FC Barcelona v Manchester City FC

The weakness to the Pep method is definitely defensively. Just so many mistakes or poor goals conceded. They've struggled to even keep clean sheets in the Premier League, and you can't be making these kind of mistakes vs better opposition you can't rely on putting 4 past. Just look at tonight 2 goals, 2 errors. Another error leading to a red card. Barcelona have basically just fed off their mistakes.

the ego of klopp,pep bringing these looney foreign keepers over is embarrasing

is busquets younger brother of Luis Enrique?.... both look similar

Pep left out City's one truly world class player. A shameful capitulation.

messiiii 3-0

3 dumb goals

this is good preparation for John Stones' long England career

That's another new areshole for Pep

lol

Oct 19, 2016 -- 9:15PM, gotia wrote:

3 dumb goals

1 dumb team

Mcmanaman is talking like Barcelona are lucky to be leading, just benefiting from City's mistakes. But isn't this the City way, they can't defend, vs better opposition you get punished. This is no surprise, they've been like this all season. Pep's teams always concede silly goals.

this dont count players like stokes like to judged on their performances against the likes of voakes,carroll etc not the big boys

RIP celtic

Mathieu sent off

no wins in 4 for peps unbeatables

10 v 10. Game on.

mcmanaman been talking rubbish all night

just trying to justify his own comments, should
stop digging

MacManaman is surprised Messing has s hat-trick. He has clearly never seen him play before

Pep is being exposed as a fraud. Steve Staunton, Davey Moyes or Phil Brown could've has similar success with this Barcelona team.

Other than beating Man Utd (and Mourinho would surely admit he got this all wrong), have City actually beaten anyone who will finish top half in the Premier League?

Oct 19, 2016 -- 9:23PM, n88uk wrote:

Other than beating Man Utd (and Mourinho would surely admit he got this all wrong), have City actually beaten anyone who will finish top half in the Premier League?

No,  he beat the teams that were 16th-20th in the table. And a poor Man U side.

The Pep weakness was always conceding silly goals. It was often said for all his Barcelona and Bayern's possession they were often undone by long punts and silly mistakes. Just Man City don't have the quality to dominate games like those 2 teams did so the flaws are even more there to see now.

Pen

BIG WILLY PSYCHED NEYMAR OUT

Missed. Terrible penalty.

4-0 Neymar

Thank you thought that missed pen had cost me.

44

most important player on the pitch the keeper city have 3 and pay someone millions a year to play the worst of the 3 solely because he can pass it 10 yds sidewards to a defender, strange game

Macca changing his tune now

EPL

Stones is honestly the worst defender I've ever seen at this level.

City out of their depth in the Champions League, like all the other EPL sides.

This'll be a tremendous test of Pep's fledgling side and particularly of Stones' defensive nous. Rightly Barca are favourites for this game and my money is going on them to win & Neymar to score

letter etching

Kerrrrrrrching

Hamsterdam    Joined: 03 Nov 11
Replies: 11691 19 Oct 16 19:14 
It's Barca at full strength Any Other Home Win @5.7 is the bet.

wp followers

Senor Bobby giving his pearls of wisdom on City's defending.

macmanaman had a mare

tommo1000 • October 19, 2016 7:26 PM BST
john stones gonna get raped(not literally)tonight,guy is the most overrated defender in the premier league,barca gonna rip him apart like a lion does to a gazelle

sofaking • October 19, 2016 9:36 PM BST
Stones is honestly the worst defender I've ever seen at this level.

Where is my John Stones - 50m for a defender that can't defend thread?

Phil Neville "sensed" City could win this when they were 1-0 down at ht

Stones, DeBruyne, Sterling.  155 million quid combined.

barca barca baaaarca

Nowt wrong with De Brunes sofa.

Hargreaves talking garbage as usual , him and macmananananan are bobbins

De Bruyne even.

said it pre season the last manager stone needs is pep,martinez treat him like a ball player he needed a warnock,pullis,fat sam etc to tell him how to defend

How the fck can that cnting ref not card Kolorov for the challenge and penalty ???

