Mails: Guardiola is not the man for City…

Ian Watson

If you want a Sunday Mailbox, you know what to do: theeditor@football365.com

Pep talk for Guardiola
To address a few of the more persistent criticisms directed against Pep Guardiola:

Cheque Book Manager: This summer’s outlay on fullbacks is certainly substantial, but that’s largely because this is a position that City have not spent any money on at all since 2011, and that was £7M on Gael Clichy. There is certainly an argument that the club were negligent in their planning to lumber Pep with four aging fullbacks unable to properly play his system in his first season, and believe me City fans are still hashing that one out, but blaming Guardiola for being the man in the hot seat as this much needed renewal takes place doesn’t really make much sense.

Other than that, big clubs spend big money. City came third last season and bowed out in the round of 16 in the Champions League, and therefore are trying to strengthen their team and close that gap. Not sure what else there is to say on this element.

Man Management: Sergio Aguero had his most prolific season as a Man City player. I hope Pep ruins the rest of our team to that extent. Sarcasm aside, it was definitely an adjustment for Aguero to start playing how Pep wanted him and by the end of the season he was doing everything asked of him and playing brilliantly as a result.

The fact that no one is willing to pay a transfer fee for Joe Hart does somewhat vindicate the decision to move him on. It’s also worth pointing out that while replacing Joe Hart was arguably the right decision, choosing Claudio Bravo to be that replacement certainly appears to have been the wrong one. The move made all kinds of sense in theory but didn’t pan out. That happens all the time at literally every football club. The club then took decisive action this summer and signed a new goalkeeper.

Yaya Toure had been allowed to get lazy and complacent under Pellegrini and looked doomed for a sad, undignified end to a glittering career with City. But Pep held firm, told him what he needed to do and got him back in shape and in decent form.

He offered Samir Nasri the chance to stay and fight for his place last season, but Nasri didn’t want to and went out on loan to Sevilla. Again, fair enough.

Developing Players: Far too soon to judge on his time at City alone, although his past successes bringing players through at Barcelona and Bayern should hopefully not need to be elaborated on too much. I’m pretty sure Pep will see it as a personal failure if he can’t get players like Stones, Sterling, Sane etc. to reach their potential, so let’s wait until he’s had a few years with them first, shall we?

Phil Foden: Completely irrelevant, just wanted to mention this lad again. Good Lord what a performance that was.

Looking forward to an excellent new season!
The Gruge, Chicago, MCFC

 

…After noting the first mail this week, from a Utd fan, asking why our Pep is less criticised and or / written about in a manner implying ever increasing pressurisation, as caused by our club signing players, when compared to the constant chuntering we hear with regard his more rouged comrade Jose; I thought it would be churlish of me to respond as that may inadvertently highlight a potential lack of self-awareness within the fan base that seem to be posing said question.

That, of course, would be the very last thing that I would want to do. So I let it slide.

After reading the second one, I was tempted again, but in the end thought… f*** it….

Then I began to read an attempt by one of the fuckers to start the ball rolling himself, which sealed the deal.

So bite, I have.

The reason for the difference is primarily due to the fact that within non-media circles, it is actually Man United’s own fans who are doing all the whining and sniping, barring perhaps the odd spiteful Kopite. Now, the Kopites seem to like having a pop at other teams with a general scattergun approach, almost entirely lacking in any logic beyond their own special mathematics. A random spewage of crap that is exemplified by the oddly synchronous pops a couple of them decided to have at Chelsea for signing the fabulous Alvaro Morata – a player Liverpool would benefit from immensely, but who despite having obtained Champions League football, they still stood little better than a snowball-in-hells chance of signing themselves.

But I digress…

If it is actually the delightful Man United fan base who are responsible for the difference in atmosphere surrounding their manager and ours, we might look at the reasons for it. It may perhaps be one or more of the below:

1) City fans don’t give as much of a sh*t;
2) More City fans have jobs and or work harder while at work;
3) City fans, on average, have more sex;
3) City fans appreciate that Pep is trying to build a team that plays wonderful football and so are being patient;
4) United fans are goldfish-like in that they have forgotten the two trophies that they won last year;
5) United fans are concerned that the style of football being created by Mourinho, in order to satisfy their pathological need to win trophies, perhaps in part to justify the distance from home that their club is located; is in some way threatening some sort of ‘way’ that they perceive the club as operating in accordance with. This leads to irrationally higher demands and/or a dogmatic predilection for bashing said Mourinho whenever possible;
6) The Manchester United fanbase contains a higher proportion of sweltering, overblown dickheads than their City rivals’. We only have one of those – me.

Take your pick. Couldn’t really give a rat’s ass.

Enjoy what’s left of the summer compadres.

Love,
Ben (got a thesaurus for my birthday, thought it would be fun to use it here) MCFC, Manchester.

