[Football] Wigan v Man City

[Kinky Gerbil]

Admittedly the data may not be 100% but I just had a look on transfermarkt and over the course of their managerial careers it seems Jose is more of a chequebook manager than Pep. Should also caveat this by saying Jose has been managing for about a decade longer than Pep too.

Mourinho: £1,290,127,500
Pep: £967,770,000

Either way that's utterly ridiculous sums of cash being spent by both men.

Jose was at Chelsea, Real (to keep up with Peps spending) United.

Inter I believe they broke even when they won the CL?

 

[Sarisbury Seagull]

I don't love him at all, but he has impressed me. I thought he was just a chequebook manager, and it was a real copout taking over the richest club in England when he could have taken on more of a challenge to show how good he was. But what he has done is create the best team I think we've ever seen in the premier league. Plenty of other clubs have spent loads of money and bought titles, but no other team has been as good as this one.

Spot on. Except I do love him a bit!

His Barca side were the greatest football side I've ever seen in over 30 years of watching football, by a distance. And I think he's on the way to doing it again with City. I love watching them.

 

[Rich Suvner]

Admittedly the data may not be 100% but I just had a look on transfermarkt and over the course of their managerial careers it seems Jose is more of a chequebook manager than Pep. Should also caveat this by saying Jose has been managing for about a decade longer than Pep too.

Mourinho: £1,290,127,500
Pep: £967,770,000

Either way that's utterly ridiculous sums of cash being spent by both men.

It's also about the squads they've inherited too - let's be honest Pep, despite clearly being an amazing manager when utilising fantastic players to implement his system, has never taken an unfavoured team to glory. Although I'd much rather watch his teams play football than Mourinho, Jose will always have that over him (ie Porto success in Europe) until he tries his luck at a lesser club. Unlikely I'd imagine.

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

When I say create the best team, its not about the players that are signed, its about the team and the way they play. They are astonishing to watch at times, the best team in England in my lifetime.

They were pretty poor last year, till they spent all that money in the summer on players.

 

[Kalimantan Gull]

I kinda get what you're saying, but hasn't he spent loads of money to MAKE them as good as they are? Yeah, they are the 'right' players, but he still hasn't exactly been on a tight budget...

They were pretty poor last year, till they spent all that money in the summer on players.

Yeah, sure, they've spent loads. So has every other dominant team in the last 15-20 years, and really its hard to work out what the value of players is anymore. Its not really about the price these days, any player can be afforded by any one of the top 10 sides in Europe, its whether the player wants to play for you. The top teams are assembling major collections of talent.

Its against that background that Pep has impressed, as he hasn't just assembled a good team that wins trophies, he's creating a super-team that can be utterly amazing to watch and have been so utterly dominant (albeit slightly ridiculous to be having this discussion after they've lost to Wigan). I expected Man City to be more like Chelsea last year or Man U this, so its that extra level that has impressed me about Pep - when I was certainly very ready to dismiss him as a manager with money who hasn't really proved himself and indeed chuckling at his struggles last year

 

[LamieRobertson]

Augero claiming he was was spat at ..hence his response to Wigan fan

 

[Lady Whistledown]

I think if fans REALLY want to get on the pitch, there's not a lot anyone can do, as we saw last season, and indeed in 2008 when we beat City in the League Cup at Withdean.

No, this is true, although there barely looked to be any stewards around the pitch at all as it neared the end. Some games, you see a line of them emerging around the pitch in the dying minutes of a game.

In the event that fans do venture on to the pitch, then, their primary responsibility once it starts happening should be to get to the tunnel, and to the players, particularly the opposition ones, to protect them from any dickheads wanting to make a name for themselves. That didn't seem to happen at all the other night, and I think that's why Wigan will be asked questions by the FA.

 

[redoubtable seagull]

No, this is true, although there barely looked to be any stewards around the pitch at all as it neared the end. Some games, you see a line of them emerging around the pitch in the dying minutes of a game.

In the event that fans do venture on to the pitch, then, their primary responsibility once it starts happening should be to get to the tunnel, and to the players, particularly the opposition ones, to protect them from any dickheads wanting to make a name for themselves. That didn't seem to happen at all the other night, and I think that's why Wigan will be asked questions by the FA.

Wigan have form when it comes to celebratory pitch invasions so it should not have been a surprise to the safety planners that this was a possibility. I suspect no one gave any thought to a scenario of a Wigan win. As such, they probably didn’t employ any extra costly stewarding/response stewards to run a line in front of the away fans at the end of the game.