Pep Guardiola

[JamDav1982]

I'm not making this a Tito vs Pep thing, not even really pinpointing Tito for it. The decline of our form had definitely started in 11-12 and there was not a whole lot Tito did to add to it, he just let it continue (which is bad, but still not as much as some people are accusing him of).

Madrid played with motivation against us but it was our lack of imposition and domination that gave them a way to fight back despite having several players who were out of form and not performing. Di Maria went from being a disappointing oaf to making Puyol look like an idiot in the space of a single game. Same deal with Ozil, Benzema, etc. Granted they were motivated to beat us but doesn't it bother you that they could so easily go from looking like a circus during the season to a top team against us in one game? That we were so easy to topple that they could just get up one day and be a little extra motivated, then go on to whoop us 3-1 despite a struggling campaign? It shows that if any team really felt like it and played a little more motivated, they could easily win/draw with us. And this was shown multiple times vs Sociedad, Valencia, Celta, Athletic, Madrid, Milan, Bayern.

At least in 11-12, if teams fought hard we fought back. Win or lose, we were still very difficult to beat. Screw-ups with tactical experiments and shuffling around the lineup due to injuries, combined with Madrid having a kickass season made things look worse than they were in comparison with this season. However it was not a simple "I feel like beating Barcelona today" type of deal. If we lost, it was hard fought and not accepted. If we played bad, the players still had tried and done as much as they could yet couldn't find an end product. There were complacent games and that caused some embarrassing slip-ups, but it wasn't as prominent as this season.

Just cant agree there was as many complacent games as last season under Pep.

The last season under Pep there were some terrible games against poor opposition where it looked like the players were not willing to fight for it. I am sure Pep aknowedged that he was finding it harder to motivate the players as part of the reason he left.

This idea that Barcelona 'always fought back' in 2011-12 simply isnt true. Where was the fight backs against Madrid or Chelsea? Where far from fighting back they threw away a position they should have cruised to qualification from and in that last 20 mins against Chelsea there was very little ideas.

Tito suffered worse injuries in the big games simply by the fact that Messi was missing from some of them.

Pep left at a time when perforomances were becoming harder against top sides for reasons such as -
1. Motivation
2. Declining stars - Abidal, Puyol, Xavi, Alves, Villa etc
3. Teams becoming more used to Barca's tactics.

Pep was not able to solve any of those issues in his last season. As much as he tried.

Tito in reality never did much to change things either to be fair. But he faced all those same problems but all were even more pronounced a season on.

How good Tito is will be shown this season as to how he goes about evolving the side.

 

[DonAndres]

There was lack of motivation and declination of stars in 11-12. I'm not arguing that there wasn't. Pep did state that it was harder to motivate the players. Not arguing with that either. It's a comparison between how much all of this was prevalent in the two seasons. And as a team this season we were the whooping boys of the top clubs, the team that they could just choose to beat or really trouble when it shouldn't have been that way. It shows that no matter how much we raped Getafe or Osasuna, we were still poor and lacked the fire to make things difficult for other teams to just up their game and beat us. In 11-12, we were fighting back against Madrid and Chelsea. We weren't successful in it, but that doesn't mean it wasn't attempted. People often associate "fighting back" and "showing spirit" with comebacks alone, but it can be measured by the energy in the play as well and how much they really wanted to score. Creating chances, getting forward, but not getting that final pass or finishing in front of goal still shows desire just not strong nerves.

We did have a fair share of embarrassing games in 11-12, some due to lack of motivation and complacency in play. However it's not always that a loss is about playing complacent. Even playing bad isn't necessarily playing complacent. It's about effort and desire, which really wasn't shown that much this season.

The thing I'm saying is actually what you just said: that the problems of complacency and overall decline were more pronounced and further developed this season, it's not Tito's fault it happened he just didn't do anything to change it. We will see how much Tito feels a change is needed during this transfer window and throughout the season.

