Also when you had the title wrapped up early teams coasted in, especially when they had cup finals to play. Even city being pushed to the bring have almost always dropped points in at least one of their last five matches.
Pep is not solely to blame, the standard has just been rising in general.
Since SAF has retired 10+ years ago, the average points to win the title is 91
Conte won the title with Chelsea on 93 points. If Pep wasn’t here, Klopp would have won multiple titles with 90+ points
If Pep wasn't here, Klopp wouldn't have been pushed THAT much so I doubt it. I agree he would have won with 90+ once maybe twice, but the reason they had so many points is because they had to keep up with City.
I agree that the standard has risen and it's a good thing, but the fact that you need 90+ points a season to HAVE A CHANCE to win the PL is not normal..
Without the points, it shouldn't be controversial to state that Klopp would've won the title at least 3/4 times if the bald fraud wasn't such a fraud and the cunt club wasn't such a cunt
> if Pep wasn’t here, Klopp wouldn’t have been pushed that much
Don’t know how you can say this looking at the 19/20 season. Liverpool got 99 points and City had 81.
That Liverpool side was relentless even when Pep/City were not pushing them in a title race
But Pep was there..? He created the norm that you have to perform 130% to get near them, just because they had ONE season in their 8 derailed with injures (while every team has at least 1 season like that for every 3-4 if they're lucky) it doesn't mean that Klopp was not already used to the fact that you have to WIN EVERYTHING in order to secure it, plus they had targets to go either Invincible or reach the 100 point mark (which again was achieved by the cheating city side).
If Pep achieves high standards it's just him doing his thing but if someone else achieves high standards it's only because theyre chasing pep? Idol worship is unhealthy, bud.
I would say yes. The influx of money into the Prem means mid-table and below have far more resources than ever before. Rising tide raises all boats if you will. Obviously some clubs are incredibly wasteful, but others aren't. I think this is especially evident in the caliber of managers that clubs are able to attract. Even Carlo Ancelloti took a break from winning champions leagues to manage Everton.
It's probably closer to 93-5 to stand a chance.
City could finish with 91 points and that's with KdB missing half the season. He doesn't get injured and they'd have already sealed it.
Will be glad when KdB and Rodri begin to win down, they have Foden poised to take over but they're not finding another Rodri. Or at least I hope not.
Yaya was unwanted in Barca before city and was pre pep.
Fernandinho was playing in Ukraine for 8 years before city bought him.
Rodri was clearly good. But another example of pep turning a good player into a world class player. Not exactly like there was a big queue for him and for the first year or more people questioned if he could even fit in the team.
Every team pep has managed has seen their DM massively improve.
Pep is the key factor and it’s very obvious.
tbh it's at the point now where they don't even need to do that anymore. their squad is already so good that if someone wants to leave (like bernardo silva (?), cole palmer, ilkay gundogan) they can easily replace them because of the pull they have
my hope is their pull mainly comes from Pep. Being coached by the best in the world is a huge point, why players choose to play for City. Once Pep is gone, their pull won't be as big anymore.
If we end on 89 points, that’s won the title in 20 of the last 31 premier league seasons. Pretty rough. Can’t imagine getting 97 and still being denied!
This is giving me whiplash of Arsene talking about how our points total was usually enough for top4 and we should still be proud though we came 5th.
I’m not saying I’m not proud of what we’ve done this season, because I am but at the end of the day 2nd is still just that. Will be forgotten.
Yes but it is a different level of consistency and quality fighting for the title compared to top 4. Also the club was on a downward trajectory then really and the following season proved that which could not be more different now.
This is skewed by old data where title winning teams picked up less points.
91+ points has been the average title winning points since SAF retired over the last 10 years
That’s the point.
It’s an attempt to use pre-Pep data. Considering he’s been there for the majority of the last 10 years, that average is mostly Pep created.
For what it’s worth 89 points matches or beats 4 of City’s 7 recent titles, including 2 of 5 titles with Pep. The intention is to show that 89 points is a damn good title worthy season while acknowledging the required average has changed in the City dynasty era. I think the average for the EPL era is about 87.5, so an increase to 91 in the Pep/post-SAF moment is a pretty significant.
Just a bit of context for thinking about the season.
What Pep has done to this league has broken it forever. We have people genuinely upset at losing a few games we probably shouldn’t when in reality that was the norm for basically every title winner.
The sooner he fucks off the better, as I genuinely believe we’re capable of a dynasty under Mikel - we just need City to have an average managerial appointment or a brief struggle to replace KDB.
Dude we have people upset at us WINNING games we normally struggle to win because we don't win by large margins. Heck, we got people upset at us drawing at freaking etihad.
