Why???

[PeterParker]

Surely there were plenty of nothing games at the end of the season to at least see what a midfield without either Rodri or Fernandinho in it would actually do. For fuck sake there was time to give Scot Carson a game.

I've noticed something but might just me and overthinking it, but when Fern came in he looked very annoyed. His first touch was a dirty challenge. He usually does this, but last night he looked a lot like he lost his head because of what happened.

[nottsblue]

Might be controversial this, but do the selected XI not need to take a huge proportion of the reason why we lost?

Yes, it was a surprise we didn’t go with a DM in Fern or Rodri, but it is one guy. Are we really saying that we are as good as a one man team and that without either of those players we can’t win football matches? Because if we are, honestly we may as well pack up and call it a day.

We had eleven quality players on the field. None of the 6 non defensive players played well. None of them put their marker down and said “this is my time to shine”. None of them kept the ball well. The passing was very lackadaisical and led to a number of counters for Chelsea in very dangerous positions which to be quite honest, we should have been punished earlier from.

Stones went AWOL for the goal. Zinchenko was caught in two minds as to what to do and made the cardinal error of not following the man. Basic defensive errors. A DM would not have rectified that scenario. Even the goalie fucked up on the goal and was caught in no mans land and was rather fortunate not to either bring the man down or handle it outside the area. Both offences which would have resulted in a sending off without doubt.

Chelsea’s game plan was what many teams have been. Try to stifle us and hit us on the break. They set up very defensively, but with plenty of pace from the runners when a break was on. This is where both the manager and the players let us down. The manager for not seeing this would happen and the players for not reacting to it or adapting to it as the game unfolded.
We are a possession based footballing side predominantly and we simply do our basics that have served us so well over the last 4/5 seasons. KDB in particular had one of his least effective games in memory. Constantly gave the ball away and chose the wrong pass more often than not. Silva and Mahrez were largely anonymous. Gundogan not much better. Even Foden struggled to get in the game. Sterling wasn’t nearly as poor as was made out, nut nonetheless didn’t by any means shine. Can we in the cold light of day blame virtually all all non defensive players having sub par games on the non inclusion of a DM?

I think the occasion got to the players. They have been built up in the media all season as the side to win the quadruple and then the side to win the treble. Maybe they believed the hype. There is justification to do so as we did win the PL very comfortably in the end. But and this a fucking huge but, you have to perform in any final otherwise the other side will win if they do so. We could have carried two or maybe even three guys who underperformed in the XI. But there is no way you can carry six or seven who weren’t on their game when the other side are solid. Not spectacular, but solid, which was enough to prevail.

Pep will undoubtedly shoulder a lot of the blame and rightly so. He is after the manager who picks the side and presumably decides on how we play as a team. But that is only part of the story. As has been mentioned countless times before to the point where it is a well worn cliche, but once the players step over the white line it is their responsibility to carry out the managers instructions and what he wishes to portray. The majority of our players simply did not do themselves justice individually or as a collective team. We were second best on the night all over the park and in individual match ups. I hope there will be a lot of soul searching by all concerned over the summer months and hopefully those players that are still with us at the start of the next season will have the answer to the question of how can I do better individually and for my team mates. And perhaps more importantly, have the manager and the players got the hunger to dust themselves down and have the positive attitude to do better and avenge this defeat

[PeterParker]

Might be controversial this, but do the selected XI not need to take a huge proportion of the reason why we lost?

Yes, it was a surprise we didn’t go with a DM in Fern or Rodri, but it is one guy. Are we really saying that we are as good as a one man team and that without either of those players we can’t win football matches? Because if we are, honestly we may as well pack up and call it a day.

We had eleven quality players on the field. None of the 6 non defensive players played well. None of them put their marker down and said “this is my time to shine”. None of them kept the ball well. The passing was very lackadaisical and led to a number of counters for Chelsea in very dangerous positions which to be quite honest, we should have been punished earlier from.

