Hans-Dieter Flick

[KingLeo10]

If this team needs a more defensive approach to win games, it is unfortunately what needs to be done.

What I don't get, even though I rate Flick and think he is a great manager, is why we can't vary our approach vs the big and the small teams. It certainly isn't his fault the players miss a lot of chances, but if that is the reality of the team, we have to work around it.

We can see clearly that his system is great against teams that attack and leave space on the break. This problem could easily be sorted if Flick was more flexible and modelled the games against small teams as Xavi did, with more game control and focus on defense. Xavi's Barcelona was very effective against worse teams and bad against top teams. Flick is the opposite, great against top teams and poor against bad teams, and that's not good either.

Take a bit from both managers and we'll have a quality and flexible setup.

Because the answer might be that Flick isn’t a great manager overall, just a great manager when his Plan A is working.

No shame in that, but it increasingly looks like what we saw v Bayern and RM was a false dawn. The same approach will no doubt result in us countered to death in CL R of 16.

 

[Messigician]

"Guardiola's style of play can only be possible when he always has the best players at their peak."

"He has never experienced a dip in player performance in his career, nor has he tasted the difficulty of leading a team from scratch. Pep doesn't know how to rebuild a team from nothing, because he's always had everything!"

"If he started from the bottom... he would have remained at the bottom!"

This was written by *BBC Sport* after Manchester City's loss to Aston Villa today.

 

[mc_lovin]

Fuck me I am pissed about Flick. Officially 3rd now. Hes a total bum.

 

[BJJ]

"Guardiola's style of play can only be possible when he always has the best players at their peak."

"He has never experienced a dip in player performance in his career, nor has he tasted the difficulty of leading a team from scratch. Pep doesn't know how to rebuild a team from nothing, because he's always had everything!"

"If he started from the bottom... he would have remained at the bottom!"

This was written by *BBC Sport* after Manchester City's loss to Aston Villa today.

Every manager struggles at some point in his career. City's core is dead in the water. Their expiry date is long gone and that's why they are struggling at the moment. Also, this is the first time Pep has faced such a situation and he's going to struggle with it.
He's been very fortune to have so many great squads.
At least Pep and Flick have a clear philosophy but in the end the players have to be good enough or at least motivated enough to play that way.
There are some posters here who should switch allegiances to Getafe if they like that style of play.
Tuchel struggled at Bayern. Ancelotti was a forgotten man at Everton, Emery was a flop at Arsenal. People here need to recalibrate their expectations .
AM spent something like a 183 million on new players. We cannot come close to competing with that, yet we still bossed that game.
On another day we would have scored three or four. And this is a much superior Atleti compared to the one Xavi faced.
Look at the latest hot shot coach Amorim. He's struggling at Utd. They lost 3 0 at home to Bournemouth. The upside for him is Utd will invest heavily in the transfer market for him. Utd are 13th in the table. What's our position again??

 

[Behrox]

bring in Bordelas as the new manager, we'll defend the fuck out of the opposition and make them score and own goal to end their suffering

 

[serghei]

Expectations are fine this season. You should expect to beat the midtable and bottom table clubs. He's failing reasonable expectations in the league, but I agree it's too early to jump on him for this and you have to give him some space to get accustomed to the league.

 

[Alik]

Not saying he should be sacked, but no other manager has been given this much leeway.

 

[serghei]

Not saying he should be sacked, but no other manager has been given this much leeway.

It's still midway though. He could pick up far more points in the 2nd part of the season. We draw the line at the end of the season. If we end up with something like 80 points... that's a very bad result. And yes, keeping him for more seasons is a leap of faith from the club. Can work, or his team may prove to have chronic problems in defense that don't get solved in time.

The problem is that the team is bottom table in defensive metrics. We already have the best attack by far, so how much better exactly does it have to be for us to win the points we have to win? Off days are normal, you can't pretend to be surprised by those.

 

[jamrock]

Not saying he should be sacked, but no other manager has been given this much leeway.

Sheesh lol

 

[CatalinR10]

Not saying he should be sacked, but no other manager has been given this much leeway.

Has something to do that we're 2nd in CL , have a great CL campaign so far and beat both of last year's finalists , humiliating one.

 

[jamrock]

Losing 3 games in a row at home.
Losing to leganes and las Palmas.

Yea it this was any other manager he would be feeling the fire.

Us beating Madrid in there stadium is no great achievement, we've been doing that.

So right now he's riding off giving us a win vs Bayern.

Rudiger and Madrid will clown us so far if we don't down this around and rightfully so.

 

[KingLeo10]

We also only played great for 15 games. It’s been ass football the last 10 games and the Flick apologists need to own that.

Don’t give me that we’re creating xG and players are to blame. It’s been 10 game stretch. Manager has to figure it out.

 

[jamrock]

We also only played great for 15 games. It’s been ass football the last 10 games and the Flick apologists need to own that.

Don’t give me that we’re creating xG and players are to blame. It’s been 10 game stretch. Manager has to figure it out.

I'm not saying we should sack him yet, 1 more lost and I may start though.

But members here are all of a sudden finding new ways to come up with excuses, because they were such Xavi haters.

That's outside of the clown statements a few have made here, like I'd rather finish 7th with flick.lol

 

[RedxMAK]

Man despite me generally being an optimist in life, it feels like Barcelona will never come back to its heights. I know this team is young (average age of 24.5) and all but they performed amazingly in October. Such a legendary start and all we end up in is 3rd? Same problems every season for the last 3 years…

 

[ZenI]

Not saying he should be sacked, but no other manager has been given this much leeway.

3-4 games I pissed over this season from him, Atletico Madrid was not one of them. They hardly got the ball and scored 2 goals from 2 1/2 chances - we dominated them, with a proper CF that would stay awake we would be 3-4 goals up... but Lewa has decided to fucking suck for 2 months now. We still need a much better LB than Balde and a winger beside replacing Lewa - how the fuck will Lewa play next season if he plays like shit now?! We do what with him now? If he plays +50% of the games this season his contract is automatically extended. Nah man, time to do something drastic - we either agree with him this is his last season or we put him in the stands and start to talks with Osimhen or another striker.