Caporegime
- Joined
- 18 Oct 2002
- Posts
- 33,188
Guardiola's entire plan is pretty much sacrifice defence for more bodies in midfield and total domination offence. The problem is much as I like Sterling, think KDB is magic and rate Ihaenacho, two of them are relatively inexperienced one of them is hugely inexperienced and not used to leading the line. When Guardiola had Iniesta/Xavi and the rest in that great Barca side these were 25-28yr old midfielders who had huge huge experience and were several years ahead of where Sterling/KDB are in terms of games played.
The Barca defence was often caught out but you had the brilliance of Puyol and Valdes saving them time after time but mostly the midfield/offence preventing 95% of attacks from ever starting.
Here his system is sacrificing the defence, with MUCH worse defenders and no where near as good or settled/ready an offence. So they aren't scoring as much as Barca by a mile, they don't have Messi destroying every team and they don't have the ability to prevent 95% of attacks.
Guardiola is playing the only way he's so far demonstrated he can, but his system really only works with a somewhat settled, excellent and experienced team like he had with Barca and Bayern.
I think people do forget the home grown quota, it's part of the reason Stones cost so much and one of the reasons I think they took the risk, he did show some really brilliant defending in that first 6 months with Everton but frankly since he missed several months injured he's never looked a patch on his first run of form.
Guardiola with a squad of this quality has to adapt his tactics, he probably needs to dump the three at the back and not focus purely on offence. He needs a system that will work without most of the best players in the world.
The Barca defence was often caught out but you had the brilliance of Puyol and Valdes saving them time after time but mostly the midfield/offence preventing 95% of attacks from ever starting.
Here his system is sacrificing the defence, with MUCH worse defenders and no where near as good or settled/ready an offence. So they aren't scoring as much as Barca by a mile, they don't have Messi destroying every team and they don't have the ability to prevent 95% of attacks.
Guardiola is playing the only way he's so far demonstrated he can, but his system really only works with a somewhat settled, excellent and experienced team like he had with Barca and Bayern.
I think people do forget the home grown quota, it's part of the reason Stones cost so much and one of the reasons I think they took the risk, he did show some really brilliant defending in that first 6 months with Everton but frankly since he missed several months injured he's never looked a patch on his first run of form.
Guardiola with a squad of this quality has to adapt his tactics, he probably needs to dump the three at the back and not focus purely on offence. He needs a system that will work without most of the best players in the world.
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