 

Pep’s easy ride
Vatsyayan Rahul (MUFC) raised a very valid point about Pep, why doesn’t he get any Malice from the press for things Mourinho or Wenger definitely would do? Guardiola certainly isn’t more likable than either of those managers to me while also being less entertaining off the pitch. He crosses me as a dour joyless sort of guy who seems to resent being asked any valid yet tough questions by journalists (some of his behavior in post game interviews last season was frankly bizarre) and last season his teams performance was poor by the standards everybody expected but yet the media still say very little or nothing negative about him.

This site however much I love it is also culpable as quite a few mails I’ve sent in criticizing Pep were not posted, that is fair enough it’s the editors decision after all. On one occasion though a mail comparing Zidane and Pep was post with 99% of the negative things said about Pep edited out which raises the question, why?

I’m sure we’d all like to hear an explanation from somebody involved in football journalism. Can somebody at this site maybe accommodate that request if it isn’t a big secret punishable by death for revealing…Daniel Storey perhaps?
William, Leicester

 

In response to Vatsyayan (MUFC Fan), I have a few thoughts on Pep and the transformation at Manchester City over the past decade.

I have supported City for as long as I can remember, and until my late teens was experiencing the roller coaster ride of supporting the club; journeys through the top three tiers of English football, to stabilise and become a regular in the top flight again in the 00’s.

Once the club was sold to Shinawatra and we appointed Eriksson as manager, I had real hope that the team would be able to challenge for European football. Once new players started arriving for larger transfer fees, it still felt okay to me as none of these names were world class players. I didn’t expect a win every week, and every time were competed with one of the top Premier League sides I was satisfied. I think that is what meant something supporting City – every win meant something.

Under the new ownership, and the hundreds of millions of pounds that have been spent, I find myself growing more and more disillusioned each year. The wave of new fans that have come with the money is frustrating, I know the majority of these fans have no clue what is was like watching Ali Benarbia and Eyal Berkovic guide the City team back into the Premier League with style. They would have no memories of Paul Dickov’s last minute equaliser against Gillingham which led to Nicky Weaver’s heroics. All the things which meant so much to me have no relevance to them.

This leads to my main reason of writing this mail – Pep. When he arrived, I genuinely believe we were going to see the most free flowing attacking football seem in the English game. The first five games of the season showed signs that there was a real change in the playing style and a complete dominance of each opponent. I’m not sure what changed – whether it was the players being unable to learn Pep’s methods or if they thought results could be achieved a different way – but whatever it was really rubbed me the wrong way.

The criticisms of Aguero, the treatment of Hart, the inconsistent performances, and the Champions League disappointments have all led me to believe Pep is not the answer we were looking for. He shouldn’t have to spend these vast amounts of money; surely any decent manager can throw a competitive team together with unlimited funds.

The only hope I have now, which Nic from Lancaster brought up yesterday, is young Phil Foden. I think that is what the genuine City fans really want to see. If a few local lads can make the team and make the grade, then I will be convinced. I don’t need to see City run away with league titles. It’s great to be challenging but I want a team who will fight for eachother, where playing for the club means something. To be honest I don’t think Guardiola wants that, but hey, I hope he proves me wrong.
Matt, Australia.

 

Foden thrill
I recall watching a 16 year old English man absolutely run the show during the Emirates Cup many moons ago. He honestly looked like the most unbelievable talent I had seen for his age.

So good luck to City and I wish Foden all the best. But remember all that Wilsheres isn’t gold.
Sean.

 

Intelligence is a black and white issue
I wouldn’t normally bother but felt compelled to write in response to Doc Joshi and his take on the “intelligence” issue regarding Lukaku and Morato. He’s obviously correct in everything he says, but I think he’s skirted around the most pressing issue in an attempt to be fair and balanced. He needn’t be so reserved. I’m sure he understands, as we all should, that the cause of the perception is cut-and-dried racism. Not much more needs to be said really.
Frew, MUFC

 

I read a few emails now from Arsenal fans saying they’ve got a good shot at the league next year as they are not playing Champions League football, have they forgot they are in the Europa? That Liverpool / Leicester / Chelsea all did well partly due to the fact that they had absolutely no European football. We’ve seen how Tottenham have suffered in the past, and it is not a competition they can afford to ignore with 6/7 teams aiming for Champs League places. Previous English clubs exerts have shown you can’t just phone it in till the semis.

Best Wishes
David McDougall (Got my wife a belt and a bag for her birthday, the hoover has never worked so well)

 

…Doc Joshi, MUFC makes some really great points about how strange it is for journalists to say that Morata is more intelligent or has better footballing intelligence (whatever that is) than Lukaku – despite the numbers indicating otherwise. But I’d say Doc Joshi doesn’t go far enough, and only alludes to the root cause of this framing: implicit bias and “soft” racism. This might have been discussed previously in the mailbox, but I think it’s worth bringing it up again.

