Tottenham smashed Manchester City, which has led to plenty of questions about Pep Guardiola and his legacy in the Mailbox.
Send your views in to theeditor@football365.com
No idea who is the best team in the premier league, but Spurs are definitely the most hilarious.
Jeremy Aves
One man team
Well, ‘The Rodri Team’ are truly f**ked, aren’t they?
Sanjit (Harry Kane would be proud) Randhawa, Kuala Lumpur.
Guardiola the fraud?
Ive made the mistake a couple of times now of using two things to compare their attributes , and each time readers (and even the ed) seem to be unable to read my comparisons without putting words in my mouth about one being better than the other. I wont make that mistake this time and I will only speak about one manager.
Pep guardiola. I said previously he doesn’t have the ability to make lesser players perform way above their level, which is why when he’s missing key players you don’t see his teams performing miracle champions league comebacks or pushing ageing middling players to winning the premier league.
Pep wins the league and champions league with world class players at the top of their game. Which is why when they start ageing and he can’t replace them (like at Barca) and the team declined. He had a similar issue at Bayern and the team, actually they didn’t decline domestically but they also didn’t do what Bayern wanted which was dominate Europe.
Now at city he has a team which is missing key world class players at the peak of their career and he’s not able to push the (still pretty fucking good) players above their level.
In truth pep should still be easily winning with the players he’s got. It’s not like he’s shoe horning a 33 year old central midfielder and two youth academy players at the back in front of a reserve keeper. They’re all still excellent first team players. Being handed a 4-0 pasting is something which only red Manchester managers can usually pass off as due to injury problems.
Now if city fans want to say it’s because theyre missing rodri then they’re also admitting that the players pep signed as his understudies were failed transfers. Also it basically means city fans are accepting they’re probably not making the champions league this season because rodri isn’t coming back anytime soon.
I don’t think it’s just missing rodri, it’s missing rodri and peps inability to figure out how to make the team of international first team players make up the difference in his absence. Again, he’s not throwing the team together from back ups and youth players. These would be starters at 90% of the clubs in the league. Some of them WERE starters at other clubs in the league.
Pep not being able to get a tune out of them is really on him. I’ve watched spurs a few times this year and laughed at how easy it is to cut through them and how unimpressive their midfield is at both breaking play and dictating possession (alternatively Chelsea i feel have been the best of the traditional big teams in this area) so spurs constantly robbing possession and passing around city is a tactical issue, not one of personnel.
As a Liverpool fan it’s both good and bad. Good because it increases the chances of another title (I will greedily guzzle the waterfall of rival tears if it happens) but also, I would genuinely rather take a title off city than basically stroll to one uncontested. As much as I loved our title win before it was genuinely a bit boring being in a one horse race. I’d much rather steal one on the last day like city have done so many times.
On a side note slot has us playing so consistently that I don’t dread the ‘slip up’ of dropping points at the same time rivals do. Sure we’re not as fun to watch as klopps first two years but we’re nowhere near as miserable as his two worst years either. It’s genuinely impressive what slot has done.
Lee
More Guardiola questions…
While City’s team has rightly been lauded for the past 7 years for their style of football and near dominance of the premier league and Pep is been spoken of in terms of Fergie like greatness on websites such as this … at this pint soemone would usually start eating about charges and financial advantage, I will decline today.
Let’s look at Pep as a manager at this point in time. His has been a blessed career where his considerable talents as a manager have been supplied with the finest of resources at all points. Like a fine artisan craftsman he has fashioned the riches of La Masia, Bayern and City into the most beautiful designs.
The response to his work have varied but few have doubted his skill in this regard. Does that however make him one of the all time greatest managers? Many would say yes, however a question remains, how does he cope when the endless supply of treasures is interrupted?
Can he turn lead into gold? Is he an alchemist, a magician, a transformer of people seeing talents where no one else can see them? I would argue that most of the managers listed on your recent all time great premier league managers were his superior on this regard.
Like Wenger plucking Henry from relative obscurity, Ferguson – Cantona, Benitez – Alonso, Klopp – Salah these managers all unearthed greatness on a limited budget and more importantly nurtured, developed and made great what before was considered ordinary or unremarkable. They brought the world something beautiful, they transformed leaden obscurity into gold.