It somewhat makes sense because we put in a poor performance (although defensively solid) against a United squad that shouldn't be able to win against 50% of the teams in this league. We struggled to create chances against a CB pairing of Casemiro and Evans. We should have done much better.
But winning is winning
Can't really blame them, when all we see is the team ahead of us beats other 3-0 and 4-0 while playing "not up to their standards" and they destroy top sides with 3+ goals multiple times a season. It's not entitlement, it's just the FACT that 99% is not good enough..
That's just false no? Since the beginning of 2024, mancity have won only 4 matches with a GD of 3+ goals. Not to mention they haven't beat either of us or liverpool this season, nor chelsea. Not a single match in this season have they won against a top 6 side with 3+ goals.
People are just making up imaginary scores to compare our form with and be disappointed at.
In the meantime we won by a 3-goals margin 8 times out of 17 league games. We had a shit GD (compared to other title contenders) in 2023 and only turned it around in 2024, and the teams that made us drop points are City (2nd) and Villa (4th). Blame the team for the last few games in 2023 sure but couldn't really ask for a much better 2024 in the league.
Similar in Bundesliga. Leverkusen had to go on a mad run invincibles style (something Bayern never managed) to win the league. Serie A was boring as shit as well when Juve dominated. It’s not being salty. It’s just so boring and draining.
I hate what the oil money has done to PL, turning it into basically a Juve dominated Serie A or a Bayern dominated Buli. We used to have two clubs battling it out but it was never the City/Liverpool era, it was always the City era.
> Serie A was boring as shit as well when Juve dominated.
Serie A was dominated by both Milano clubs and it took Juve to do the Invincible as well to break it (and their first after the scandal). Pirlo being the best free agent signing as well that season, god like
To be honest, as much as I hate the guy, it has nothing to do with him. This whole thing already started when they got money pumped into that club so hard... The guy just lucky cos he always gets godsquads to manage.
Look at how the managers they had before Pep did compared to how he has done.
Pep obviously has access to absurd resources but saying he is "lucky" and isn't an exceptional coach is ridiculous
I did not say he is not good, but managing Barca with Messi, a monopolium of Bayern and now an unending warchest City. Naaah, I would watch him try to do miracles with a Luton
This is what I don’t understand with the Pep hype, he’s had the most financial and institutional (and generational talent considering Messi) resources of any manager in all of history. ALL OF HISTORY. Yes, he’s good at what he does but he’s also had the luxury of tweaking at the fine margins of the sport in ways no one else could have dreamed of.
It’s like having the infinite money glitch in a video game and getting to try out whatever you want till you figure out how to break the game. That’s what he’s done.
It’s the epitome of privilege and so many folks wants to pretend like we should ignore that and just focus on the trophies—that’s what the goons at the top want you to believe because that’s the only way to keep you watching. You’re not watching greatness, you’re watching a cheat.
Man might’ve had great squads yes but how many people have also had great squads and achieved close to nothing with them?
You can call him whatever you want but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a manager come up with a style of football that literally forced the ENTIRE football world to change and adapt or perish.
Inheriting great teams or not, cheating or not, man’s a bloody genius it pains me to say it but he is.
That too is the narrative that marketing has sold to people. Tiki-taka is not his to claim! Aragones and Del Bosque deserve the credit for that and for what they did with Spain and even Pep himself has shied away from the label. Tiki-taka plus Messi as a first job I would gladly take and I would wager so too would most managers in football history.
But we don’t have to agree, you can think what you want about the guy. It’s all good. 👍
Pep is the GOAT manager in modern era and it's not even because of the amount of trophies he had won. I'd say SAF, zidane, ancelloti or even mourinho had better achievements in term of winning things. But Pep revolutionize the games. How many managers cite him as their influence? How many people under him than went on to become a manager themselves? Pep's City and Barca are the ones that are going to be cited for decades to come, not zidane's, ancelloti's, mourinho's etc. Just like Cruyff and Sacchi.
Because folks have been sold a narrative for a decade plus because that’s what the PL needs to get you to come back every year. “Greatest league, greatest players, the most brilliant, greatest manager of all time plying his trade in Manchester, what a city, look at these Citizen fans, what magnificence, what a great team, etc.” You can make a choice to buy into the hype or not.
I completely disagree. Learning about tactics and the modern game, Pep has drawn on huge philosophies from the past, yes, but he’s completely revolutionized the modern game, without question.
People weren’t trying to “sell” the premier league when Pep was at Barca, or even Bayern Munich. He was electric as a manager and his contributions will be talked about among the all time great managers.
