Pep Guardiola

City don’t have world class players for every position, complete fantasy

Pep needs to start being more pragmatic in the future. It’s good and all playing “your way” in the league but in these type of games you need to an ugly side. Time wasting, fouls, defending as a team, etc.

These qualities are not instilled in his teams and they’ve suffered for it. Yes, he’s won the League Cup but he only won the FA Cup once after all these years.
Quite insane if you think about how dominant they’ve been domestically.

That’s exactly what they did against Atletico tbh

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Atleti are shit tbh. City could have played with 8 men that game and they wouldn’t have managed to knock them out.

They utilised the dark arts regardless.

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The game seemed all but done. I just dont see the point in subbing KDB off though with ten minutes too go.
In a game as important too City his presence alone just gives that little bit of certainty too the result for everyone.
Even if that first goal goes in, he would stand up and look to take control and using the ball properly.

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KDB was replaced by Gundogan who created the Mahrez goal.

Grealish almost scored so his substitutions was alright and bring Fernandinho in to solidify the 2 goal lead for 6 mins plus extra time makes tactical sense.

There was nothing wrong with the substitutions.
These players just bottled it.

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I think taking off Jesus was silly too, he was stretching the Madrid defence with his movement and even if it wasn’t his best game from a tactical perspective he was invaluable to them last night.

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Did it in favour of the league.

If they’re 10 points clear he likely doesn’t do it, ironically may wind up costing them both trophies.

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Pep just had no real answers once the game turned against him. Ancelotti made a smart move by bringing on Camavinga for Modric and also shifting Valverde back to midfield. Suddenly their midfield had a lot more energy and they were able to find space between the lines and were much better at winning the ball back

He didn’t even necessarily overload the attack with loads of attacking options he just shifted the players around a bit and had Carvajal push really high up to create an overload on City’s left side.

Well if he didn’t make the subs they may have won regardless of Ancelotti’s changes

Could say he turned game against himself in that way

I get that but 10 minutes isnt going too make that much difference. Tbf it shouldnt impact with 2 goals needed but just think this game was huge for City and you leave him on.

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It’s easy to do that with all the money in the world

They’re playing Newcastle at home on Sunday, KDB and one of Jesus or Mahrez, should’ve stayed on the pitch.

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I know it doesn’t make much difference, just in his head he’s thinking this looks done and we can take them off without risking injury even in few minutes left

Was too much of a change

Guess with KDB record on injury it seemed like a bonus.

I think KDB looked gassed for some reason

So that can be explained but it’s weird as he was rested in the previous game

But like you said I’m not taking him off either, too much at stake

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It was funny as the game went into extra time because all I could see was pen takers being subbed everywhere.

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Ahah thats true 3 of City’s first 5 subbed off

Doesn’t compute

They’ve got three midfielders sitting on the bench who would walk into any first team in Europe and it’s the same with their defence.
This is the reason why they have fewer injuries than rival clubs and have world class options on the bench during games.

It’s indisputable that Man City have a massive advantage over other clubs because of their spending power and the reason they could attract an elite manager like Guardiola who wouldn’t have given them a second look, if he wasn’t promised record spending, similar to what Mourinho had at Chelsea.

But this is why I think Klopp is better because he has done it at a club with a similar budget to us.

Man City already had more great attacking players than any other club in Europe, yet spent 100m on Grealish and are likely to spend more on Haaland.

Liverpool paid around the same as Man City did for Grealish, to buy Salah, Mane, Jota, Robertson, Diaz and Minamino, which makes him a genius in the transfer market.

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