Hope you catch rabies you card-wavering-just-because-they-only-have-ten-and-are-getting-stuffed-cn..t !!

silva got a red in injury time didnt he

I hate refs that dont ref to the rules just because of the situation , they should be struck off and banned if they are letting challenges slide just because of either the time of the match or the score.  Sick of seeing it.   Boro Watford another when the ref refused to send off the fullback as it was a SKY tv game and Richard Scudamore insists on keeping 11 v 11

Well if they were playing to the rules there should have been about 8 minutes added on. There was 2 minutes added on. Bravo's red card took about 5 minutes alone.

Oct 19, 2016 -- 9:42PM, Can't Catch Me wrote:

Nowt wrong with De Brunes sofa.

Was pretty poor tonight but Pep's mostly at fault for that.

Hargreaves joining the delusion now.

"Man City actually played well"

Media get lost in the Pep's teams keep the ball, and just lost because of mistakes. His teams make mistakes by design because of the way they play.

City played a blinder 4-0

city played quite well for a time pressing barca , quite
a bit of it in barca half, but thats got to be risky over
90 minutes

i didnt think city played that well when they ( city) had the ball

The Ref went very easy on city towards the end. Should have had at least one more red possibly two.

All in all a chastising night for Pep and his Arab boyfriend. Rip it up and start again.

n88uk    19 Oct 16 21:54 
Hargreaves joining the delusion now.

"Man City actually played well"

Media get lost in the Pep's teams keep the ball, and just lost because of mistakes. His teams make mistakes by design because of the way they play.





A classic case of defenders and a goalkeeper trying to play it out from the back instead of clearing the ball upfield. Of course many idiots scream "hoof" when they do that now. Unfortunately everyone thinks possession is the proper way to play these days.

going to the Nou Camp and trying to beat Barca playing possession football, ie at their own game, is a ridiculous, Wenger-like strategy. You only get a result if you play defensive and are very lucky. I doubt Guardiola, like Wenger, has a plan B for matches like this.

Barcelona aren't even a possession based side under Enrique.

But you can't just claim City played well, and were let down by mistakes. The mistakes come by design. They have kept 1 clean sheet in the Premier League, they conceded 3 against Celtic. Giving away goals is a clear problem.

Bravo is no better than Hart and his ball control comical. Pep says he won't change. Every other manager in the Prem says GREAT

Stones is liability. He simply does not understand the importance of finding row z when you have to.

surely they cannot win the league with that defence. would be a new low for the prem if they do

ac tualy feel sorry for stones now ,because even if he wanted to find row z he wouldnt be playing,as pep over bravo despite his mistakes he keeps trying to do what i want from him, [ although everyone in football know,s he,s wrong ]
as i said last night stones would be a far better player after 2 seasons with a pulis,warnock,fat sam type than he,ll ever be under pep

Stones needs to go to Barcelona. perfect Pique replacement. his style would work fine for them

Silva & Otamendi race to stop Messi score his first goal

Oct 20, 2016 -- 2:23PM, mafeking wrote:

surely they cannot win the league with that defence. would be a new low for the prem if they do

The defence probably isn't as bad as made out, I mean the personnel is average, but they are trying to do a job they aren't really good enough to do. That's what makes them look a complete shambles.

Funny thing is Liverpool get hammered for their defence yet the media seem to sleep on Man City's, and I think Man City's defending is worse than Liverpool's.

Oct 20, 2016 -- 3:25PM, wisewords wrote:

Stones needs to go to Barcelona. perfect Pique replacement. his style would work fine for them

Doubt it. English just get excited about Stones because he attempts to pass it out from the back. But he's nowhere near Pique, Pique very rarely makes mistakes. Stones makes mistakes every game, just some go unpunished.

did you see roy keane on the highlights show last night basically dismissing arsenal and spurs winning the league having just watched city make mistakes by the bucketload against a barca side barely out of 2nd gear ? city have probably given away more goals from individual mistakes in the last 4 matches than spurs would do in about 4 months

No, was listening to radio reaction instead unfortunately.

Yeah I saw Keane , very odd , Arsenal and Spurs supposedly no chance of the title but the presenter didn't think to ask him which team is so much better than them.

Pique is not a great defender either , but it doesn't matter.

If your game plan is to overwhelm all opposition by creating about 15 clear chances per match then your nominal defenders have to contribute to that and you can't have them punting it into the stands every time an opponent is near.

As defenders Barcelona's centre halves and full backs have never been amongst the Top dozen in Europe during their great era.