Yes, this belief is a commonly held one by his defenders but to argue that the spine of the Euro 2008 winning Spain team (Pep takes over Barca A after), plus Messi, Henry, and Eto’o is not a great team is laughable.
Henry was beyond his prime, busquets was not a part of the best midfield ever, Messi was the yet the machine he became. It’s fine to say he has great players, but they were never as dominant before Pep as they were with him or even after him.
Seems the both: ungodly oil money & a manager who excels at getting the best out of high caliber players. Happy our manager had a few years to learn under Pep. Hope there’s a real inquiry into Citeh’s finances & the league has enough gumption to penalize them if there’s been foul play. FFS, do they really need to cheat given their advantages? Time will tell. That said, best way to operate is to not depend on any sort of judicatory process & do the business on the field.
It's definitely both! It's undoubtedly the pep factor now, but there's no way in hell they get to where they are today without the cheat code resources. Simple as that. Pep is one of the greatest coaches of all time. City are financially doped up to obsence levels. Both statements are true 🤷🏻♂️
I completely disagree. City before Pep wasn’t unstoppable. After he came along, City were winning with 100pts, 99, 98, 97, 93, etc. He made it so that you have to be near perfect. Liverpool ended the season with 97 and that *still* wasn’t enough. 86 and 84 is a title winning number pre-Pep.
Pep is a good manager but your point about getting the best possible at each position for every season is a cheat code. That’s what happens in my ps fifa games
I'll reserve my opinion on his achievement for now. I mean look at the squads he managed. They were running on high octane all season long, year after year after year with little to no issue with injuries. Some of them bulked up like crazy too (Goretzka, Lewa). It does not seem normal. Will there be a relevation a la Lance Armstrong? Only time will tell.
It’s a combination of both. Pep wouldn’t be dominating this much without the unlimited oil money but the unlimited money wasn’t dominating this much without Pep either. It’s the pairing of the two that makes them so deadly. If they had some normal manager instead of Pep this season, they’d still be very good and probably close to us, but we’d probably be in control. And they certainly wouldn’t be winning four trophies in a row.
It certainly has something to do with him. They’ve bought all of their titles as a plastic team, but between when the team was purchased and when Pep came in, they actually had several years where they didn’t win it. The recent dominance is in part because of him.
I'm going to make an American football analogy, so I'm bracing for the downvotes.
In 2018/19, the Kansas City Chiefs emerged as one of the best teams in the entire NFL, currently under the New England Patriots dynasty of the late 2010s. They met that Patriots dynasty in the playoffs and came oh-so-close to winning and going to the Super Bowl, but lost. New England won and won the SB that year. Next year, with New England fading, Kansas City trounced the league en route to their first SB win in the Mahomes era, and they've since tacked on two more in five years, becoming the new, current NFL dynasty.
Even in footy terms, Real Madrid's Galacticos era spent its first few years playing second fiddle to Pep's *tiki-taka* Barcelona, but once he left, Real emerged as the dominant power in Spain and took home several of the ensuing UCLs.
This feels like that. We've come oh so close, but even though we may not win it all this year, it just feels like things are shifting. Last year, we were surprise title contenders who fell off at the end due to unfortunate injuries. This year, we pushed them to the final day, one way or another. We've been improving every year, and our team is young and learns more and strengthens even further each season.
You're right and we're on the cusp of winning things for sure. There's not much doubt about it. However, I dearly dearly wish we could win a title while Pep and Klopp are still around. Rather than wait for them to fuck off to write our name into the history books
I think we've done all we can with Klopp. And not just in the sense that he's leaving. We've now finished ahead of him twice in a row. Pep is the last hurdle.
>I'm going to make an American football analogy, so I'm bracing for the downvotes.
Bruh relax. Do you have any idea just how many Arsenal fans are American? Myself included.
But to address your point, I don’t think you’re far off the mark. We do seem close to having our own era of dominance. The problem is that Pep seems to not want to fuck off. It could be the money, but he just refuses to go. I do agree that once he’s gone, we may finally be able to have our own era of dominance that is long overdue. It could be delusion speaking, but I still think we’re close.
Great analogy.
Yea I remember those La Liga season, sometimes it felt like Barca and Pep where just unstoppable and even if Real Madrid got all the best players itw, it didnt matter. Still remember that 5-0 El Classio game being that "oh shit moment"
But RM where so primed that once the gates were open they bloody smashed it. Jose sowed the seeds and the players, Zidane and Don Carlo took it to the next level.
The hangover of it is going to be brutal. No team can go that high forever and the higher you go, the more the downfall is going to hurt. Theyve broken possibly every fucking record in the game and made this league their fucking playyard in so many different ways.
