Pep or the players?

[Pretty Boy Lee]

Simple question, who did we overrate?

Now I'm not slagging Pep so let's not go that route, but I think 95% of blues would say they expected more of this season. A lot will say they knew it would be transition etc, but when we brought in Pep and a handful of new players to a squad that had been regularly in the top 4 and winning trophies I don't think anyone here thought we'd end up empty handed and fighting for cl survival in such a poor run of form.

That being said are we where we are because we expected too much of Pep and the squad isn't as great as it once was and we like to think it still is? Or did Pep come in with a big rep and fail to get the best out of a pretty decent side with several new additions?

I genuinely cannot believe how this season has panned out and I'm trying to figure out if my blue tint specs have me blind to our squad deficiencies or if Pep has seriously underachieved.

Thoughts?

[roblues]

Simple question, who did we overrate?

Now I'm not slagging Pep so let's not go that route, but I think 95% of blues would say they expected more of this season. A lot will say they knew it would be transition etc, but when we brought in Pep and a handful of new players to a squad that had been regularly in the top 4 and winning trophies I don't think anyone here thought we'd end up empty handed and fighting for cl survival in such a poor run of form.

That being said are we where we are because we expected too much of Pep and the squad isn't as great as it once was and we like to think it still is? Or did Pep come in with a big rep and fail to get the best out of a pretty decent side with several new additions?

I genuinely cannot believe how this season has panned out and I'm trying to figure out if my blue tint specs have me blind to our squad deficiencies or if Pep has seriously underachieved.

Thoughts?

I agree, ten straight wins at the start of the year definitely led to us overrating the club's ability to succeed. I said on day one that I'd take a competitive league season, a domestic cup, and a similar CL performance to last year. We've failed on all fronts, but I still think progress has been made in the squad as a whole.

On the players, those without short memories can surely see that team spirit is much better - they didn't fail this year for want of trying. But the quality issues are still there - our full backs can't keep up and have their backs to the play too often, our central midfield gets overrun too easily and our attackers forget about each other when things get tough. Overrated based on the season's start.

On the manager, to expect him to come in and create an instant revolution was seen as a ridiculous expectation at the start of the season, but now that we haven't won anything it's apparently a shock that he's not the Messiah. Too early to judge on whether we overrated him - let's see in two more years.

I have seen progress, and I'd love to see a poll on here for whether others have seen progress.

[Pretty Boy Lee]

Simple question, who did we overrate?

Now I'm not slagging Pep so let's not go that route, but I think 95% of blues would say they expected more of this season. A lot will say they knew it would be transition etc, but when we brought in Pep and a handful of new players to a squad that had been regularly in the top 4 and winning trophies I don't think anyone here thought we'd end up empty handed and fighting for cl survival in such a poor run of form.

That being said are we where we are because we expected too much of Pep and the squad isn't as great as it once was and we like to think it still is? Or did Pep come in with a big rep and fail to get the best out of a pretty decent side with several new additions?

I genuinely cannot believe how this season has panned out and I'm trying to figure out if my blue tint specs have me blind to our squad deficiencies or if Pep has seriously underachieved.

Thoughts?

I agree, ten straight wins at the start of the year definitely led to us overrating the club's ability to succeed. I said on day one that I'd take a competitive league season, a domestic cup, and a similar CL performance to last year. We've failed on all fronts, but I still think progress has been made in the squad as a whole.

On the players, those without short memories can surely see that team spirit is much better - they didn't fail this year for want of trying. But the quality issues are still there - our full backs can't keep up and have their backs to the play too often, our central midfield gets overrun too easily and our attackers forget about each other when things get tough. Overrated based on the season's start.

On the manager, to expect him to come in and create an instant revolution was seen as a ridiculous expectation at the start of the season, but now that we haven't won anything it's apparently a shock that he's not the Messiah. Too early to judge on whether we overrated him - let's see in two more years.

I have seen progress, and I'd love to see a poll on here for whether others have seen progress.

