ayrshireblue wrote:Im_Spartacus wrote:At City, Pep has not necessarily had the best player in every position, but has made those players more than the sum of the team through the way he approaches football tactically. Cancelo, Sterling, Mahrez to name the 3 I think we miss the most right now - top quartile players who went into top decile in Pep's system because they were carefully selected for their football brain, not so much what everyone else saw in them.
If you look at how we're playing currently, the issue is that many of the players are playing at their natural top quartile level or below it, so there's no added value from Pep, and arguably there is negative value because there's an unwillingness to play differently.
The serious question if we were to ever consider making a change, is whether what we would be left with right now, is a squad full of top qaurtile players who would get us top quartile outcomes - maybe a little better if the 2-3 world class players we have, consistently turned up.
The risk we have when we look at the squad right now, we have Haaland, Foden, Rodri, Dias, Ederson as a world class spine, but when one of more of them aren't firing or fit, we're in reality no better player for player than Chelsea. So then if Pep's system out of the equation, where does that leave us - a new succession of managers like United failing to get a tune out of an expensively assembled squad?
Those of you who have been around a long time will remember I was probably the most aggressive proponents of manager change during hughes and mancini's tenure, but I think after a long tenure like Pep, we're in potential post-baconface territory here, as I honestly think most managers would struggle to get a tune out of most of the peripheral players - and that's not how this squad was supposed to be built.
I'm 100% sure that the reason Guardiola has 2 years, is that he's been told he needs to fuckin sort it out and leave a legacy, not a shitshow, and I think we're going to have to go with it.
Do you think Pep's system is still helping us or is it the system that is in fact hindering us. Pep seems determined not to change the system and is still playing some of the players who obviously can no longer work within that system. Is he trying to prove, at considerable cost to the club, that he needs certain players moved on and replaced like he did in his first season or is he just too arrogant to admit the system is not now working in the current game. We need more pace, quicker passing, less insistence on keeping possession and a system that is playing to the players strengths since the players we have signed don't suit the system.
Haaland is being wasted by not being supplied quickly, we now see the same thing with Marmoush who was making great runs which were constantly ignored by Bernardo. Eventually the players stop making the runs if the ball never comes and then we become the slow, pedestrian team that can't beat anyone who defends well and attacks with pace, which is now most of the top half of the Premier League.
Something has to change and change soon and at this point I think it has to be the manager as he is reluctant to make the changes to the system necessary to keep us at the very top of the game.
I don't like Pep's system - it has always been slow, pedestrian and mechanical, and even when we were still winning every game upto September/October, the signs were there that all was not well. Although we should have started the player replacements much sooner, I do have some sympathy for the likely internal view that the drop off in form of KDB, Silva and Foden, added to the injury to Rodri is not something that can have been predicted all at the same time - this has become an unplanned transitional year. As long as we make it to the CL, it won't have been a disaster.
The bright spots on the horizon are that Marmoush to me looks capable of being a like for like replacement or even upgrade on Alvarez, Savinho I think will come good given time though I'm not sure there's a player with the intelligence of Mahrez or pace of Sterling, and Khusanov looks quality.
The problem we have right now is that out of necessity, we have 3-4 players learning a totally new way of playing which requires their football intelligence to go up a couple of notches. We are currently 2 fullbacks and an entire in-form midfield short of executing that system - and as we know with nearly every new signing in the last 10 years, it has taken until the second year for most to see their true colours.
I guess the frustration of all of us, is that we know historically the way a manager normally gets out of these slumps is to go back to basics, gets the defensive stability back, then builds from there. Our defensive stability was always based on possession - and we're not there yet as neither the new or our of form players are stepping up to do the basics in terms of movement.......Marmoush is, but I don't think scoring is our problem, conceding is
Watch on 