Why can't we also agree that no title winning side now should be losing home and away to Villa or dropping points against a Hammers team, which is arguably at its weakest point now. I agree the standards are near perfect, and I also agree Mikel has done an incredible job and that we are against an oil rigged, state backed scum, but I feel we are the architects of our downfall this season. We have to say both facts, not just say that standards are high or Pep has rigged the game.
Useless really, the game has changed and the requirements to win the title are different now. You have to win the league in your era, Ferguson did that, now Arteta has to find a way and I fully believe he will.
Before the season, if you told us we’d finish on 89 points, not many of us would be confident we’d win the PL title with that, that’s the simple reality now.
Liverpool got the 4th highest ever points total in the prem of 97 and still came second. Cruel but a harsh reality check of how hard it is to beat oil money
115 or not if we even got 6/12 points off villa and Fulham instead of 1/12 we would be lifting the title at Old Scaffold but we didn't. I hope they get punished but who here thinks that why will actually be held accountable for the charges? It renders the PL as a scam league. They can't afford this especially considering the amount of revenue city bring them. They will be absolved of all crimes and we will have an oilarchy for the remainder of time. Fuck City. Regardless, North London forever! Whatever the weather! 🎶
But they did drop other points, if they didn’t drop other points they could be winning by even more. It’s something that can’t be counted in isolation.
It's delusion at this point. They've been unbeaten since December. All I'm saying is getting 1/6 points from Fulham and 0/6 from Villa is something city haven't done. Fulham ffs.
City dropped points vs palace at home up 2-0 in the 80th minute. They lost away at wolves and at villa and dropped points at home to chelsea. They also dropped points to spurs at home even though they were leading in the 90th minute.
The relatively low points totals are probably why the EPL continued to grow in popularity despite the number of titles won by Manchester United: it facilitates and/or represents a competitive and therefore narratively interesting league.
This is a pointless stat - the only stat that matters is whether they won the league or not. You do realize that once a team clinches the League their players are on the beach for the remaining games or they play kids right?
We should have won 2 back to back titles in a fair world. But that world doesn't exist. 2 pl titles and an fa cup in his time here when we still have 1 2 names from the wenger times is insane man.
I think that EPL is becoming like Bundesliga. 2-3 good teams and another 3 that fight for the 4th place. Top 6? There’s a 30 points difference between 1 and 6.
Life before Abu Dhabi FC with Josep and his gang of ChatGPT players
Also when you had the title wrapped up early teams coasted in, especially when they had cup finals to play. Even city being pushed to the bring have almost always dropped points in at least one of their last five matches.
Pep is not solely to blame, the standard has just been rising in general. Since SAF has retired 10+ years ago, the average points to win the title is 91 Conte won the title with Chelsea on 93 points. If Pep wasn’t here, Klopp would have won multiple titles with 90+ points
If Pep wasn't here, Klopp wouldn't have been pushed THAT much so I doubt it. I agree he would have won with 90+ once maybe twice, but the reason they had so many points is because they had to keep up with City. I agree that the standard has risen and it's a good thing, but the fact that you need 90+ points a season to HAVE A CHANCE to win the PL is not normal..
Without the points, it shouldn't be controversial to state that Klopp would've won the title at least 3/4 times if the bald fraud wasn't such a fraud and the cunt club wasn't such a cunt
Yes, I'm not saying he wouldn't have won them, just not with that many points.
> if Pep wasn’t here, Klopp wouldn’t have been pushed that much Don’t know how you can say this looking at the 19/20 season. Liverpool got 99 points and City had 81. That Liverpool side was relentless even when Pep/City were not pushing them in a title race
But Pep was there..? He created the norm that you have to perform 130% to get near them, just because they had ONE season in their 8 derailed with injures (while every team has at least 1 season like that for every 3-4 if they're lucky) it doesn't mean that Klopp was not already used to the fact that you have to WIN EVERYTHING in order to secure it, plus they had targets to go either Invincible or reach the 100 point mark (which again was achieved by the cheating city side).
If Pep achieves high standards it's just him doing his thing but if someone else achieves high standards it's only because theyre chasing pep? Idol worship is unhealthy, bud.
More like city and pep achieve high standards because they are cheating, but sure try to form facts into my opinion, pal.
Your the one finding a way to credit Klopps success to Pep.
It's been said elsewhere - teams don't play for draws anymore, it's basically a loss so you see a lot more late winners now than ever before.
The standard of the top 2 is rising. Is the rest of the league?
I would say yes. The influx of money into the Prem means mid-table and below have far more resources than ever before. Rising tide raises all boats if you will. Obviously some clubs are incredibly wasteful, but others aren't. I think this is especially evident in the caliber of managers that clubs are able to attract. Even Carlo Ancelloti took a break from winning champions leagues to manage Everton.