If Guardiola has done this then I must have missed it. His team is floundering now, largely because one of his 50m+ signings is injured and I would argue he has been unable to buy the 4 x 50m+ players his squad needed this summer due to issues we will not discuss.
If Pep wins the league this year with Rodri injured and using his skill as a manager to maximise his still very impressive squad without reliance on signing top shelf players to fill in every blank I will kneel and kiss his feet.
But if as I suspect he in unable to achieve success without optimal circumstances and resources being in place then pardon me my scepticism about Peps greatness.
Dave LFC
Better if we’d lost…
Morning
It takes a special kind of kn*bhead to pour over a manager’s press conference and be ungrateful at winning 4 – 0 at one of the best football teams of all time. Who hadn’t been beaten at home in 52 games. But here goes.
Spurs would probably be better off if they’d lost at City yesterday.
I watched Ange’s press conference and it was all there. We’ll play the way we want too, stick to our principles and sensing that Madders was up for a big game. And if Madders isn’t up for it that’s on Ange. I’m not sure what this all means. That Spurs have a set of principles based on luring opposing players, who expect to win, out from the back, creating space, and hitting them on the break. And if they don’t lure opposing players out, because they might lose by playing this way…then what? We’ve not stuck to our principles, that’s not really for us and we don’t really fancy it?
A defeat yesterday would have meant Spurs had lost 50% of their opening 12 games. The pressure to find that plan B, show some flexibility and find a way of beating teams who don’t come predisposed to winning would have gotten really really strong. That ultimately is the only way he keeps his job and stops Dave Tickner from finding him boring.
But they didn’t. So the circus, and its empty soundbytes rolls on to the dreaded post European Sunday afternoon slot. I’m going to take the kids out and make sure I get home at 3.55 for the other one.
Cheers then,
Andrew
’tis a fair cop
Tickner’s Match to Watch segment in Big Weekend was something like reading the match report in advance. Again, I say: burn the witch!
Chris C, Toon Army DC
Dr Tottenham?
I guess Dr Tottenham was playing golf.
Brian Clancy, Spurs, Vancouver
Benjamin Thomas Davies
Ben bloody Davies.
220+ games
10 years
8 managers
Often second choice.
Always keeps on keeping on. The guy constantly plays with his head up. Like a Welsh Maldini.
Like an island of stoicism and dependability at a football club you can never depend on.
Please keep on being Ben Davies.
Andrew, Woodford Green.
COYS
Please Tickner, regale us of tales of how crap City were, as this aussie clown clearly had nothing to do with it.
TGWolf(proper, proper battered them)THFC.
P.s. YesYesYes, unserious, spursy, mortage against Fulham etc.etc…
…As a Spurs fan, I want to enjoy the result today, but I can’t shake the feeling that there has never been a more surefire bet in the history of sporting endeavour than Spurs to lose at home to Fulham next week following an abject, lacklustre display from the hosts.
It’s not Dr Tottenham that’s the problem. If you’ll pardon a slightly laboured metaphor, this erratic side are Dr Jekyll and Mr Tottenham and it’s the latter monstrous performances against the likes of Ipswich and Palace that are hampering the season. You just never know when they’ll throw another one in… although it is rarely far away.
Still, we gave a cracked-badge-crisis-club City another bloody nose, so I’ll have another beer and try to take what I can from it.
Chris Bridgeman, Kingston upon Thames
Third and getting stronger
Jadon , almost forgotten Euro finalist , Sancho coming on .
It is not beyond the realms of possibility that the Hammersmith Lions are dark horses for this league . Their squad is so thick that an injury cris can be overcome.
Whereas City and Liverpool are 2 key player injuries away from s poor run .
Clearlake’s scattergun transfer logic wouldn’t look so chaotic then would it ?
Enjoy your premier league weekend footie fans .
Peter . (balmy & sunny ) Andalucia
👉 READ NEXT: Didier Drogba, Cesc Fabregas regens shine as Chelsea enjoy *actual* coaching from Enzo Maresca
