Midweek games 22/2 - 26/2

[PeterParker]

Anyone saw Juventus - Bayern?

Cuadrado stole the show. Really curious how Chelsea got rid of him so quickly.

[iwasthere2012]

Should have been 0-4. As well as they played for the first 60 mins, Arse got off easy

You get the impression that if Arsenal had had the temerity to score, they would've just gone up another notch and scored three of four. They have no chance in the away tie

Not from what the commentators said, Arsenal seem to have every chance if they score first in the away leg.

I wonder what sort of commentary we will get tomorrow, will we be the foreign team again?

Not on the Irish channel 3.
Martin O'Neill and Souness not giving them a prayer. Typical Arsenal performance against Barca according to Souness. In fairness, he called it from the start.

Straight talking blokes, not like the steaming stench of fanny farts that we get on Sky and BT.

Nice alliteration.

[Hutch's Shoulder]

Arsenal tie is over; Pep warming up nicely to be City Manager.

[iwasthere2012]

Arsenal tie is over; Pep warming up nicely to be City Manager.

Bayern defense looked as bad as ours.
Good come back from Juve.
Don't think Pep has improved that Bayern team.

[carl_feedthegoat]

Arsenal tie is over; Pep warming up nicely to be City Manager.

Don't think Pep has improved that Bayern team.

Really ??????? you're nuts if you think that.


As soon as he touched down in Munich he was itching to get to work on the Säbener Strasse, the club’s training complex. He found the majority of the squad extremely receptive to his ideas and began instilling his tactical plans on them, picking out certain players for special attention.

The fact that Bayern went on to be dominant in the Bundesliga raised no eyebrows, but the style of play certainly did. It soon became apparent that the level of fluidity and fluency we became accustomed to seeing at the Camp Nou was neither fluke nor solely down to the La Masia graduates on the field. In his first season in Munich, Guardiola’s fingerprints were all over the team.

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Predictably, the focus was on possession, but it could by no means be dismissed as tiki-taka. Instead of passing for the sake of it, Bayern used their possession to twist the opposition into knots, luring them into chasing and watching the ball being pinged to and fro, and then, when the time was right, the play would be switched to the opposing flank and they would go for the jugular.

Bayern and Germany needed Guardiola. He not only improved the players, but also challenge them tactically and physically. Experienced players such as Philipp Lahm, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Rafinha, and even those in the twilight of their playing career such as Claudio Pizarro all grew as players, achieving additional qualifications in their footballing education.

Under Guardiola, Lahm has gone from a versatile and consistent full-back to something close to a complete footballer and one of Europe’s finest midfielders, while Jérôme Boateng has blossomed into a progressive centre-back who is perfectly at ease when asked to serve as the only traditional defender on the pitch. Guardiola quickly saw the talent in Boateng and made it his mission to cut out his occasional laps of concentration, with meticulous work and hours of coaching on the training ground.

Guardiola’s time in the Bundesliga has changed the country’s footballing culture. In recent years, Bayern have provided the core for the national team and Guardiola’s work with players such as Manuel Neuer, Boateng, Lahm, Schweinsteiger, and Thomas Müller has undoubtedly refined the tools Joachim Löw has at his disposal. In particular, Löw has already shown he is not too proud to take advantage of Lahm’s increased exposure to midfield roles and has assigned him similar duties when on international duty.

Neuer, Müller, Boateng and Lahm are four of the five players Guardiola has picked the most and the fifth, Rafinha, will be grateful for the way he has been revitalised under Guardiola. He mainly served as a back-up to Lahm at right-back under Heynckes, but the Brazilian, alongside David Alaba, has thrived under Guardiola, whose interpretation of the modern full-back is more of an auxiliary central midfielder who sits either side of a deep-lying pivot, usually Lahm or Thiago.


A lesson from SC Freiburg in Germany: back your manager and give him time
Read more
For many fans and followers of the game, football is more than winning and losing games. What happens during a match, and in particular how the match is played, is the prime reason for watching. While some may revel in a slick, passing game, others will lust for the cold-bloodedness of a well-executed counter-attacking game, or want to see a defensive tactical plan come to fruition. The journey to the final whistle is arguably more important than the score after it, especially in an era when so many teams are performing at a similar level and there are fine lines between success and failure.

While Guardiola may not have delivered European glory to Munich thus far, he still may do. But even if Bayern fall short once more this season, Guardiola’s tenure has taken the club and the national team forward – and in that regard he has been a resounding success.

[bigblue]

That copy-paste might be your most literate post ever carl

[phips]

Cuadrado stole the show. Really curious how Chelsea got rid of him so quickly.

Mourinho.

[phips]

shame to see Spurs and Arsenal both drop out of competitions this week. those extra matches would've been nice.