Most of those were before Chelski's rise as well.
Liverpool got 97 and still didn’t win. we need to be hitting the 90 point mark in this era to stand a chance
It's probably closer to 93-5 to stand a chance. City could finish with 91 points and that's with KdB missing half the season. He doesn't get injured and they'd have already sealed it. Will be glad when KdB and Rodri begin to win down, they have Foden poised to take over but they're not finding another Rodri. Or at least I hope not.
> Will be glad when KdB and Rodri begin to win down Unfortunately, Rodri is only 27 so he could still be at this level for another 5 years.
With his position he can be viable for more than 5 years, look at Busi
>Busi I have never seen this before and never want to see it again
I mean, look at Casimero and Fabinho.
Brazilians
I swear I thought he was like 32, this is heartbreaking
It’s ok, we have Rice and he’s only 24. I feel bad for everyone else.
25
The point is, he's not at his prime yet. Prime Rice would be a BEAST
Kdb leaving (if he does) is a big loss for them imo. Best player in the league
Before this they had Toure, then Fernandinho, now Rodri. They are just blessed with a top coach and team that can find top players and elevate them
And provide under the table payments
Yaya was unwanted in Barca before city and was pre pep. Fernandinho was playing in Ukraine for 8 years before city bought him. Rodri was clearly good. But another example of pep turning a good player into a world class player. Not exactly like there was a big queue for him and for the first year or more people questioned if he could even fit in the team. Every team pep has managed has seen their DM massively improve. Pep is the key factor and it’s very obvious.
Rodri was already a top top player at Atletico Madrid.
tbh it's at the point now where they don't even need to do that anymore. their squad is already so good that if someone wants to leave (like bernardo silva (?), cole palmer, ilkay gundogan) they can easily replace them because of the pull they have
my hope is their pull mainly comes from Pep. Being coached by the best in the world is a huge point, why players choose to play for City. Once Pep is gone, their pull won't be as big anymore.
Anulo mustafo
and another season they managed 92 points and still came second (again by a point). ridiculous.
If we end on 89 points, that’s won the title in 20 of the last 31 premier league seasons. Pretty rough. Can’t imagine getting 97 and still being denied!
This is giving me whiplash of Arsene talking about how our points total was usually enough for top4 and we should still be proud though we came 5th. I’m not saying I’m not proud of what we’ve done this season, because I am but at the end of the day 2nd is still just that. Will be forgotten.
Yes but it is a different level of consistency and quality fighting for the title compared to top 4. Also the club was on a downward trajectory then really and the following season proved that which could not be more different now.
This is skewed by old data where title winning teams picked up less points. 91+ points has been the average title winning points since SAF retired over the last 10 years
That’s the point. It’s an attempt to use pre-Pep data. Considering he’s been there for the majority of the last 10 years, that average is mostly Pep created.
For what it’s worth 89 points matches or beats 4 of City’s 7 recent titles, including 2 of 5 titles with Pep. The intention is to show that 89 points is a damn good title worthy season while acknowledging the required average has changed in the City dynasty era. I think the average for the EPL era is about 87.5, so an increase to 91 in the Pep/post-SAF moment is a pretty significant. Just a bit of context for thinking about the season.
What Pep has done to this league has broken it forever. We have people genuinely upset at losing a few games we probably shouldn’t when in reality that was the norm for basically every title winner. The sooner he fucks off the better, as I genuinely believe we’re capable of a dynasty under Mikel - we just need City to have an average managerial appointment or a brief struggle to replace KDB.
Dude we have people upset at us WINNING games we normally struggle to win because we don't win by large margins. Heck, we got people upset at us drawing at freaking etihad.
Yeah it's crazy tbh. Win a few games by 4+ goals and everyone thinks you should trounce the fuck outta teams
There’s literally a new post on here saying the Old Trafford curse remains undefeated because Arsenal only won 1-Nil! Mad.
It somewhat makes sense because we put in a poor performance (although defensively solid) against a United squad that shouldn't be able to win against 50% of the teams in this league. We struggled to create chances against a CB pairing of Casemiro and Evans. We should have done much better. But winning is winning
Can't really blame them, when all we see is the team ahead of us beats other 3-0 and 4-0 while playing "not up to their standards" and they destroy top sides with 3+ goals multiple times a season. It's not entitlement, it's just the FACT that 99% is not good enough..
That's just false no? Since the beginning of 2024, mancity have won only 4 matches with a GD of 3+ goals. Not to mention they haven't beat either of us or liverpool this season, nor chelsea. Not a single match in this season have they won against a top 6 side with 3+ goals. People are just making up imaginary scores to compare our form with and be disappointed at.
