‘Pep’ered.

It’s taken me some time to ‘put pen to paper’, which I finally did yesterday, after last Sunday’s defeat to Wolves; partly due to being busy but also trying to snap myself out of a certain amount of disappointment at the way we set up and went about our business against our visitors last Sunday, who thoroughly deserved all-3 points.

Even the best…

Do I love Pep to bits? That’s like asking if Puma have given us two awful away kits in their first season with us. “Yes, of course!”, is the exclaimed answer!

But as the team news filtered through on Sunday afternoon, I began head-scratching and wondered if we had some late injuries that I wasn’t yet aware of…or had simply misheard. You see, I was in my local before the game and there were 8 Wolves fans in there. Whilst sat outside in the reasonably sunny & warm day, 2 of ‘em came out and began to read through our starting 11 on one of their phones and as I strained my slightly-dodgy ears to listen, I could have sworn they mentioned 2 right-backs as well as making no mention of Bernardo Silva.

 

They then went on to try to grasp any hope that they might get something out of the game; with one fan saying that it’s okay to ‘write this game off’, while the other gave credit to his own team’s defence and added that, “If we can just sneak a goal…”.

Anyhow, as I left, I turned to the group and said, “Enjoy the game lads”. I meant it…but not THAT much and as the final whistle blew, I began to regret my kind, departing words…

Pep is a tactical genius and has ‘that magic touch’ of improving so many players in so many ways. But even he has got things wrong since he became leader of our team – a few faux pas in his first ever season with us, as he was getting used to the league, and a cup, team-selection error or 3 in at least one of the games where we faced Wigan, spring to mind.

Last Sunday, for me anyway, was definitely one to add to that [thankfully] short list of ‘Guardiola bloopers’.

Why…WHY pick 2 right-backs and plonk one of ‘em on the left, even if Cancelo did come with the ‘rider’, “…can play on the left”?! Then to discover later on that Kyle Walker wasn’t fully over a recent illness, so I’ve heard, makes that decision even more baffling!

And what did Pep put on his bench? 2 flippin’ left-wing backs in the form of Angelino and Zinchenko!

Did he have it half-in-his-mind that he might have to withdraw Kyle early, who was having as-poor-a-game as most of the rest…but perhaps hoped that, by then, we might be a couple of goals ahead and, so, giving himself the option of bringing one of the fair-haired defenders on and shifting Joao over to his preferred right side? Would that be classed as…arrogant?

And why risk an apparently recovering Walker and play Cancelo on the left when we already have a makeshift, central defence to be slightly concerned about? I mean…WHY?!

I remind readers at this point that, apart from not knowing before the game about Walker being ‘under the weather’, all of this head-scratching was going on with me BEFORE the match and isn’t just ‘hindsight rambling’.

Then we had the central midfield conundrum.

So…you have arguably one of our best and most creative players out injured, in Kevin De Bruyne; we’re at home and are about to go into an international break where you want to, at the very least, maintain the status quo with regards to, ‘keeping up with the Scousers’.

Do you start with ‘the next best thing’ in terms of possible assists and attacking threat or do you leave that on the bench in case needed later on? Of COURSE you start him!

Why the hell was Bernardo Silva left on the side as second choice to Ilkay Gundogan?!

I’m not in the camp of people, which seems to be gaining more tents as weeks go by, who don’t like Ilkay – I think he’s a “good” player and certainly has his uses, even by our high standards. In fact, whenever we have a full-strength team, he’s still good & experienced enough, in my opinion, to feel confident that he should, at least, make the bench; even if a lot of fans would prefer to see Phil Foden there more often and instead of the German international.

But to consider him ahead of Bernardo for the Wolves game just beggars belief and I honestly believe that if we’d have started with Joao on the right, Oleksandr on the left and had a wing / midfield 4 of Raheem, David, Bernardo & Riyad behind Sergio that we would have put last Sunday’s game out of sight before any possible counter attack from our well-organised visitors. I might be wrong – and there’s no way to test that, of course – but I’m confident that would have been the case.

Pep Guardiola 0-2 Nuno Espirito Santo (make the sign of the cross now)

Damage done?

What can you say? We’re flippin’ 8 points behind Liverpool and although we’ve been in that position before much later on in the season, our rivals, apart from being good as they are, worryingly seem to be getting through games with a good degree of luck; with very few (if any) VAR decisions against them and with opposition teams misfiring against Liverpool a lot of the time.

I don't like it when a team appears to be getting more than their fair share of fortune and unless we see a radical change in all of those factors with The Reds, I think we’ve now put ourselves in a position that might be too much to recoup…

But, of course, it is a very, VERY long season ahead and all of those factors could start to equal themselves out - not forgetting also that we’ve had injuries, two of them very bad, to three, VERY key players and Liverpool have not had likewise.

So…let us pray to the Gods of football.

The 2-week break.

Usually I bemoan such things, especially at this stage of the season where we’re only 8 league games in and we’ve ALREADY had one international break before this latest one!

However, I think it’ll be to our advantage in that it’ll give Pep, his staff and those players who won’t be travelling to meet their international colleagues time to evaluate last weekend’s failings and ‘things in general’. It’ll also give time for the physios to work with those who need a little TLC.

I also don’t think Liverpool will welcome the domestic break, unless I’m misreading the situation; as a lot of us know that when you’re ‘on a roll’ you don’t want it to end…and coming back together to face a trip to a desperate Manyoo side at Cold Trafford might not be the ideal situation.

Some of that might sound like ‘desperate talk’ but, hey…even the best require some help whenever the need arises.

Final word…

Despite injuries and a couple of ‘blips’ in this short season so far, we’re still in fine fettle Blues. And, of course, we’re still living the dream! Which club - and “when” if ever at all - are going to repeat the achievements of our wonderful football club from last season?!

Thanks, as always, for taking the time to read and let’s look forward to our next game a-week-on-Saturday.