Martin Samuel on Pep

Any manager can be magnanimous when his team has just scored seven. Even so, there was uncommon generosity in the way Pep Guardiola summed up Manchester City's win over Stoke.
'I am very pleased for our fans again,' he said. 'They came here, they could enjoy nine goals, so that is good. Football is marvellous — of course when you win — but when both teams can score a lot of goals.'
Both teams? Really? Will he truly be hoping that Napoli chip in with the odd one, too? Doubt it. Looking at his reaction when opponents score, it is not like he could be mistaken for a fortnight's holiday in Benidorm.

Yet we get what he means. He doesn't want the other team to score, but if there are nine goals going and the game is so open that they do, he'll live with it — provided Manchester City get the lion's share. On Saturday, City had the surplus by five — so Guardiola was buoyant, and in no mood to begrudge Stoke their two.

Those who see dark, hidden meanings in harmless sentences — Mauricio Pochettino, perhaps — may also have detected a commentary on events down the road. 
Guardiola will have been able to watch at least some of Liverpool's match with Manchester United and his delight in a game in which both teams could score may have been matched by disdain for one in which a goal seemed less likely to arrive than a real-life Liver Bird.

If so, no harm in that. There cannot be a genuine football lover of any impartiality right now who would not rather watch the football Guardiola is offering ahead of the alternatives elsewhere in the Premier League.

We used to mock Kevin Keegan's naivety for imagining he could win games 4-3 and still claim the title, but what Guardiola has laid before us is a significant upgrade on that ideal, and may just work. He has better forwards than Keegan had and a clearer vision of what he wants to achieve.
Keegan was a motivator who, on the day he stood down as England manager, as good as admitted his tactical shortcomings. He knew something was wrong against Germany, he said, but he did not know how to fix it. Guardiola is a coach, a tactician — and an extremely gifted one. 

Every player at Manchester City has improved under his tutelage, even the defenders. He has made a left wing back of Fabian Delph, a centre half of John Stones, he has restored Raheem Sterling to the player that made such an impact at Liverpool. Gabriel Jesus drew a comparison with Lionel Messi on Match of the Day at the weekend, and he is turning Kevin De Bruyne into one of the greatest players in the world. 
We know City are different, too, because statisticians need to hark back to Victorian times for comparisons. Their 29 goals in eight league matches is the most prolific start since Everton in 1894-95. 

That was the year of the first Merseyside derby, when Everton's players were rewarded with 'silk hats worth 20 shillings' for their 3-0 win. It was a time of Woolwich Arsenal, Newton Heath — so no Manchester United, not yet — and The Wednesday.


There were 32 clubs in the Football League, only one south of Birmingham, and no automatic promotion and relegation. Juventus, AC Milan, Bayern Munich and Ajax did not exist. So it is straight-out contrary to insist that what City have done so far is not special.
League titles are not won in October, but potential can most certainly be shown and, this form maintained, City have the potential to be among the greatest champions England has seen.
And, on the way, if they ship a few goals — four to Manchester United's two so far — well, Guardiola will force a smile and act as if it is all for the greater good. Which it will be — because if his team continues playing like this, they have the capacity to change English football for a lot longer than one season. Just as Barcelona raised the standards of the elite in Spain.

Guess I should counter a proper journalist, with the ever-laughable wife beaters latest tirade:

The post-match knocking of Manchester United following their goalless draw at Liverpool has been quite stunning.
I even heard some Manchester City fans crowing, ‘We want to win games and win them well’.
Which is rubbish — I don’t remember it being about style over substance for them two decades ago when they were scraping through third-tier finals at Wembley.
City just wanted to get up the leagues back then and they didn’t care how they did it.
Yet here they are, 20 years and a billionaire sheikh later, basking in the gloriousness of life in Pepville.
It may well be pretty nice at the moment there but I will tell them this.
If I was still a player I’d have been much happier with a 0-0 draw away from home against our biggest rivals than scoring seven but conceding two to a Stoke team who will finish in the bottom half of the table.
What did we actually learn about City at the weekend? Not a lot.
We know they’ll score fives, sixes and sevens at times this season but we also know they’ll concede goals that, really, they shouldn’t.
It doesn’t matter if you win 10-4 or 1-0 you still earn the same number of points, but ultimately it will be the number of clean sheets you keep that win you the title.
So what did we learn about United at the weekend?
We learned that they can go to Anfield for their toughest away fixture of the season, take on a team with three of four of the best attacking players in the Premier League, keep them at bay and grind out a result.
That shows they have the character and the steeliness that will take them a long way, and even though they didn’t win there’s still only two points between them and the noisy neighbours.
Having played in games between Liverpool and Manchester United, I can tell you how important it is not to lose.
And if Saturday’s clash had ended up 4-3 to Liverpool, no United fan would have come away saying, ‘Oh well, at least we played the United way’.
No, they’d have been absolutely miserable about but as it was they could not their heads and say, ‘Decent point, that’.
So anyone who slags off Mourinho for the job he did at the weekend is a football illiterate.
And if you think Sir Matt Busby and Sir Alex Ferguson never went into a game thinking, ‘Even if it means not playing the United way we don’t lose this fixture’, then you are mistaken.
You have to understand the nuances of football to understand the away point United picked up at the weekend was a great one.
Don’t get me wrong, some of the football City have played this season — not least on Saturday — has been amazing, absolutely superb.
But what will determine Pe Guardiola’s success is not how they play, it’s whether or not they can get one more point than the team in second.
That isn’t a given while they are conceding two goals in games against teams such as Stoke.

He really is a bitter bastard. "Pepville" "Scraping through third-tier finals at Wembley"...

Who wrote that bile ridden load of shit?

Guess what mr shit for brains 'journalist', if we'd won 1-0 instead of 6-1 a few seasons back who'd  have won the league? Dickhead

Wife or girlfriend beater sort of gave it away.

sounds like Collywobblers style there?

How did United do against Stoke ? 

If we had won 1 or 2 -0 then he would have slated us for struggling against a poor Stoke team, can’t win against bitter idiots like him. Utd played against 3 of the best attacking players in the league? Wasn’t Mane suspended?

but Jordan Henderson was still playing  :p

ManCityMan wrote:If we had won 1 or 2 -0 then he would have slated us for struggling against a poor Stoke team, can’t win against bitter idiots like him. Utd played against 3 of the best attacking players in the league? Wasn’t Mane suspended?

Mane is injured and Liverpool are supposed to have a dodgy defence

Didn't United draw at Stoke?

if memory serves me they allowed the mighty stoke to score 2 goals also...