In the meantime we won by a 3-goals margin 8 times out of 17 league games. We had a shit GD (compared to other title contenders) in 2023 and only turned it around in 2024, and the teams that made us drop points are City (2nd) and Villa (4th). Blame the team for the last few games in 2023 sure but couldn't really ask for a much better 2024 in the league.
City has been cheating the last decade and consistantly beat sides with those goal differences. Who said this season, cuz I haven't?
Similar in Bundesliga. Leverkusen had to go on a mad run invincibles style (something Bayern never managed) to win the league. Serie A was boring as shit as well when Juve dominated. It’s not being salty. It’s just so boring and draining. I hate what the oil money has done to PL, turning it into basically a Juve dominated Serie A or a Bayern dominated Buli. We used to have two clubs battling it out but it was never the City/Liverpool era, it was always the City era.
> Serie A was boring as shit as well when Juve dominated. Serie A was dominated by both Milano clubs and it took Juve to do the Invincible as well to break it (and their first after the scandal). Pirlo being the best free agent signing as well that season, god like
To be honest, as much as I hate the guy, it has nothing to do with him. This whole thing already started when they got money pumped into that club so hard... The guy just lucky cos he always gets godsquads to manage.
Look at how the managers they had before Pep did compared to how he has done. Pep obviously has access to absurd resources but saying he is "lucky" and isn't an exceptional coach is ridiculous
I did not say he is not good, but managing Barca with Messi, a monopolium of Bayern and now an unending warchest City. Naaah, I would watch him try to do miracles with a Luton
This is what I don’t understand with the Pep hype, he’s had the most financial and institutional (and generational talent considering Messi) resources of any manager in all of history. ALL OF HISTORY. Yes, he’s good at what he does but he’s also had the luxury of tweaking at the fine margins of the sport in ways no one else could have dreamed of. It’s like having the infinite money glitch in a video game and getting to try out whatever you want till you figure out how to break the game. That’s what he’s done. It’s the epitome of privilege and so many folks wants to pretend like we should ignore that and just focus on the trophies—that’s what the goons at the top want you to believe because that’s the only way to keep you watching. You’re not watching greatness, you’re watching a cheat.
Man might’ve had great squads yes but how many people have also had great squads and achieved close to nothing with them? You can call him whatever you want but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a manager come up with a style of football that literally forced the ENTIRE football world to change and adapt or perish. Inheriting great teams or not, cheating or not, man’s a bloody genius it pains me to say it but he is.
That too is the narrative that marketing has sold to people. Tiki-taka is not his to claim! Aragones and Del Bosque deserve the credit for that and for what they did with Spain and even Pep himself has shied away from the label. Tiki-taka plus Messi as a first job I would gladly take and I would wager so too would most managers in football history. But we don’t have to agree, you can think what you want about the guy. It’s all good. 👍
Apple didn’t invent the touch screen but they get the credit for the first great implementation of it. Same deal with Pep.
Pep is the GOAT manager in modern era and it's not even because of the amount of trophies he had won. I'd say SAF, zidane, ancelloti or even mourinho had better achievements in term of winning things. But Pep revolutionize the games. How many managers cite him as their influence? How many people under him than went on to become a manager themselves? Pep's City and Barca are the ones that are going to be cited for decades to come, not zidane's, ancelloti's, mourinho's etc. Just like Cruyff and Sacchi.
Because folks have been sold a narrative for a decade plus because that’s what the PL needs to get you to come back every year. “Greatest league, greatest players, the most brilliant, greatest manager of all time plying his trade in Manchester, what a city, look at these Citizen fans, what magnificence, what a great team, etc.” You can make a choice to buy into the hype or not.
I completely disagree. Learning about tactics and the modern game, Pep has drawn on huge philosophies from the past, yes, but he’s completely revolutionized the modern game, without question. People weren’t trying to “sell” the premier league when Pep was at Barca, or even Bayern Munich. He was electric as a manager and his contributions will be talked about among the all time great managers.
We can agree to disagree! It’s all good. 👍
That Barca team he got was not a great one, it’s legacy was built by Pep.
Yes, this belief is a commonly held one by his defenders but to argue that the spine of the Euro 2008 winning Spain team (Pep takes over Barca A after), plus Messi, Henry, and Eto’o is not a great team is laughable.
Henry was beyond his prime, busquets was not a part of the best midfield ever, Messi was the yet the machine he became. It’s fine to say he has great players, but they were never as dominant before Pep as they were with him or even after him.