But if you have the ball 70% of the time and are blowing teams away at the other end what does it matter.

So City and Liverpool just need to carry on what they're doing but do it better , not implement Pulis type defensive drills.

Oct 20, 2016 -- 6:17PM, tobermory wrote:

Pique is not a great defender either , but it doesn't matter.If your game plan is to overwhelm all opposition by creating about 15 clear chances per match then your nominal defenders have to contribute to that and you can't have them punting it into the stands every time an opponent is near.As defenders Barcelona's centre halves and full backs have never been amongst the Top dozen in Europe during their great era.But if you have the ball 70% of the time and are blowing teams away at the other end what does it matter.So City and Liverpool just need to carry on what they're doing but do it better , not implement Pulis type defensive drills.

bollox

Pique is the figure head for the type of defender Stones is meant to be though. And there's no real doubt he's been a great defender really, it's a myth that he can't defend. I don't know how you wouldn't have him in the top dozen in Europe.

The problem with that game plan is it goes out the window unless you just totally dominate games. Vs say Pep's Barcelona, even good teams might only get 1-2 chances all night. Vs this City even more modest sides will get many more chances than that. There's one thing playing out from the back, but you can't have it giving away the number of goals Man City are, not vs better opposition.

yep tobermory he just sat there and slaughtered a city side who he presumably thinks will canter to the title. seemed in a particularly grumpy mood last night even for him

maybe he still thinks it's 1999 when fergie supposedly went into the dressing room before the last game against spurs and gave the famous team talk it's only tottenham lads. times can change

not much,chelski,newcastle give the same speech 6 months ago,

spurs have conceded more than 2 goals once in around 50 league games. yep plenty of evidence they're still a soft touch

keane's certainly not alone in trotting out ignorant nonsense. most pundits are the same

Tottenham need to score more goals if they don't achieve this they will miss out on trophies , its up to Levy to buy at least 2 or 3 top players , a top goalscorer and another good defender

thought city didn't play too bad not counting the pen and 4 goals. with aguero up top they'd have bagged 3 or 4 themselves.

where's Bony when you need him

with aguero up top they'd have bagged 3 or 4 themselves.

But Pep thought they could stifle Barca in midfield so he left his one world class player on the bench. How deluded is he A chastening night for the blue half of Westhoughton & Chorley.

Schooled over 90 mins and I dont think even think barca left second gear. Pleasure to watch city get torn apart

The Pep delusion utterly destroyed.

City thought they were getting a genius who would wave his magic wand and suddenly they'd be the New Barca. Instead they have hired a man so far up himself he thought that he created the Barca Magic all by himself. A man too stupid to realise it was the genius of Messi all along. A man too stupid to even tell his goalkeeper to clear his lines.

was listening to r5 the other night b4 the game and the gushing over pep was way ott,but he's generally acknowledged worldwide as a great manager,on another night city might have held them but theres only one chance at a game and they got duly trounced,who are we to say the aguerro decision was wrong,thought up till the goal city were doing q well...

rommel it's almost as if you and the English media have never watched Barca. That is what they do. They look fairly harmless for long periods then all of a sudden Messi appears in the box with the ball at his feet and no one with 5 yards. Then he has the ball outside the box and he casually whips it in. Then he's free in the box again.

It only takes 3 moments of magic. I bet the total time is no more than 20 seconds. City looked okay until Messi struck but they were soundly thrashed. Grown men crying in every pub in Stalybridge.

1p-thanks for that football lesson,i'd never really noticed this fella messi till the other night

You are not alone. Pep spent years at Barca and thought all the silverware was down to his own genius.

Pep took 139 games to win 100 games with Barcelona. Enrique did it in 125 games. Yet Enrique is widely perceived as someone lucky, and just has amazing players to win things for him.

Oct 21, 2016 -- 9:38AM, rommel wrote:

1p-thanks for that football lesson,i'd never really noticed this fella messi till the other night

1p suggested the Simeone had found the way to beat Barcelona the other day. Having unblocked him recently I realise it's like reading a newspaper saying that a bus has been found on the moon

Have a laugh at this one too

You are not alone. Pep spent years at Barca and thought all the silverware was down to his own genius.

