him as one badass defender...he was quite simply a HYPE buy, like Sterling the year before.

airmark:


I understand , but pep still fell for the hype at 50m and that's no fault of anyone other than his. May be conte would have 'taught him tackles' and improved just as luiz improved pre-aguero's lunge. Pep went for a defender with footworks, with no interest in improving his defensive ability and now he is reaping the bad fruits. He is responsible for it bro and even shows he is not as great a coach as some thought. Just as bravo has forgotten how to use his hands to save shots, stones is playing terribly defensively. He will become worse, because his coach ''don't train tackles, what is tackle?''.

Brightwood:


De Gea was never this bad nor was Courtois...Bravo is just shite and Guardiola is even shittier for putting Bravo in place of Hart.



How can two teenagers Lookman and Davies use your nEt shine in the same game....Did he come to The EPL to play Tiki Taka or save shots?...

diggz:
Wait oh!!! Are we saying sagna,zabaleta,clichy and kolarov are right offs bcuz they are 30+?

Nihilist:


Pep doesn't have access to the Man City Bank Account - He is not the one that decides whether Stones is worth 50 million pounds. All he can do is recommend in the same way Jose did. The difference is that guy holding the purse string at Chelsea decided that Stones was worth 40m max - while at City that is being bankrolled by State Budget, Money is really no object - They are the same people that bought Mangala for 35m.

You're coming back to pragmatism in the second half of your post, and that is something I agree with having stated in my original post:


Pep's main mistakes have been Hart/Bravo, and insisting on playing a style that he doesn't seem to have the legs for.

We can all see that these players don't have the legs to play the kind of demanding football that Pep wants to play. He might be able to succeed in his chosen style if he had gotten new defenders in the market which he didn't for whatever reason.

Its his refusal to switch up the style and work to the tools that he has that I can blame him for. He's trying to be Picasso with Children's Crayons.