[iwasthere2012]

That copy-paste might be your most literate post ever carl

Yes. Quite impressive Carl.
Quit a few over there weren't happy with his changing of style from one that was already winning.
I still don't think Boateng is a good centre back, despite their dominance in the Bundesliga.
Proof of the pudding for Pep. Will be how they do in the CL.

[carl_feedthegoat]

That copy-paste might be your most literate post ever carl

Yes. Quite impressive Carl.
Quit a few over there weren't happy with his changing of style from one that was already winning.
I still don't think Boateng is a good centre back, despite their dominance in the Bundesliga.
Proof of the pudding for Pep. Will be how they do in the CL.

no

The proof of the pudding has already been explained in detail to you....try and absorb it in.

Winning the CL has fuckall to do with your opinion that PEP has not improved Bayern Munich as has been explained in DETAIL above.

BTW - I leave my literacy skills for my business dealings , and not for a bunch of City fans on a fuckign internet forum.

[gillie]

That copy-paste might be your most literate post ever carl

Yes. Quite impressive Carl.
Quit a few over there weren't happy with his changing of style from one that was already winning.
I still don't think Boateng is a good centre back, despite their dominance in the Bundesliga.
Proof of the pudding for Pep. Will be how they do in the CL.

no

The proof of the pudding has already been explained in detail to you....try and absorb it in.

Winning the CL has fuckall to do with your opinion that PEP has not improved Bayern Munich as has been explained in DETAIL above.

BTW - I leave my literacy skills for my business dealings , and not for a bunch of City fans on a fuckign internet forum.

Excuse me sir but we are not a "Bunch of anything" We are Family ok:)

[iwasthere2012]

That copy-paste might be your most literate post ever carl

Yes. Quite impressive Carl.
Quit a few over there weren't happy with his changing of style from one that was already winning.
I still don't think Boateng is a good centre back, despite their dominance in the Bundesliga.
Proof of the pudding for Pep. Will be how they do in the CL.

no

The proof of the pudding has already been explained in detail to you....try and absorb it in.

Winning the CL has fuckall to do with your opinion that PEP has not improved Bayern Munich as has been explained in DETAIL above.

BTW - I leave my literacy skills for my business dealings , and not for a bunch of City fans on a fuckign internet forum.

I don't think that is proof, but another opinion, that's all.
It may well prove to be correct yet, but my opinion is that it is not proven.
Guardiola was announced as Bayern's next manager on the 16th of january 2013, and started managing them for the 2013-2014 season.

i hate quoting statistics, because I think they can be made 'prove' anything, but if you looked at the first team statistics below in isolation you would
assume that the team are doing worse than when he took over. See table below.
They went from winning a treble, including a very exciting and compelling brand of football in the CL, to winning a domestic double to just winning the domestic league.
Some would call that regression and their points total domestically has also dropped.
He may well win the CL with them this year and to me that would be the proof of the pudding, that the new style he is making Bayern play, is paying dividends.
I'm not trying to run the guy down. I think he's the best. certainly the best fit for us. But he took over a successful team at Bayern as he did at Barca.
He'll have a much greater task to rebuild us. I'm hoping we will be his greatest achievement.
It's all about opinions Carl. Yours is different to mine. That's cool.

Season Rank P W D L F A GD Pts Cup EL CL
2012–13 1 34 29 4 1 98 18 80 91 Won — Won
2013–14 1 34 29 3 2 94 23 71 90 Won — SF
2014–15 1 34 25 4 5 80 18 62 79 SF — SF

[Slim]

The only thing that matters here is will he improve City.

Replacing Joachim Low is one thing, replacing Pellegrini is another and I doubt anyone believes he isn't going to be an enormous improvement on Pellers.

[carl_feedthegoat]

That copy-paste might be your most literate post ever carl

Yes. Quite impressive Carl.
Quit a few over there weren't happy with his changing of style from one that was already winning.
I still don't think Boateng is a good centre back, despite their dominance in the Bundesliga.
Proof of the pudding for Pep. Will be how they do in the CL.

no

The proof of the pudding has already been explained in detail to you....try and absorb it in.

Winning the CL has fuckall to do with your opinion that PEP has not improved Bayern Munich as has been explained in DETAIL above.

BTW - I leave my literacy skills for my business dealings , and not for a bunch of City fans on a fuckign internet forum.

