Transfer Rumours transfer thread fact and fiction

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I'd suggest that they also get less favourable decisions in Europe.
In the Premier League they're now regarded as one of the big fish.
In the Champions League they're still tiddlers, especially when it comes to Real and the like.
Alternatively, they get fairer refereeing in Europe

There's a reason why Man Utd routinely had one of Keane of Scholes suspended in CL games but not PL ones, and that's because European refs actually booked them for fouls. Same can be said of The Sheikh Mansour Team, where refs are quicker to clamp down on their machine gunning tactics
 
I don't remember Keegan having unlimited funds either.

True but to just dismiss Pep’s managerial brilliance because he’s always been at a big club with huge resources is unfair. Lots of managers across Europe have unlimited funds yet still struggle. Look at Poch for example, had Neymar, Messi and Mbappe and still got the sack.
 
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Eh?

He’s won league titles in the three best leagues in Europe and the champions league twice.

To compare him to Kevin Keegan is utterly ridiculous.
I don't get why you always rush to defend Guardiola, the teams he has managed were expected to win because they had all the resources and all the players. Keegan had none of those advantages so yes it's unfair to compare them. This has been said many times but if Pepe had managed a team without all the advantages and achieved something then, he might deserve all the plaudits but he hasn't.

When Palace beat City there is praise to be handed out when City beat Palace ...... AND?
 
True but to just dismiss Pep’s managerial brilliance because he’s always been at a big club with huge resources is unfair. Lots of managers across Europe have unlimited funds yet still struggle. Look at Poch for example, had Neymar, Messi and Mbappe and still got the sack.
I posted my reply before you came back. I do question phrases like 'managerial brilliance' I don't see that at all. For me he is a one trick pony who can't even sort out a proper defence, but I understand why. He's never had to. <laugh>
 
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The difference between the PL, and the UEFA KOs,
is that you can "amortise" losses over a season for the former.

Each KO round, and you only have the 2nd leg to
correct for any errors in the 1st leg.

Take Spurs last season for example.
Citeh lost twice to us, but they still won the title
with a pts total of 93.
Once you get into the last 16 of the Champions League then it is very likely that one of the top eight teams in Europe will win it, with approx equal probability. So City ought to win it every 6-10 years. No evidence yet that Pep has underperformed.
 
Once you get into the last 16 of the Champions League then it is very likely that one of the top eight teams in Europe will win it, with approx equal probability. So City ought to win it every 6-10 years. No evidence yet that Pep has underperformed.
Using statistics to take an argument to RBDB ? Good luck with that? <laugh>
 
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Once you get into the last 16 of the Champions League then it is very likely that one of the top eight teams in Europe will win it, with approx equal probability. So City ought to win it every 6-10 years. No evidence yet that Pep has underperformed.
Considering he took Bayern backwards during his tenure there, there is certainly proof of him underperforming in the CL
 
True but to just dismiss Pep’s managerial brilliance because he’s always been at a big club with huge resources is unfair. Lots of managers across Europe have unlimited funds yet still struggle. Look at Poch for example, had Neymar, Messi and Mbappe and still got the sack.
Poch won the league and nobody has taken PSG to the CL so he didn't fail. His achievement at Spurs was of an order above what he did in Paris and for me more impressive than anything Guadriola has managed in his managerial career.
 
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But he didn’t. There’s a reason that clubs that could choose any manager around all choose Pep.
The simple reason they chose him was because he was a free agent at the time
He probably did. But you compared him to Kevin Keegan which is ridiculous
Except it isn't, because just like Keegan his solution for a rickety defence is to spunk a massive amount of money on another striker
 
Poch won the league and nobody has taken PSG to the CL so he didn't fail. His achievement at Spurs was of an order above what he did in Paris and for me more impressive than anything Guadriola has managed in his managerial career.

Poch failed at PSG, like many managers before him.

Poch did well at Spurs and did over achieve with what he had but I’d disagree to say he did better at Spurs than Pep has at City is almost as far fetched as HBIC and his keegan comparison.
 
The simple reason they chose him was because he was a free agent at the time

Except it isn't, because just like Keegan his solution for a rickety defence is to spunk a massive amount of money on another striker

A free agent? They were after him for years.

I don’t dispute he’s got ridiculous funds but he’s not the only one and yet he still wins the league most years. Keegan did a decent job at Newcastle but ultimately won **** all.
 
Poch failed at PSG, like many managers before him.

Poch did well at Spurs and did over achieve with what he had but I’d disagree to say he did better at Spurs than Pep has at City is almost as far fetched as HBIC and his keegan comparison.
Not in my view obviously and we are talking opinions here so the viewpoints are different. How is winning the league a failure in France for Poch but in England winning the league confirms Guardiola as a managerial giant?
 
Find myself in the middle of the "Pep genius" and "Pep overrated" angle.

There's no doubt that he can attribute a large portion of his success to simply managing the best clubs or the clubs with the biggest resources, winning with them doesn't feel like a huge achievement when the foundations and building blocks are already in place. And I'd partially agree with HBIC, not necessarily that Pep made Bayern worse but he certainly didn't match or better Heynckes' Bayern, that Bayern team were just a brutal mentality monster machine and Heynckes ended that stint with a treble, it was almost impossible to match that in Pep's defence.

On the flip side though, Pep is a visionary when it comes to style of play. His football is breathtaking at times, the Tiki-Taka Barca side is probably the best I've ever seen in my lifetime, I wish I had the chance to see it live, whilst his football at City most years has also been sublime which for me has made beating them a few times in recent seasons a huge achievement. When you play that level and style of football, you can't help but admire and appreciate.

When he leaves City I would like to see him take over a side not expected to dominate and see what he could do. However I wouldn't be surprised if his next club ends up being PSG or Juve, with an outside possibility of the Spanish job.
 
Once you get into the last 16 of the Champions League then it is very likely that one of the top eight teams in Europe will win it, with approx equal probability. So City ought to win it every 6-10 years. No evidence yet that Pep has underperformed.

1. Pep at Citeh has had 6 seasons in the CL.
He reached the final once (at his 5th attempt) , and lost.

2. Pep at Munich had 3 seasons in the CL, and never reached the final.


By contrast, on 1 :

- Klopp has reached the CL final 3 times in 5 seasons, and won once
- Pochettino reached the CL final in his third attempt


So applying Ockham's razor, what is the simplest explanation ??

- Not as good as some claim he is

- A statistically sublime combination of squad injuries +
fluke on-pitch events + dodgy ref decisions during 1 an3 2..