paulw66

Sparta did nothing Slavia had some chances :-)

And now, the pundits are convinced Spurs will beat Ajax, despite Ajax having beaten Real and Juve.........

Also his team selection in the first leg was Ranieri-esque

when you spend that sort of money, there are only 2 trophies worth their salt. PL and CL. One PL and not even a semi in the CL is awful His CL record at CIty, last 16, QF, QF, is appalling. At least he got Bayern to the semis. The last two seasons he has lost to a domestic team, Liverpool, who finsihed 25 points behind, and then Spurs currently 16 points behind.

I don't quite follow.......I also presume Juve and Ajax might object to the sweeping statement above. Even Monaco not that long ago. I am proposing a reduced CL 4 groups of 4 perhaps. You'd only lose the round of last 16. Go straight into QFs Champions from England, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Holland, Portugal, and CL holders, then the remaining nations have a play off for CL/EL qualification.

Alternatively, reduce the CL to just the winners, then the Europa League / UEFA cup becomes a lot stronger and more interesting. Like it used to be.

Yes, you're right......he will need a bigger squad too. What he has achieved so far on a shoestring is simply remarkable. Genius

If City fail to win the league, Pep's 3 year reign can only be classed as failure.

Becasue he hasn't played for months. Literally

Sorry, yes, I meant big enough in terms of numbers and quality

All of those bad results, directly in and around extra midweek fixtures. Bournemouth, Everton and Liverpool all 0-0 at half time, 0-8 on aggregate - 2nd half fatigue.

Have no idea who takes the field here......Rudiger injured I presume. Imagine Kepa, Alonso, AC, Barkley, Pedro all start........Kovacic too.

Squad isn't big enough. Whilst most PL teams had a January with no midweek fixtures, we had two draining semi final games against Spurs (who themselves have had serious wobbles in 2019). Both Merseyside defeats had good first halves and poor second - both after an away European game It's quite simple really - the squad isn't big enough / strong enough to try and win 4 competitions, and we really shouldn't have tried to.

"decent achievement" was the phrase I used. For a team without a half decent striker, we are doing as well as can be expected no, we didn't - a draw would have been fine. I guess he was hoping for a repeat of the 2 games we played a false 9 against City.

Two days extra rest, and no travel As above. The EL really is a drain on resources. We played 45 games in Conte's first season. Of course we had more energy, that and a top striker. How did Conte do once that striker had gone? Quite. 5 or more points from the last 4 games and we overtake Conte's tally from last year Somewhat of an imposible thing to prove, other than say, where does Josh play (sometimes) now?