Simeone'CL record against Barca P4 W2 D1 L1 GF5 GA3

Next you'll be telling me Sir Purlpe nose's success was down to him

at least Guardiola has taken on a challenge, SAF sat at United for 25 years bathing in the glory of winning the league at the richest club in the world.

Ten games in and the Pep delusion is over. The genius went to Barca with a team set up to stifle them and ended up getting hammered 4-0 by a Barca side that never even got out of seeing gear.

Looking forward to the return game in 10 days. Can't T wait to see Pep's next tactical masterpiece

When do United next play Barca, or any other big club in Europe?

Manchester United 3 oil rig 0

I expect United to be back in the CL by 2018/19. No point in being there next season as we won't be ready to compete. We'd just be also rans like City.

Let's get the thread back on track;

In 2013/14 Simeone's AM knocked out Barca in the quarter finals. The defending champions Bayern Munich led by young genius Pep Guardiola were spanked 5-0 on aggregate by RM. A humiliating 0-4 at home.

Incidentally Manuel Pellegrini's City were knocked out by Barca but on by the aggregate score of 4-1


In 2014/15 Barca knocked out Pep's Bayern Munich. Again Barca also knocked out Pellegrini's City in the round of 16 but only by an aggregate score of 3-1. Well done Manuel.


In 2015/16 Simeone's AM knocked Barca out in the quarter finals. They then knocked Pep's Bayern Munich out in the semi finals. City were also knocked out in the semis by RM but only by an aggregate of 1-2

So we can see that despite the bollox spouted by themover Simeone has a great record against Barca in the Champions League. We can also see that separated from Messi Pep has a fairly mediocre record in the Champions League.

We can also see that Manuel Pellegrini was making very good progress before the ex-Barca hierarchy at City decided what they really needed was some of Pep's Magic

"since Luis Enrique took charge, the Catalans have gone on a perfect run against their tricky counterparts, with six wins from their last six encounters.

Barça 3-1 Atlético: Iconic match

Barça gained revenge for losing out on the title with goals from each one of the front three. Neymar Jr, Suárez and Messi left an iconic image after the third goal as they wheeled away together in celebration.

Barça 1-0 Atlético: Late drama

Ten days later, the two sides met again, this time in the Copa del Rey. In a tightly contested affair, Barca eventually got the breakthrough with five minutes remaining. Messi’s penalty was saved but the Argentine was there on the rebound to give his side a narrow first-leg win.

Atlético 2-3 Barça: Progression to cup semis 

Fernando Torres’ early opener was soon cancelled out by Neymar. Atlético took the lead from the spot but an own goal from Miranda and another from Neymar saw Barca progress comfortably to the semi-finals.

Atlético 0-1 Barça: Messi hands first title of treble

Barça travelled to the Vicente Calderon knowing that a win would wrap up the league title. It was an extremely close game but up stepped Messi in the 65th minute to score the goal that would seal the first of three trophies that season.

Atlético 1-2 Barça: Messi the hero from the bench

Unable to train in the week, Messi began amongst the substitutes in this league encounter. Torres gave Atletico the lead before Neymar’s free-kick brought the sides level. On 59 minutes, Messi came off the bench to score the decisive goal.

Barça 2-1 Atlético: Another comeback

It was a meeting between the two sides joint-top of La Liga. Koke handed Atletico an early lead but a magical team goal finished by Messi soon brought Barça level. Suárez showed his true striking instincts as he rolled Godin before slotting through Oblak’s legs to give the goal that would separate the two teams and give Barça a three-point lead at the top with a game in hand."

You do like to change the subject and compare apples with oranges don't you

Pep was hired to bring City the Champions League.

The facts speak for themselves, in the Champion's League Simeone well and truly has Barca's number.

At Munich Pep took over the reigning European champions. Remember they Beat his barca 7-0 in the semis on the way to lifting the trophy. Leading Bayern in the next 3 seasons he couldn't even take them to a final.

Face the facts - separated from Lionel Messi his record in the Champions League is poor and a level below that of Simeone's.

I had a bet with £3.65 on this match.After watching the kick off logged on and placed another bet to the same stake.This bet lost but i received no refund.I emailed and was told only bets after 19.48.02 would be refunded.I telephoned them this morning and was given the refund straight away.The kick offs in Champions League are always timed to be exactly 7.45 anyone else had this problem ?