This is a huge problem in sports narratives here in the United States, particularly in American Football and basketball. Black athletes are primarily described according to their physical characteristics – they’re always “explosive”, “powerful”, or “a force of nature”, while their white counterparts are “crafty”, “clever” and “real students of the game.” It bleeds over into perceptions that the quarterback role is traditionally a white one, because you need someone who can “read the field.” As we have seen over and over, this is nothing but absolute garbage – if you’re good enough, you’re good enough, no matter what your ethnic or national origin is.

Language is incredibly powerful and colours the way we view people – often for years. It’s incredibly inflammatory to suggest that Romelu Lukaku, a young man who left his home country in his mid-teens to be a professional athlete and has been remarkably successful at every club he’s played, lacks intelligence or is intellectually inferior to his white peer.
Jose, MUFC, Washington DC (founding member of the Quinton Fortune fan club)

 

…This is in response to Doc Moshi on his mail about Lukaku’s intelligence. It is a very well written piece but he conveniently ignores the obvious reason people find Lukaku unintelligent, race. You conveniently opts for the style argument and you might have had a point if the audience you’re referring to was South American. The idea that the British Isles audience prefer strikers who gets involved in build up play, likes to dribble around and are not prolific is far from my experience based on newspaper articles and comment sections, blogs, podcasts and everything that expose me to their football thought process. I can say that I noticed Sturridge wasn’t well liked even when scoring goals, Sterling cannot even hope for begrudging respect, a Rashford get begrudging respect but nothing more. on the other hand Kane is now a new God, Wilshire mania is just now dying off long after the band stopped playing. I doubt this will make the site but know that most eyes who look at it understand the obvious must not be brought up out of politeness.
Pkilla (Here’s hoping Leicester get their second trophy)

 

Doc Joshi made so many great points in his excellent mail about Lukaku, Morata and “intelligence”, but missed one important factor.

There’s a reason why people are finding it easier to attribute intelligence to Morata than to Lukaku. It’s because one of them is black.

I’m not suggesting that every single person who can’t see Lukaku’s intelligence is sharing Katie Hopkins articles whilst getting EDL tattoos. But we’re all part of a society that has certain expectations about people of certain ethnicities.

Black players, even exceptional ones, are hardly ever described as intelligent. When a black midfielder controls a game, they’re described as a “beast” when a white player doing the same may be described as dictating the flow of the game or something similar. This racially based language sneaks into your vocabulary without you realising. Without thinking, you end up perpetuating racist stereotypes of what black players can achieve versus white players.

In order to break the cycle, we need to stop ourselves when we think about players in certain ways, and try to ask ourselves where these ideas are really coming from.

I was completely ignorant of how race influences the way we talk about footballers until reading Carl Anka’s fantastic piece “We Need to Talk About Raheem Sterling” last year. Well worth your time reading that.

Adam Shenton

 

…Comparing players on a binary ‘better or worse’, rather than relative utility/possibility to the team, is almost the textbook definition of laziness and the Lukaku – Morata debate is a classic example of people refusing to get involved in the more interesting aspects of team sports.

One is a drop-back, fast, play across the line striker, and the other is a target man/poacher hybrid. Lukaku’s main currency is goals and dominating CBs for fun, whereas Morata likes to run at people with the ball and can contribute an assist or two. Lukaku will be asked to do everything for Man Utd in the 18 yard box, whereas Conte will probably charge Morata with drawing defenders out to let Hazard, Pedro etc exploit the space in-between.

You can absolutely have two players who are the ‘best fit’ for teams, with either overlapping or indeed mutually exclusive talents, who still nominally play in the same position.

As for Lukaku and ‘football intelligence’, I honestly feel like that I complain about this every few weeks now in the Mailbox. This term, along with throwaway comments on ‘effort’ and ‘head for the game’ are short hand racist insults to black players, entirely unjustified and removed from who they are as a person, that associate a perceived weakness as an inherent trait.

Jesus Navas has been a terrible crosser and professional blind-alleyway runner for almost 7 years now, but it’s always been a technical flaw with him; unlike the same criticisms to Walcott, Lennon, SWP, Sterling etc who for time immemorial have faced the criticism of just not having the head for football, despite all being more talented than the aforementioned Spaniard.

Lukaku is a pleasure to watch, a pleasure to listen to and by all accounts a great player to play with. He’s also ridiculously good at football. Criticisms of ‘lack of intelligence’ are themselves lazy and unintelligent.