Stones went AWOL for the goal. Zinchenko was caught in two minds as to what to do and made the cardinal error of not following the man. Basic defensive errors. A DM would not have rectified that scenario. Even the goalie fucked up on the goal and was caught in no mans land and was rather fortunate not to either bring the man down or handle it outside the area. Both offences which would have resulted in a sending off without doubt.

Chelsea’s game plan was what many teams have been. Try to stifle us and hit us on the break. They set up very defensively, but with plenty of pace from the runners when a break was on. This is where both the manager and the players let us down. The manager for not seeing this would happen and the players for not reacting to it or adapting to it as the game unfolded.
We are a possession based footballing side predominantly and we simply do our basics that have served us so well over the last 4/5 seasons. KDB in particular had one of his least effective games in memory. Constantly gave the ball away and chose the wrong pass more often than not. Silva and Mahrez were largely anonymous. Gundogan not much better. Even Foden struggled to get in the game. Sterling wasn’t nearly as poor as was made out, nut nonetheless didn’t by any means shine. Can we in the cold light of day blame virtually all all non defensive players having sub par games on the non inclusion of a DM?

I think the occasion got to the players. They have been built up in the media all season as the side to win the quadruple and then the side to win the treble. Maybe they believed the hype. There is justification to do so as we did win the PL very comfortably in the end. But and this a fucking huge but, you have to perform in any final otherwise the other side will win if they do so. We could have carried two or maybe even three guys who underperformed in the XI. But there is no way you can carry six or seven who weren’t on their game when the other side are solid. Not spectacular, but solid, which was enough to prevail.

Pep will undoubtedly shoulder a lot of the blame and rightly so. He is after the manager who picks the side and presumably decides on how we play as a team. But that is only part of the story. As has been mentioned countless times before to the point where it is a well worn cliche, but once the players step over the white line it is their responsibility to carry out the managers instructions and what he wishes to portray. The majority of our players simply did not do themselves justice individually or as a collective team. We were second best on the night all over the park and in individual match ups. I hope there will be a lot of soul searching by all concerned over the summer months and hopefully those players that are still with us at the start of the next season will have the answer to the question of how can I do better individually and for my team mates. And perhaps more importantly, have the manager and the players got the hunger to dust themselves down and have the positive attitude to do better and avenge this defeat

It was a domino effect, if you ask me.
Not having protection in front did a lot of damage to the defence, then you had Zinch who rarely played with Sterling this year and they really seem to fail to connect like Zinch and Phil did vs PSG.
Then without a DM he forced players playing out of position: Phil played in the middle where he isn't that effective, Gundo played in a position he is not comfortable plus in the first half we saw him a lot on the right and not his center left usual position while Kevin I really have no idea what he actually played last night.

I just wonder what did the players say when Baldie talked about this? Do players say this looks odd and would not work or they just nod and move along? I am asking because, as I said, Fern looked annoyed when he came in. Look at his very first challenge. Look how dirty it was. That looks like a frustrated player.
Then you have the half time talk, what did he say? What did the players say? Because we looked the same, I might say even a bit worse.

My question is this: when was the last time we played our very best team & tactics and lost without any bent decisions? Just lost because the opponents were better?
The last one that comes into mind is 3-4 on Klanfield in 17/18. After that blank.

[Dimples]

The change unbalanced the team.
The players were thrown by it.
Pep's fault.

For ex, our defense has been a key strength this season. Timo could have had a hat trick first half. They sliced us open several times because of our formation and personal changes.
As said above the problems cascaded.

Total fcuk up by Pep. He should have known better from previous bad experiences.

If it is not broke don't fix it. Especially in a final.
I bet Pep feels like a total tit today.
Madness.

[nottsblue]

^^^^^^^
PP, I am not absolving Pep from any blame. Not at all. But for me, players of the quality and experience we had in our XI last night simply should have done better. They should have adapted better. They should have controlled the tempo of the game better.