That's a reasonable response, and I agree with some of it.

My issue is im not seeing this progress. We've far d no better be in the league, not won a cup and gone backwards in Europe. These things happen with an ageing squad, but Pellers was seen as underacheiving with this group so I have to say Pep has too. If we'd shown the bottle to beat some big sides I'd see that a progress, but we're not much better there either. I honestly am so dissapointed with this season and I'm not sure how we got here.

[Niall Quinns Discopants]

Simple question, who did we overrate?

Now I'm not slagging Pep so let's not go that route, but I think 95% of blues would say they expected more of this season. A lot will say they knew it would be transition etc, but when we brought in Pep and a handful of new players to a squad that had been regularly in the top 4 and winning trophies I don't think anyone here thought we'd end up empty handed and fighting for cl survival in such a poor run of form.

That being said are we where we are because we expected too much of Pep and the squad isn't as great as it once was and we like to think it still is? Or did Pep come in with a big rep and fail to get the best out of a pretty decent side with several new additions?

I genuinely cannot believe how this season has panned out and I'm trying to figure out if my blue tint specs have me blind to our squad deficiencies or if Pep has seriously underachieved.

Thoughts?

Truth is somewhere inbetween. Squad is lacking and that is solely down to Txiki. I have used that excuse all season. However I expected to see improvement and adjustment on tactics throughout the season so that regardless of where we are at the table by the spring we would start looking coherent football team. That hasn't really happened.

[sheblue]

Our best player in the semi final is 34 years of age.
Kompany, Silva, yaya, Sergio still the spine of the team.
Its going to take two years.

[Pretty Boy Lee]

Our best player in the semi final is 34 years of age.
Kompany, Silva, yaya, Sergio still the spine of the team.
Its going to take two years.

Aware of that re players.

Why does it have to take two years? Chelsea bounced right back with Conte. Are our players no longer title winning caliber or is our manager not ready to win the prem?

I hate this generic give it time, nothing changes just because time passes, we make the changes.

[Nigels Tackle]

both
arrogant manager
passionless players
arsenal mark 2

[Foreverinbluedreams]

Simple question, who did we overrate?

Now I'm not slagging Pep so let's not go that route, but I think 95% of blues would say they expected more of this season. A lot will say they knew it would be transition etc, but when we brought in Pep and a handful of new players to a squad that had been regularly in the top 4 and winning trophies I don't think anyone here thought we'd end up empty handed and fighting for cl survival in such a poor run of form.

That being said are we where we are because we expected too much of Pep and the squad isn't as great as it once was and we like to think it still is? Or did Pep come in with a big rep and fail to get the best out of a pretty decent side with several new additions?

I genuinely cannot believe how this season has panned out and I'm trying to figure out if my blue tint specs have me blind to our squad deficiencies or if Pep has seriously underachieved.

Thoughts?

I agree, ten straight wins at the start of the year definitely led to us overrating the club's ability to succeed. I said on day one that I'd take a competitive league season, a domestic cup, and a similar CL performance to last year. We've failed on all fronts, but I still think progress has been made in the squad as a whole.

On the players, those without short memories can surely see that team spirit is much better - they didn't fail this year for want of trying. But the quality issues are still there - our full backs can't keep up and have their backs to the play too often, our central midfield gets overrun too easily and our attackers forget about each other when things get tough. Overrated based on the season's start.

On the manager, to expect him to come in and create an instant revolution was seen as a ridiculous expectation at the start of the season, but now that we haven't won anything it's apparently a shock that he's not the Messiah. Too early to judge on whether we overrated him - let's see in two more years.

I have seen progress, and I'd love to see a poll on here for whether others have seen progress.

That's a reasonable response, and I agree with some of it.

My issue is im not seeing this progress. We've far d no better be in the league, not won a cup and gone backwards in Europe. These things happen with an ageing squad, but Pellers was seen as underacheiving with this group so I have to say Pep has too. If we'd shown the bottle to beat some big sides I'd see that a progress, but we're not much better there either. I honestly am so dissapointed with this season and I'm not sure how we got here.