That being said, he now plays for Man Utd and Mourinho, both of whom I cannot stand, so I hope he is an unmitigated failure from now on.
Tom, (Also JoeMC, you can’t start a paragraph without ‘Firstly’ without getting a ‘Secondly’ and ‘Finally’ in later on. Poor form) West Hampstead

 

…Brainless is better. Doc Roshi’s response to Mina Rzouki’s claim, that intelligent players are worth thirty odd million more in todays market, is to suggest that intelligence is mediated by style. He argues that Lukkaku is intelligent because he ‘uses his physicality to dominate defenders’, he times his runs, he knows where to run and he has a stunning record. Therefore, the reason that Lukkaku is not considered intelligent is because we are either not measuring intelligence in the right way, or it is impossible to measure.

The problem for me is that both Mina’s, and Joshi’s, arguments conflate footballing intelligence with effectiveness. When actually, intelligence has no bearing on a striker’s effectiveness, or their ability to score goals.

Footballing intelligence is the part of a player’s game that doesn’t involve the physical or the technical. Barging past a player, out-pacing, or out-jumping a player just doesn’t constitute footballing intelligence (they’re physical characteristics, you don’t think about them). The same goes for having a great first touch, or shot (they’re instinctive characteristics). Being able to make runs is a tricky one but, if Theo Walcott can do it, it doesn’t count as intelligent. So, why would we value intelligence so highly when having a strong physical presence with sharp instincts is all you need to be a top striker?

The premier league’s top-scorer list is dominated by what I would call bone-headed lugs. Alan Shearer, Andrew Cole, Robbie Fowler, Jermain Defoe, Frank Lampard and Les Ferdinand. I’m sure Van Nistelrooy is up there somewhere too. Now, what all these players have in common is that they were both physical and instinctive.They never had to be intelligent because they were stronger, faster and technically better than their peers. This made them much more effective at scoring goals. In a way, for strikers brainless is better. It makes player’s rely on their instincts and physical advantages. When your job is to score goals in packed penalty areas you don’t need to think about inverting the pyramid.
Liam Gabriel Hoskins (I know Frank Lampard wrote a book, but it was a children’s book) AFC

 

United impressions
Looking at our pre-season games and our transfer activity, I had some thoughts on how we would play next season:
1.) our two man striking team looks potent and exciting, Lukaku and Rashford seem to complement each other extremely well. One being the big target man and the other a pacy, mobile striker. Their skill sets complement each other, and they will cause a lot of problems for defenders. Martial maybe to come in for Rashford now and then. I hope a 2 man striking team is something we consider playing
2.) Mkhitaryan seems to be enjoying football and it finally looks like he’s settled in the Manchester United team. Definitely one of the most talented players in the league, his issues with settling in and handling pressure definitely makes him a player who takes time to get used to a new environment (as we saw at his time in Dortmund, also don’t think Jose helped much). If he hits the ground running trust him to be one of the contenders for POTY. (in my opinion the most talented player in our squad)
3.) Central midfield is a problem area. Pogba and Herrera have made a good partnership. Pogba looking brilliant, WILL have a season that is going to put at doubts to rest, while Herrera as a player is someone you can’t help but admire. An absolute bastard yes, but a player with so much intelligence and someone who always puts in a shift and plays for the badge (his intelligence really reminds me of Lampard, a player hated by all rivals). But this leaves the issue of the new CM that is presumably going to come in. How do we fit the new player, Pogba, Herrera, Mkhitaryan, Rashford, Lukaku in the same formation? Mkhi seems to be much better centrally than out wide, a 4-4-2 diamond maybe? (I don’t think we need another winger)
4.) Expecting Lindelof and Bailly to make a long partnership in Central Defense. Lindelof looked slightly shaky in the pre-season games, hoping he settles in quickly. Antonio Valencia has been a rock at RB and will continue to be one. I can only hope that Luke Shaw finds his elusive fitness and form back and fulfills his immense potential for us. He was absolutely marauding in the last few games before his unfortunate leg break.
Yash, MUFC

 

A handsome XI, sans Giroud
I don’t know why this has been in my head for so long…Need to get it out

GK: David Seaman (not strictly handsome but has lovely hair…Joe Hart has dandruff issues so misses out)
CB: Gerrard Pique (Is this cheating? Did he ever play a game? Very handsome)
CB: Colin Hendry (not traditional, more of a rugged handsome b*stard)
CB: David Luiz (not handsome per se but you imagine with his hair he’d get a lot of attention from the fairer sex)
DM: Xabi Alonso (A man who will have my heart forever)
CM: Emre Can (Pretty handsome)
CM: Redknapp (Classic Spice Boy)
LW: Ginola (He’s worth it)
RW: T. Henry (Ridiculously good looking)
CF: C Ronaldo (Not such a fan but would feel silly not including him)
CF: Martial (Skin like caramel)
Minty, LFC (sort of handsome)