Ruth_NZ wrote:I would just like to comment on Guardiola's ludicrous post-match interview with the BBC (after Everton 4-0 City).
Pep: "We create enough chances to score a goal and we are not able. And that, for the mind, for the players, it's tough. And that's why we have to keep going, to train."
Interviewer: "Are you more frustrated, then, with not taking chances or defending, with letting 4 goals in?"
Pep: "That is a consequence. When you score goals you are more optimistic and you defend better. We create chances, we cannot score, it was in many, many games that would happen. We don't concede too many chances and we create more than the opponents."
Interviewer: "Is this league different to many others?"
Pep: "No. In all the leagues, the way normally I would like to play is to have more possession and more chances and the opponents few. The only difference is in the boxes we are not strong enough. We are a team with a lot of quality but not with a lot of scorers."
Am I the only one to find this interview utterly bewildering? City not strong enough in the opponents' box? Well, why the hell has Aguero been told to "run more, press more, contribute more" then? He's the best box striker in the PL and one of the best in the world. Today he spent half his time on the left wing (just like Lewandowski did in Guardiola's first season at Bayern) and was deeper than Sterling and De Bruyne for much of the time. If City are not strong enough in the opponents' box it is Guardiola's doing.
And City not strong enough in their own box? Well, sure. But why is that? This is the manager who said Fernandinho "could easily play CB". Who said that Kolarov was one of the best CBs in Europe. Who insisted on buying a young £50m CB who can pass but has always been positionally suspect. Who won't select a stable back 4 and sometimes switches to a back 3 without the team looking as if they have been prepared properly. Who insisted on signing a 33yo GK who is good with his feet (so they say) but hardly makes a save. Who said "I don't coach tackling". Stones gets a lot of the media blame but I think he has been hung out to dry.
For a while I found it amusing that so many thought Pep could do no wrong. I was also delighted about it from a partisan point of view because there is no doubt that City have the tools to win the PL. But now I am beginning to find this bewildering arrogance to be actually offensive because what he says seems to bear so little resemblance to reality. I'm sorry, this Emperor has no clothes.
Anyway, rant over. I just needed to get that off my chest.
For one with no actual stakes involved (except for Aguero, and that too won't be for long), I am rather interested in how this develops.
This is how I see it. Guardiola is a 'philosophy' coach as opposed to a 'results' coach. The result is a by-product of how well the philosophy has been implemented. Quite like a few other similar ones like Michels and Bielsa et al. In this league, Klopp, Mourinho and to an extent, Pochettino are the same. These types, when their method is figured out by other coaches, generally either innovate and figure out a slightly different philosophy to win, or finish off once their method is deconstructed ( is that the right word?). And we would agree that Guardiola changed the way football is seen and thought. Right until Barcelona was gegenpressed out of the PL by Dortmund, remember? Klopp, another philosophy coach.
As for the arrogance, perhaps language has got something to do with it? The way I have heard, Pep likes to give long talks about the strategy of the game et al... And it is pretty obvious he is struggling with English. Perhaps this is resulting in the insolence? For a normally articulate person in one language, struggling to express one's thought in another language can be very stifling.
I can think of so many 'Then why doesn't he...'s but we all know that real life is not like that, eh?
I tend give him a long leash. I do not support Munich or City, and am not particularly tribal in my support of Arsenal. But yeah, nice-to-the-eye football is a preference, and Pep's Barcelona was a joy to watch.