Sorry for this little rant coming up, but nothing gets on my nerves wuite as much as people criticising Pep, and it's become ever so common on this forum as soon as we suffered in a game or 2, see some recent posts in the Messi thread for example. I don't know what people expect from Pep. Pep took this club out of the dumps and put it right up there (look at the mess in 07-08), winning numerous trophies and at the same time playing the most breathtaking football many of us will ever see in our life time. This team has won so many trophies and achieved so much, hailed as the greatest ever and so forth, it's illogical to expect them to keep it up and win everything every season. Pep has won la liga 3 consecutive times, it's only natural for him to slip up once. And if i was to blame anyone (I don't see the point in doing so, but I guess some people always want answers quickly) the last person would be Pep. Pep is still the best thing about this team IMO. Regarding Pep's tactics last Saturday and this season as a whole, he had to make the best of what he had. Who would have known that David Villa would break a leg and miss the whole season, or Pedro would lose form so badly that he'd struggle to make the starting XI. 2 players who have been critical to our success over the past season, Pedro for example gave Barca exactly what it lacked in matches like on saturday night (2010 clasico at the Bernabeu). This coupled by more injuries (Alexis the guy who was brought in to help up front has been as injured as Pedro, Abidal again one of Barca's best performers over the last 2 seasons-IMO we would not have lost the Chelsea or the Madrid game had Abidal been on the pitch) and others also losing form (Pique, Xavi slightly in the 2nd half of the season)...so take all this into account and you'd realise that Pep really didn't have much options. I mean people ask why he started Tello and Alves up front, well what should he have done in light of Pedro's current form, Alexis' minor injury and without Villa? I love Cuenca but he would have been bullied off the ball way to eaisly by the Madrid defenders, Tello was wise since he was the best way of getting at them (sheer pace.) Add to all this the human factors, players win so many trophies, Messi winning his 3rd consecutive Ballon D'Or so it's only expected that the players will lose motivation and hunger if they keep winning everything so easily. Hopefully all that will change next season and the recent losses and all the praise Mou and Madrid will get will bring everubody back down to earth and the players will work harder. Pep said recently that all he asks of his players is to smile less and run more, so rest assured that he gives a fuck as much as any player and probbaly even more so. Pep's achieved monumental feats straight away, without spending nearly as much as Mou or Madrid since Pep took over. I mean we have a striker crisis right now, look at Mou he has Benz and Higuain to choose from
So people shoildn't start pointing fingers and being so shell shocked that we finally slipped up. My point is that there is absoltley no reason to staring looking for quick answers for such a complex issue. And that it's childish to start blaming player x or y or Pep for these recent losses and it helps nobody's cause, this is football sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, if you have ahard time coming to terms with that fact then you'll only save yourself from a lot of disppointment and anguish if you stop watching. Anyways the point I wanted to make that don't blame anybody for this, and if really need to blame somebody just to make yourself feel better the last person on earth should be Pep. Sorry for the wall of text but I really had to get this off my chest.