We're 2 points off our total for last season with 6 games to go, how do you mark progress?

[Pretty Boy Lee]

Simple question, who did we overrate?

Now I'm not slagging Pep so let's not go that route, but I think 95% of blues would say they expected more of this season. A lot will say they knew it would be transition etc, but when we brought in Pep and a handful of new players to a squad that had been regularly in the top 4 and winning trophies I don't think anyone here thought we'd end up empty handed and fighting for cl survival in such a poor run of form.

That being said are we where we are because we expected too much of Pep and the squad isn't as great as it once was and we like to think it still is? Or did Pep come in with a big rep and fail to get the best out of a pretty decent side with several new additions?

I genuinely cannot believe how this season has panned out and I'm trying to figure out if my blue tint specs have me blind to our squad deficiencies or if Pep has seriously underachieved.

Thoughts?

I agree, ten straight wins at the start of the year definitely led to us overrating the club's ability to succeed. I said on day one that I'd take a competitive league season, a domestic cup, and a similar CL performance to last year. We've failed on all fronts, but I still think progress has been made in the squad as a whole.

On the players, those without short memories can surely see that team spirit is much better - they didn't fail this year for want of trying. But the quality issues are still there - our full backs can't keep up and have their backs to the play too often, our central midfield gets overrun too easily and our attackers forget about each other when things get tough. Overrated based on the season's start.

On the manager, to expect him to come in and create an instant revolution was seen as a ridiculous expectation at the start of the season, but now that we haven't won anything it's apparently a shock that he's not the Messiah. Too early to judge on whether we overrated him - let's see in two more years.

I have seen progress, and I'd love to see a poll on here for whether others have seen progress.

That's a reasonable response, and I agree with some of it.

My issue is im not seeing this progress. We've far d no better be in the league, not won a cup and gone backwards in Europe. These things happen with an ageing squad, but Pellers was seen as underacheiving with this group so I have to say Pep has too. If we'd shown the bottle to beat some big sides I'd see that a progress, but we're not much better there either. I honestly am so dissapointed with this season and I'm not sure how we got here.

We're 2 points off our total for last season with 6 games to go, how do you mark progress?

In all honesty the way I see it (and this is just my personal feeling) is did we win it? If we didn't did we put in a genuine challenge. The answer to both will be the same as last year so I don't feel we've progressed. Not to mention all the freak anomalies about last years title race.

[sheblue]

Our best player in the semi final is 34 years of age.
Kompany, Silva, yaya, Sergio still the spine of the team.
Its going to take two years.

Aware of that re players.

Why does it have to take two years? Chelsea bounced right back with Conte. Are our players no longer title winning caliber or is our manager not ready to win the prem?

I hate this generic give it time, nothing changes just because time passes, we make the changes.

But that's the point though, we have not made the appropriate changes, the squad has not evolved properly. Therefore its going to take us longer, but only if we get it right.

[zabbadabbado]

I thought a World class manager of Guardiola supposed calibre should be making a sum bigger than its parts. I am not stupid; I know he did not inherit the finished article when he joined us. I expected a learning curve, transition. Still it wasn’t like he was joining Middlesboro, or Watford ,we weren’t the finished article by a long shot, but we still had one of the best squads in the League, consistently finishing top 4.

You would have expected him to have surveyed our Squad on arrival, seen it obvious limitations, especially defensively and adapted accordingly. No not Pep, he says to himself this City side I have inherited with most players wrong side of 30 will have to play my fast, expansive style of football. I will not compromise my style for no man. It matters not, that most of them will be gone the end of this season. That was the first thing set alarm bells ringing. It was obvious he needed to be more pragmatic, yet his arrogance dictated otherwise.Hardly what you would excpect from a supposed World class manager

He has not improved us as a side in any department. Defensively we were already fragile prior to his arrival, thanks mainly to his DOF Spanish best buddy incompetence, so what does he go and do... he gets rid of Joe Hart for the Clown Bravo, and compounds our defensive problems. The goalkeeper he brought in has been a joke, yet he persisted, and persisted, to the detriment of the team to feed his ego. It went on for weeks, It would have been more humane to take Bravo out and shoot him than keep putting him in net. Pep over inflated ego wouldn’t allow him to do the right thing for City. This was very concerning. And in my opinion made this season the Train wreck it has become. I still don’t understand Bravo inclusion yesterday at Willy expense bearing in mind it could easily have gone to penalties.