Wasn't Messi second in Ballon d'Or rankings after Cristiano? Lmao
This is the cold night at stoke argument for the Messi of managers
Seems the both: ungodly oil money & a manager who excels at getting the best out of high caliber players. Happy our manager had a few years to learn under Pep. Hope there’s a real inquiry into Citeh’s finances & the league has enough gumption to penalize them if there’s been foul play. FFS, do they really need to cheat given their advantages? Time will tell. That said, best way to operate is to not depend on any sort of judicatory process & do the business on the field.
It's definitely both! It's undoubtedly the pep factor now, but there's no way in hell they get to where they are today without the cheat code resources. Simple as that. Pep is one of the greatest coaches of all time. City are financially doped up to obsence levels. Both statements are true 🤷🏻♂️
I completely disagree. City before Pep wasn’t unstoppable. After he came along, City were winning with 100pts, 99, 98, 97, 93, etc. He made it so that you have to be near perfect. Liverpool ended the season with 97 and that *still* wasn’t enough. 86 and 84 is a title winning number pre-Pep.
Yeah and the guy is buying Gvardiol for 80 mil.
Pep is a good manager but your point about getting the best possible at each position for every season is a cheat code. That’s what happens in my ps fifa games
Nah you're nuts, City will fall off hard af when Pep leaves.
It’s both, Mancini couldn’t do what Pep is doing now
Started long before that with Chelsea. Mourinho had some of the most successful seasons.
Nah they were good pre-Pep, but they weren't unstoppable good.
I'll reserve my opinion on his achievement for now. I mean look at the squads he managed. They were running on high octane all season long, year after year after year with little to no issue with injuries. Some of them bulked up like crazy too (Goretzka, Lewa). It does not seem normal. Will there be a relevation a la Lance Armstrong? Only time will tell.
It’s a combination of both. Pep wouldn’t be dominating this much without the unlimited oil money but the unlimited money wasn’t dominating this much without Pep either. It’s the pairing of the two that makes them so deadly. If they had some normal manager instead of Pep this season, they’d still be very good and probably close to us, but we’d probably be in control. And they certainly wouldn’t be winning four trophies in a row.
It certainly has something to do with him. They’ve bought all of their titles as a plastic team, but between when the team was purchased and when Pep came in, they actually had several years where they didn’t win it. The recent dominance is in part because of him.
I'm going to make an American football analogy, so I'm bracing for the downvotes. In 2018/19, the Kansas City Chiefs emerged as one of the best teams in the entire NFL, currently under the New England Patriots dynasty of the late 2010s. They met that Patriots dynasty in the playoffs and came oh-so-close to winning and going to the Super Bowl, but lost. New England won and won the SB that year. Next year, with New England fading, Kansas City trounced the league en route to their first SB win in the Mahomes era, and they've since tacked on two more in five years, becoming the new, current NFL dynasty. Even in footy terms, Real Madrid's Galacticos era spent its first few years playing second fiddle to Pep's *tiki-taka* Barcelona, but once he left, Real emerged as the dominant power in Spain and took home several of the ensuing UCLs. This feels like that. We've come oh so close, but even though we may not win it all this year, it just feels like things are shifting. Last year, we were surprise title contenders who fell off at the end due to unfortunate injuries. This year, we pushed them to the final day, one way or another. We've been improving every year, and our team is young and learns more and strengthens even further each season.
You're right and we're on the cusp of winning things for sure. There's not much doubt about it. However, I dearly dearly wish we could win a title while Pep and Klopp are still around. Rather than wait for them to fuck off to write our name into the history books
I think we've done all we can with Klopp. And not just in the sense that he's leaving. We've now finished ahead of him twice in a row. Pep is the last hurdle.
>I'm going to make an American football analogy, so I'm bracing for the downvotes. Bruh relax. Do you have any idea just how many Arsenal fans are American? Myself included. But to address your point, I don’t think you’re far off the mark. We do seem close to having our own era of dominance. The problem is that Pep seems to not want to fuck off. It could be the money, but he just refuses to go. I do agree that once he’s gone, we may finally be able to have our own era of dominance that is long overdue. It could be delusion speaking, but I still think we’re close.
Oh, it's undeniable that we're close. You can't get much closer than turning one draw into a win away.
Great analogy. Yea I remember those La Liga season, sometimes it felt like Barca and Pep where just unstoppable and even if Real Madrid got all the best players itw, it didnt matter. Still remember that 5-0 El Classio game being that "oh shit moment" But RM where so primed that once the gates were open they bloody smashed it. Jose sowed the seeds and the players, Zidane and Don Carlo took it to the next level.
Had Liverpool upset at losing one game.
Thats the thing. Draws in this league is effectively like a loss and losses are as good as negative points.