They are far from being exempt from criticism. All I have seen and heard is how Pep fucked it up. He is/was not the sole contributor to our defeat. We have won the league three times out of four and been runners up the other time. And in addition to this we have won five domestic cups as well. We are and have been the best team in England over the last four years. Our players will gave overturned difficult hurdles before and adapted. They simply didn't last night. We someone like Leicester or Spurs or Arsenal who punched above their weight. The players should have done much better

[s1ty m]

The domino effect point is the key. No pivotal player like Fernandinho ruined us. Gundogan was in his weakest position, KDB too. Foden then coming central effectively negated him. And so on. Pathetic from Pep, really amateurish.

[Dimples]

If he had started with the usual setup the worst outcome IMO would have been a stalemate.
I actually think we would have been on top.

If it was a stalemate he could have introduced his master plan after 60 minutes no bother. Take of Fern and bring on Sterling.
Roll the dice for the last 30 minutes.

What he did was just plain stupid and it was not the players fault.

[PeterParker]

^^^^^^^
PP, I am not absolving Pep from any blame. Not at all. But for me, players of the quality and experience we had in our XI last night simply should have done better. They should have adapted better. They should have controlled the tempo of the game better.

No idea, pal. It is really a weird one.
Look it this way, I was (and I am certain 90% of our fans) were confident we will win this, we had the records, we had the momentum, etc. Then we see the lineup, a huge kick in the teeth, but you start to think how did the players reacted when they saw the match preparation tactics, when Baldie told them how he is going to play. Did some say they are uncomfortable with this? Did Lillo & Borell told Pep is not a good idea? Did some players told him it is not a good idea but he ignored it?

The thing is we are trying to see logic in chaos. We are rational. What happened yesterday was not.

[PaulieIrish]

I agree with this. While Pep shoulders some blame for the team selection, the fact is the players bottled it.

We give out about Sterling be absent/shit, but Chelsea had Werner who is even worse. Imagine if Sterling had missed the chances Timo missed. So we can say both teams had a passenger. But their remaining 10 outplayed out 10. We had one shot on target ffs, and degenerated into hitting hopeful long balls into their box with 15 mins to go. Awful stuff and when I saw us doing that I knew we were fucked.

Hopefully we will learn from this. My biggest hope, and potential brightspot, is that we will realize that Sterling/Jesus are not up to it and that we bring in Grealish/Kane and steamroll everything next year.

[zabbadabbado]

Einstein was considered a genius.

I wonder did he ever inexplicably just stab himself in the Head randomly every now and again with a screwdriver or something. So everyone was talking about him.

I have concluded there is no logical, or rational explanation for what Pep did last night.

Absolutely nothing supported him playing an unused system, and not starting Fernandinho or Rodri.

The shit he was coming out with to justify it ,made it worse.

[PrezIke]

Still gutted and angry.

Pep I love you, but what the ****?

I get the idea that Tuchel would counter "the system" with all that preparation time, but to try what he did here was a massive **** up and left is with no attacking/creative options to come on when we needed a goal.

No DM left us vulnerable and you could see how that played out as we've seen before.

Gundo back to being the 6 was so mind boggling.

I wanted to say "great more attacking" and we saw how Sterling caused problems down the left for Chelsea, but that meant no Foden on the left and some of Sterling's problems showed themselves again.

It also put Mahrez back to what he was when fans were frustrated.

It took the confidence from the players in the system.

This all day:

So angry. So so angry.

[Beefymcfc]

What is really upsetting is that everyone and their dog new City would struggle when they saw the team selection.
Everyone was absolutely stunned and could not believe he had done it again.
Pep must have been the only one that thought it would work. Does he surround himself with yes men. Where was Lillo. The emperor has no clothes.
Rediculous, just crazy.
He just threw it away.

The team selection was the point where I thought he was an actual subvert. The cunt!

[Bear60]

Why would anyone make things so difficult when all you had to do was sit back and watch a
system that you created was working so well

[bluemoon]

Why would anyone make things so difficult when all you had to do was sit back and watch a
system that you created was working so well

Two weeks on or whatever it’s been, I (and I’m sure a majority of the fan base) still can’t fathom why he did it. I love Pep but I don’t fancy our chances of ever winning this while he’s here after what we saw in the final.