 

[JamDav1982]

There was lack of motivation and declination of stars in 11-12. I'm not arguing that there wasn't. Pep did state that it was harder to motivate the players. Not arguing with that either. It's a comparison between how much all of this was prevalent in the two seasons. And as a team this season we were the whooping boys of the top clubs, the team that they could just choose to beat or really trouble when it shouldn't have been that way. It shows that no matter how much we raped Getafe or Osasuna, we were still poor and lacked the fire to make things difficult for other teams to just up their game and beat us. In 11-12, we were fighting back against Madrid and Chelsea. We weren't successful in it, but that doesn't mean it wasn't attempted. People often associate "fighting back" and "showing spirit" with comebacks alone, but it can be measured by the energy in the play as well and how much they really wanted to score. Creating chances, getting forward, but not getting that final pass or finishing in front of goal still shows desire just not strong nerves.

We did have a fair share of embarrassing games in 11-12, some due to lack of motivation and complacency in play. However it's not always that a loss is about playing complacent. Even playing bad isn't necessarily playing complacent. It's about effort and desire, which really wasn't shown that much this season.

The thing I'm saying is actually what you just said: that the problems of complacency and overall decline were more pronounced and further developed this season, it's not Tito's fault it happened he just didn't do anything to change it. We will see how much Tito feels a change is needed during this transfer window and throughout the season.

The whipping boys of the top clubs? Not quite.

Complacency was not worse, complacency comes in the games you are expected to win and this year it was much better in those games. They were not complacent against Madrid and Bayern they were beaten by better sides on the day. As was already beginning to happen under Pep with Real.

Overall decline doesnt quite wash either when they won the league by a record margin and were knocked out of the CL by the best team they have faced in europe by a long way including Peps time. That score line was heavily dependent on poor referee decisions and injuries to key players anyway.

The fact remains this season was more of a success than Peps last so Tito has did some things right.

 

[JamDav1982]

There was lack of motivation and declination of stars in 11-12. I'm not arguing that there wasn't. Pep did state that it was harder to motivate the players. Not arguing with that either. It's a comparison between how much all of this was prevalent in the two seasons. And as a team this season we were the whooping boys of the top clubs, the team that they could just choose to beat or really trouble when it shouldn't have been that way. It shows that no matter how much we raped Getafe or Osasuna, we were still poor and lacked the fire to make things difficult for other teams to just up their game and beat us. In 11-12, we were fighting back against Madrid and Chelsea. We weren't successful in it, but that doesn't mean it wasn't attempted. People often associate "fighting back" and "showing spirit" with comebacks alone, but it can be measured by the energy in the play as well and how much they really wanted to score. Creating chances, getting forward, but not getting that final pass or finishing in front of goal still shows desire just not strong nerves.

We did have a fair share of embarrassing games in 11-12, some due to lack of motivation and complacency in play. However it's not always that a loss is about playing complacent. Even playing bad isn't necessarily playing complacent. It's about effort and desire, which really wasn't shown that much this season.

The thing I'm saying is actually what you just said: that the problems of complacency and overall decline were more pronounced and further developed this season, it's not Tito's fault it happened he just didn't do anything to change it. We will see how much Tito feels a change is needed during this transfer window and throughout the season.

This idea of 'no fightback' is absurd also.

Did you just miss the games vs AC Milan? PSG? Atletico Madrid x2. Even in the games against Madrid where they got something out of the game they came back from a losing position.

There were probably more come backs in the big games this season than last!

 

[jamrock]

how many games did we lose against Madrid last seaso
n?, just wondering

we did fight back against chelsea?, we were tossing the game and couldn't score to save our lives


all this everything started to get bad under pep is just something, did he not say cycles last 3/4 years from the go did he not say the players needed a new voice are something like that, as the players were getting complacent in the lesser games though in the bigger games you'd better come good to beat us are get very lucky.

the question i keep asking myself is why did tito who was with him all along thought that he could be that new voice and give the team something fresh, and all he has done to this point is improve our results against the cetla's of the world while talking away our edge against the best teams in Europe

 

[DonAndres]

The whipping boys of the top clubs? Not quite.

Complacency was not worse, complacency comes in the games you are expected to win and this year it was much better in those games. They were not complacent against Madrid and Bayern they were beaten by better sides on the day. As was already beginning to happen under Pep with Real.