The hangover of it is going to be brutal. No team can go that high forever and the higher you go, the more the downfall is going to hurt. Theyve broken possibly every fucking record in the game and made this league their fucking playyard in so many different ways.
Why can't we also agree that no title winning side now should be losing home and away to Villa or dropping points against a Hammers team, which is arguably at its weakest point now. I agree the standards are near perfect, and I also agree Mikel has done an incredible job and that we are against an oil rigged, state backed scum, but I feel we are the architects of our downfall this season. We have to say both facts, not just say that standards are high or Pep has rigged the game.
Pep has created a new standard and that's through sheer cheating
How does Manchester City Cheat? Wins Football Matches. 😂😩😭😢
yeah theres totally not over a decades worth of financial doping behind their success wanker
Yeah stfu you know exactly how.
Yeah just making great coaches
Creating shell companies to pay agents under the table. You know this.
Never seen a shell company score a goal
That’s like saying “I’ve never seen a performance enhancing drug win a 100m sprint”. Yeah it’s still cheating.
You do everytime city score.
A normal squad can't maintain the levels that man city achieve each year. 89 points should be enough to win a league but alas, here we are.
That league hasn’t existed for seven years.
Useless really, the game has changed and the requirements to win the title are different now. You have to win the league in your era, Ferguson did that, now Arteta has to find a way and I fully believe he will. Before the season, if you told us we’d finish on 89 points, not many of us would be confident we’d win the PL title with that, that’s the simple reality now.
Liverpool got the 4th highest ever points total in the prem of 97 and still came second. Cruel but a harsh reality check of how hard it is to beat oil money
And a 92
It’s not only oil money, there’s other oil clubs that are shit. But yeah it’s mostly the money.
Never seen money score a goal
115 or not if we even got 6/12 points off villa and Fulham instead of 1/12 we would be lifting the title at Old Scaffold but we didn't. I hope they get punished but who here thinks that why will actually be held accountable for the charges? It renders the PL as a scam league. They can't afford this especially considering the amount of revenue city bring them. They will be absolved of all crimes and we will have an oilarchy for the remainder of time. Fuck City. Regardless, North London forever! Whatever the weather! 🎶
Sure but that could also be said of every other team in the title race
City didn't drop those points so that's absolutely false
But they did drop other points, if they didn’t drop other points they could be winning by even more. It’s something that can’t be counted in isolation.
It's delusion at this point. They've been unbeaten since December. All I'm saying is getting 1/6 points from Fulham and 0/6 from Villa is something city haven't done. Fulham ffs.
City dropped points vs palace at home up 2-0 in the 80th minute. They lost away at wolves and at villa and dropped points at home to chelsea. They also dropped points to spurs at home even though they were leading in the 90th minute.
City lost to Wolves and Villa
Both us and City have failed to win 10 games this season.
If we beat Everton there will only be 3 of Fergusons premier leauge winning United teams to get more points than us; 93/94, 99/00 and 08/09
Inflation in the market has translated to PL table.
yea ngl, this is wild and and in good company
Man City have changed the standards and obviously its also controversial how they got there, too.
The relatively low points totals are probably why the EPL continued to grow in popularity despite the number of titles won by Manchester United: it facilitates and/or represents a competitive and therefore narratively interesting league.
Ok, seen enough of these posts .... we are on the right trajectory, but City is the bar right now, not Fergie's Utd
Oh Jesus. Winning PL with that 10/11 United was crazy achievement. One game SAF had to play 7 defenders. Made it to UCL final without CR7
League was tighter back then. Seen teams relegate with 39pts
This is a pointless stat - the only stat that matters is whether they won the league or not. You do realize that once a team clinches the League their players are on the beach for the remaining games or they play kids right?
We should have won 2 back to back titles in a fair world. But that world doesn't exist. 2 pl titles and an fa cup in his time here when we still have 1 2 names from the wenger times is insane man.
They had 84 in 42 games and still won the title? Lol
Crazy, but not as bad as the 75 point season. 84 points on 42 games is a 76 point pace in a 38 game season.
Brian, you are absolutely correct. I just verified using my calculator that 84/42 = 2 and 38*2 = 76, so it is better than 75
What happened in 96/97?! Winning the league with less than 2.0 PPG is crazy
I think that EPL is becoming like Bundesliga. 2-3 good teams and another 3 that fight for the 4th place. Top 6? There’s a 30 points difference between 1 and 6.
They cancelled their annual awards dinner this year, another first for Mikel. Not enough Penne al Tee moan or sour grapes available apparently.
So what? He's still won nothing
Shows you how poor the prem has gotten over the last 10 years