A good interview on Sky, presumably ahead of tonight’s game, with Pellegrini where he touches on several things including changing the mentality and style of play at the club. :ok:
What is interesting is that stat set which suggests slight improvement in all main areas, but clearly no revolution overnight. His impact has been small at the moment, but I think any real influence will start to surface next season. I think if by the end of next season we have regressed, we could probably think of his time here as uninspiring, but I expect us to be a lot better next season beyond the slight improvement we have seen this season.
I think he is the ideal manager for us right now and to be honest think he would have been the perfect fit for us after Sam went or before we moved into the OS. Think we may have adjusted to that new ground a lot better with him in charge. I like his philosophy, I like his signings, I like his focus on youth when they are good enough, he comes across well and doesn’t bring us any unwanted media attention or negative press.
Just imagine how further up the table we would be if we had taken points against teams around us. I looked at this around January and it’s just as stark now. The middle 6 are Leicester in 7th, down to Bournemouth in 13th.
Interesting stat - you would have hoped for a better return than just two wins out of ten against our peer group.
Eight out of thirteen against the bottom seven is probably above average and better than expectations, especially as for a chunk of the season the bottom seven were our peer group.
All in all it shows how just a little improvement can potentially make a big difference.
Just a second thought/conclusion, it goes some way to prove that the league does not lie, we appear to be clearly better than the bottom seven but stubbonly below average when compared to the middle six.
If we lose against Chelsea tonight, we will have the same record against the top six, compared to the teams around us!
And it’s even more annoying because if we had a win rather than a loss in a game against the middle 6 (I’m looking at those 4 lost home games), it would have given us a six point swing against the opponent.
I decided to do one for Wolves, who have supposedly had a far better season than us.
They’ve done much better than us against the middle six, meaning they’ve take a lot of points off teams around them. While their record against the bottom teams is actually worse than their record against the top six!
So our manager again IMO picked the wrong starting 11, how many times do we accept this, he will get away with it this, his 1st season, however sadly I think he will be severely caught out next, I mean starting Hernandez as a lone striker is a :doh: and Perez in the starting 11 recently surely must be another :doh: ...
I will give him the benefit of doubt for now, but not next season...
IMHO I still feel he is wrong for us, whatever attacking football he is "trying" to achieve, I do hope I am very wrong though :ok:
He's default seems to be blaming injuries now but he has what I would say is his best 11 on the pitch and has had that for a number of games. If I hear the injury excuse again or the we weren't up for it mantle piece again might start calling him Jose.
Comments
What I have been thoroughly unimpressed with is some if his team selections
Everytime we've gone 442 we've been awful, and he doesn't notice it
And he plays Perez....Perez who is already out the door in the summer
He needs another summer where we give him a large transfer kitty but it doesn't look like we will see a similar investment to last year
https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/11687286/manuel-pellegrini-exclusive-ex-manchester-city-boss-trying-to-transform-west-ham
I think he is the ideal manager for us right now and to be honest think he would have been the perfect fit for us after Sam went or before we moved into the OS. Think we may have adjusted to that new ground a lot better with him in charge. I like his philosophy, I like his signings, I like his focus on youth when they are good enough, he comes across well and doesn’t bring us any unwanted media attention or negative press.
Eight out of thirteen against the bottom seven is probably above average and better than expectations, especially as for a chunk of the season the bottom seven were our peer group.
All in all it shows how just a little improvement can potentially make a big difference.
And it’s even more annoying because if we had a win rather than a loss in a game against the middle 6 (I’m looking at those 4 lost home games), it would have given us a six point swing against the opponent.
They’ve done much better than us against the middle six, meaning they’ve take a lot of points off teams around them. While their record against the bottom teams is actually worse than their record against the top six!
I will give him the benefit of doubt for now, but not next season...
IMHO I still feel he is wrong for us, whatever attacking football he is "trying" to achieve, I do hope I am very wrong though :ok:
If I hear the injury excuse again or the we weren't up for it mantle piece again might start calling him Jose.
Or perhaps they were tiled?
:yercoat: