In my opinion we can say that their season is not really great so far, but to say he's flopped? I think that's childish and brutally oversimplified.
Yeah, calling it a flop is too harsh. I think it's just the weight of expectation on City right now. Take Liverpool out of the table and would people say it's still a flop? Second in the league, still in the CL and probably going to win at least one if not both of the domestic cups. If they blow everything at the end then maybe you can say they flopped, but not right now and given the strength of Liverpool.
No, Pep did build the best Barcelona team ever from the ground up. He changed everything there and no, he does not get enough credit for it because it was Barcelona. I can understand what you are saying, I just do not think that you cannot be deemed great if your first job is at a huge company (club).
I think we'll just have to agree to disagree here. Barca have never really been an average side and whether they have Pep, their current manager, or anyone else they'll likely always finish first or second maybe with the odd exception. I think Pep just joined them at the right time but their success wasn't just down to him and you certainly can't win things without world class players. Also, I don't think you
can't be considered great if your first team is one of the huge ones, but you can certainly prove it by getting results with much lesser teams but I can't see Pep going on to mange Stoke or something so he'll likely never have the chance to prove me right or wrong. I think it's an unfair advantage though getting such a big job and never really having to prove yourself by winning things with lesser teams, so it certainly should be taking into consideration if the only teams you've ever managed are the best in the world, at least in my opinion.
I do not think he is the greatest ever. I think he is great though. I also think that Leicester winning the Premier league is probably the most unexpected thing in the history of football and I still think Ranieri is a mediocre manager despite that.
I wouldn't say Ranieri is better or worse than Pep, just that he had the bigger achievement, but if he went to Barca I doubt he'd fail to win things. I would reiterate again, that I do think people put too much emphasis on managers both positively and negatively. Leicester didn't win the league because of Ranieri; it was because they had a great team and played great football. To say that was down to Ranieri would be unfair, just like it would be to give Pep all or a lot of credit for doing what he did at Barca.
It simply does not work like that. Great managers create styles of play. Look how differently Klopp's teams play from Guardiola's. Mourinho's style with 3 centre mids destroyed the Premiership when he arrived. Wenger's 422 that he came with to England did the same. Klopp's striker behind wingers system is ripping the world apart currently. Simeone's fighting style brought huge success to a team that should not have been able to challenge Barcelona or Real on paper. Guardiola's Barcelona had over 1000 passes per game, but the most impressive part of that team was reclaiming the ball that he led to perfection. Murinho's Real was the best counterattacking team in Europe at one point, same as his Inter team with which he won the CL. They all have their styles and they are incomparable to each other.
Again, I think this is mostly down to the players. Swap out all the quality and replace them with average players and I don't think you would see blatantly their influence or they suddenly start playing world class football. If Pep and Klopp switched positions I don't think you would look at the teams and think they were playing completely different football and whether Klopp managed Liverpool or City (or vice versa) I think they would achieve roughly the same but obviously that's just fantasy speculation and something nobody will ever know.