I don't think that is proof, but another opinion, that's all.
It may well prove to be correct yet, but my opinion is that it is not proven.
Guardiola was announced as Bayern's next manager on the 16th of january 2013, and started managing them for the 2013-2014 season.

i hate quoting statistics, because I think they can be made 'prove' anything, but if you looked at the first team statistics below in isolation you would
assume that the team are doing worse than when he took over. See table below.
They went from winning a treble, including a very exciting and compelling brand of football in the CL, to winning a domestic double to just winning the domestic league.
Some would call that regression and their points total domestically has also dropped.
He may well win the CL with them this year and to me that would be the proof of the pudding, that the new style he is making Bayern play, is paying dividends.
I'm not trying to run the guy down. I think he's the best. certainly the best fit for us. But he took over a successful team at Bayern as he did at Barca.
He'll have a much greater task to rebuild us. I'm hoping we will be his greatest achievement.
It's all about opinions Carl. Yours is different to mine. That's cool.

Season Rank P W D L F A GD Pts Cup EL CL
2012–13 1 34 29 4 1 98 18 80 91 Won — Won
2013–14 1 34 29 3 2 94 23 71 90 Won — SF
2014–15 1 34 25 4 5 80 18 62 79 SF — SF

Mine is not an opinion , it's a documented fuckign fact that he has improved Bayern Munich.........which was my point.

Your opinion goes against the fact.

[carl_feedthegoat]

That copy-paste might be your most literate post ever carl

Yes. Quite impressive Carl.
Quit a few over there weren't happy with his changing of style from one that was already winning.
I still don't think Boateng is a good centre back, despite their dominance in the Bundesliga.
Proof of the pudding for Pep. Will be how they do in the CL.

no

The proof of the pudding has already been explained in detail to you....try and absorb it in.

Winning the CL has fuckall to do with your opinion that PEP has not improved Bayern Munich as has been explained in DETAIL above.

BTW - I leave my literacy skills for my business dealings , and not for a bunch of City fans on a fuckign internet forum.

Excuse me sir but we are not a "Bunch of anything" We are Family ok:)

Correct sir......some of you are like my family...others are in the "Bunch" category )))

[bigblue]

Bayern's last season under Heynckes was much better than anything than Pep has produced so far. They were on a whole different level, and I think most Bayern fans would agree. There's a reason they're not fighting to keep him.

Pep introduced a more calculated style, but that came at the expense of the incredible free-attacking play they had before.

But Pep's style may prove to be a much better fit for us (and I hope it works out that way). He'll certainly have more control and support form the club here than he's getting at Bayern. And our fans will show more patience and understanding than Bayern's fans.

-

And carl, my comment was more on your surprising lack "fuckign", no ALLCAPS, and use of complete sentences. Was an unusually calm and coherent post (even if it was copied from elsewhere).

[carl_feedthegoat]

Bayern's last season under Heynckes was much better than anything than Pep has produced so far. They were on a whole different level, and I think most Bayern fans would agree. There's a reason they're not fighting to keep him.

Pep introduced a more calculated style, but that came at the expense of the incredible free-attacking play they had before.

But Pep's style may prove to be a much better fit for us (and I hope it works out that way). He'll certainly have more control and support form the club here than he's getting at Bayern. And our fans will show more patience and understanding than Bayern's fans.

-

And carl, my comment was more on your surprising lack "fuckign", no ALLCAPS, and use of complete sentences. Was an unusually calm and coherent post (even if it was copied from elsewhere).

I have my moments , if I've just gotten off the phone or dealt with an idiot in my business world then my frustration tends to blend into a rant on this site............It all depends if I'm in a happy place.

Slim gave up correcting me on my English language skills..probably because he found out that I was a really a famous author in my last life.

[Slim]

Bayern's last season under Heynckes was much better than anything than Pep has produced so far. They were on a whole different level, and I think most Bayern fans would agree. There's a reason they're not fighting to keep him.

Pep introduced a more calculated style, but that came at the expense of the incredible free-attacking play they had before.

But Pep's style may prove to be a much better fit for us (and I hope it works out that way). He'll certainly have more control and support form the club here than he's getting at Bayern. And our fans will show more patience and understanding than Bayern's fans.

-

And carl, my comment was more on your surprising lack "fuckign", no ALLCAPS, and use of complete sentences. Was an unusually calm and coherent post (even if it was copied from elsewhere).

I have my moments , if I've just gotten off the phone or dealt with an idiot in my business world then my frustration tends to blend into a rant on this site............It all depends if I'm in a happy place.

Slim gave up correcting me on my English language skills..probably because he found out that I was a really a famous author in my last life.

[Wonderwall]

The only thing that matters here is will he improve City.

Replacing Joachim Low is one thing, replacing Pellegrini is another and I doubt anyone believes he isn't going to be an enormous improvement on Pellers.

Bro what's happened to your super powers?

[Slim]

The only thing that matters here is will he improve City.

Replacing Joachim Low is one thing, replacing Pellegrini is another and I doubt anyone believes he isn't going to be an enormous improvement on Pellers.

Bro what's happened to your super powers?

I am going the same way as Yaya. I fully expect to read the "Didn't you used to be Slim?" article in the next couple of days.