You have Guardiola none existent in game management, both perplexing, and unfathomable. We used to take the piss out of Pellegrini for making substitutes late on. Guardiola is lucky to make any Subs before 80 + minutes. His substitutions certainly change games though, taking off Aguero then leaving us with no natural striker in a Cup semi was pure genius on his part yesterday.

I keep hearing next season will be different to this one. Pep will spend £500,000 000 and we will win the League. We will buy all the Barcelona players wrong side of 30 then the “ego” can call himself a genius once again.

What about this season ?,what have any of us seen this season from Guardiola that makes you think next season we will be ripping up Trees in England ?.From what I have seen his style is already stale and dated. A struggling Leicester, and the entire top 6,have already shown how easy it was to beat a side that just wants to pass you to death. Even Wenger who is stinking Arsenal out, knows how to get one over the Bald genius. The worst Arsenal side in years being beaten by all and sundry. We prefer to focus all our hatred towards referees, FA, UEFA,Media for our short comings, criticism of the Messiah is blasphemy. Dare I say it we are starting to sound like the Candle waivers.

You look at a side like Crystal Palace who were staring down the Barrel of relegation. They sack their manager, bring in Fat Sam then start beating the top 4 week in week out. We have a side full of internationals and can’t beat a top 6 side for Toffee. Something is seriously wrong with us.

[john68]

Lee,
If 95% of City fans expecting us to massively improve this season, then 95% of City fans are idiots. It was patently obvious and has been for a couple of seasons that City's squad were on the wain and what should have been done at least 2yrs ago wasn't done.

When Pellergrini won the title, it was with the same players that had won it under Mancini.
Zaba, Kolarov, Kompany, Clichy, Sagna, Otamendi, Yaya, Fernandinhio, Fernando, Silva, Navas, Aguero, either not good enough, some suffering from "date of birth disease (like me) or at least needing replacing shortly.

City have been allowed to stagnate, and whether you or anyone else likes it or not, the reality is City need a wholesale rebuild now, due to the neglect of the last couple of seasons. Conte had a top team that had refused to play for Maureen, Conte just had to kick start them again..
It must be a generation or a media thing Lee, but despite the idiotic media headlines and our current INSTANT SOCIETY, some things take time.

Players bought in the last couple of seasons have been largely substandard. We know that City attempted to bring in 7 defensive players but failed.
We also know that we lost Kompany for most of the season to add to our woes. It doesn't take a genius to look at our defence and know we are going to suffer.

Of those players brought in; Gundogan OUT INJURED, Jesus OUT INJURED, Sane the same, even Delph hasn's been fit enough for us to find out if he can kick on.

....and you give Pep 1 transfer window and 1 pre season to sort it. I expected this season to be one of changes and pretty much wrote it off before it started. That we have maintained our challenge for top 4, lost in the quarters of the CL to the form side, and then were fucked by the referee yesterday was about is a pretty decent achievement after weighing up the reality.

[gillie]

Lee,
If 95% of City fans expecting us to massively improve this season, then 95% of City fans are idiots. It was patently obvious and has been for a couple of seasons that City's squad were on the wain and what should have been done at least 2yrs ago wasn't done.

When Pellergrini won the title, it was with the same players that had won it under Mancini.
Zaba, Kolarov, Kompany, Clichy, Sagna, Otamendi, Yaya, Fernandinhio, Fernando, Silva, Navas, Aguero, either not good enough, some suffering from "date of birth disease (like me) or at least needing replacing shortly.