Overall decline doesnt quite wash either when they won the league by a record margin and were knocked out of the CL by the best team they have faced in europe by a long way including Peps time. That score line was heavily dependent on poor referee decisions and injuries to key players anyway.

The fact remains this season was more of a success than Peps last so Tito has did some things right.

They weren't complacent vs Bayern or Madrid? The play was so slow and lazy we were basically asking to be killed on the counter. Those were really the key examples of complacent games where we just dominated possession but didn't threaten at all.

Playing quality declined, we were able to scrape by liga teams and the margin was helped by an under-performing Madrid but in the CL we were constantly troubled and only had one convincing game in the knockout stages vs Milan. Even setting the Bayern scoreline aside if you believe in making excuses, that doesn't change the fact that we rarely if ever went forward, often just passing it around their half with unbelievable complacency. Our play was so slow they could outpress us without much effort unlike Dortmund who were quick enough to trouble them in the final.

The Milan game was one of the very few ones where the team looked lively and ready to bring their A game. The 2nd Atletico game was a direct example of how we played dismally yet still managed to scrape a goal or two back to claim a victory that masked flaws. PSG one was really dependent on Messi's introduction, not the entire team upping their play. There have been very few games against top teams where we were the team creating all the chances and dominating the gameplay. Against Chelsea last year, we did but couldn't end up with a win. Madrid were easily on a superior run last season so them beating us was more understandable than this season where they just decided to get up from injuries and horrible form with a little "motivation" to whoop us while we sat back and accepted it.

I don't know what's with you trying to condemn Pep's last season in such an exaggerating way just to make Tito seem innocent when I'm not even accusing him of anything.

 

[Stric]

I see a lot of comments on how Guardiola took members of FCB's staff to Bayern with him. I must've either missed this or forgot about it. Who are we talking about here?

 

[DonAndres]

I see a lot of comments on how Guardiola took members of FCB's staff to Bayern with him. I must've either missed this or forgot about it. Who are we talking about here?

Not sure who he took but he didn't do it just to raid Barca, it was a familiarity thing. Anyone would feel better having previous coworkers with them at a new club with massive expectations. They know Catalan as well, so he's not always speaking German.

 

[jamrock]

he took like 3 people 2 of which i think is apart of the medical team

 

[Catorce]

He just confirmed he asked Bayern to sign Thiago. I love what he has done at our club, but if it all happens I have lost all respect for him. And I don't care how much he has won with us as a player and coach, this is below the belt...

 

[Keikoku]

He just confirmed he asked Bayern to sign Thiago. I love what he has done at our club, but if it all happens I have lost all respect for him. And I don't care how much he has won with us as a player and coach, this is below the belt...

Why is it? He want to sign a player he like and think will work in his plan/tactic, I see nothing wrong on it.
Oh and about Pep said he won't sign a Barca player, is he himself really said that or it just media speculation?

And if he said that, I think what he meant (maybe) is that he won't sign a Barca player because it's a Barca (club he played and coached before) player (but if he sign it's because he think the player is could be fit in his scheme).

 

[Barcaman]

Who gives a fly f.. for what and who fits his scheme at Bayern. I repeat: Bayern.

First he takes some staff and now wants a player that Barca don't want to sell.

Pathetic.

 

[Frejsgodes]

If this is true I hope he fails miserably at Bayern.

 

[Tomchin]

Who gives a fly f.. for what and who fits his scheme at Bayern. I repeat: Bayern.

First he takes some staff and now wants a player that Barca don't want to sell.

Pathetic.

I agree, very disappointing that he's trying to lure Thiago to Bayern (the reason that he gives is stupid btw "because of Neymar's arrival Thiago will see less playing-time"; as if Thiago and Neymar play on the same position?).

Also, I don't understand how Thiago will get more playing-time at Bayern. They were already brilliant against us last season, and that was with Toni Kroos missing. Now they have Gotze too. Where the hell does Thiago fit in?

 

[Keikoku]

Bayern. I repeat: Bayern.

Well, as long it isn't Real Madrid, I'll take it.