City have been allowed to stagnate, and whether you or anyone else likes it or not, the reality is City need a wholesale rebuild now, due to the neglect of the last couple of seasons. Conte had a top team that had refused to play for Maureen, Conte just had to kick start them again..
It must be a generation or a media thing Lee, but despite the idiotic media headlines and our current INSTANT SOCIETY, some things take time.

Players bought in the last couple of seasons have been largely substandard. We know that City attempted to bring in 7 defensive players but failed.
We also know that we lost Kompany for most of the season to add to our woes. It doesn't take a genius to look at our defence and know we are going to suffer.

Of those players brought in; Gundogan OUT INJURED, Jesus OUT INJURED, Sane the same, even Delph hasn's been fit enough for us to find out if he can kick on.

....and you give Pep 1 transfer window and 1 pre season to sort it. I expected this season to be one of changes and pretty much wrote it off before it started. That we have maintained our challenge for top 4, lost in the quarters of the CL to the form side, and then were fucked by the referee yesterday was about is a pretty decent achievement after weighing up the reality.

You piss me off when you start talking sense old man

[Pretty Boy Lee]

The tone of most of these replies suggests two things. It's the players and most of you expected to have this sort of season.

I guess I just missed the we will be shit and finish top 6 sentiment that everyone has had all year. Call me naive I expected a title challenge this season. I honestly did. After the derby I genuinely expected to go at the big teams and fix our most frustrating part of last season, the lack of balls against top 6 sides. That has only been marginally better this season too.

So I guess I overrated our players. It's a shame tho, because that's a lot of faces that will need replacing to be decent again.

[sheblue]

Unless we have an exceptional summer of transfers we will not be in the running next season either.

[Original Dub]

I think our performances against the top six was a lot better than last season. Results? No.

Spurs, chelsea, everton and Liverpool at home. We deserved to win every one of those matches. We'll probably deserve to win on thursday too.
But outside influences played a massive part.

Spurs away and second half v everton away we were dominated.

We dominated arsenal and united away with liverpool and chelsea being tight games.

I think that's a fair assessment, but the points we took from all of those games is the real shocker.

[Tokyo Blue]

I thought the tottenham game at white hart lane was fairly even and the stats bear that out. I don't think we were dominated at all. We just didn't put our chances away and they did.

Leicester I'd give you, if they were in the top six.

[Mikhail Chigorin]

Unless we have an exceptional summer of transfers we will not be in the running next season either.

This.

Trouble is, I'm just not feeling too optimistic at the moment about our prospects in the summer.

Cost, availability and competition from other sides will, I feel, weigh against us and I still feel there's a reluctance to start bringing in some of or youth players, so we might end up with the worst of all worlds.

Hope and pray I'm completely wrong.

[Nigels Tackle]

Unless we have an exceptional summer of transfers we will not be in the running next season either.

This.

Trouble is, I'm just not feeling too optimistic at the moment about our prospects in the summer.

Cost, availability and competition from other sides will, I feel, weigh against us and I still feel there's a reluctance to start bringing in some of or youth players, so we might end up with the worst of all worlds.

Hope and pray I'm completely wrong.

we have been grossly mismanaged on the transfer front
a truly shocking state of affairs that is quite frankly embarrassing

[aaron bond]

Unless we have an exceptional summer of transfers we will not be in the running next season either.

This.

Trouble is, I'm just not feeling too optimistic at the moment about our prospects in the summer.

Cost, availability and competition from other sides will, I feel, weigh against us and I still feel there's a reluctance to start bringing in some of or youth players, so we might end up with the worst of all worlds.

Hope and pray I'm completely wrong.

we have been grossly mismanaged on the transfer front
a truly shocking state of affairs that is quite frankly embarrassing

I don't have much confidence in Txiki to deliver this summer when it comes to transfers. After his record in recent years, I wouldn't trust him with any more money.

Unfortunately it looks like we're stuck with him.