The Ginger Unicorn
Fell down a FBref rabbit hole and stumbled into some passing stats and compared them to other top creators that will make you appreciate Kevin De Bruyne even more.
My first ever 🧵 enjoy 🫡
Also no yellow for Havertz doing this to Rodri about 5 seconds into the match.
Arsenal set this aggressive tone early, and *once again* got overly emotional and it cost them.
It’s a little concerning that the Chief Soccer Correspondent at the New York Times thinks that Erling Haaland and Gabriel Jesus are former teammates right?
Is Erling Haaland… a BULLY? 😯
Rog and Rory discuss the antics of the world’s best striker after City appeared to be rattled by Arsenal this past weekend.
Full conversation available now on the Men in Blazers podcast, presented by
@CamarenaTequila
Wasn’t great in the second half. But could count on two hands how many times he found a pocket of space, demanded the ball, only for his teammate to look the other way.
Don’t know if it’s instructions or ability, but not a lot of players willing to break the lines.
After 15+ years of fandom, I’m finally making my first trip to the Etihad. Flight booked, tickets purchased and will be in Manchester for the West Ham match, and going to Wembley for the FA Cup.
Cannot wait
🚨🔵 Manchester City have made contact with Ilkay Gündogan’s camp over potential return for German midfielder.
City and Pep Guardiola open to consider Gündo’s comeback.
↪️⚠️ Barça want Gündogan to leave… and he also received approaches from Qatar, Saudi and more clubs.
Tanner Tessmann is a name to remember for USMNT fans. It’s “only” Serie B, but only 22 and led the league in total passes, progressive passes, and passes into the final third.
Very different profile from any other American midfielder.
🚨⚫️🔵 Excl: Inter are closing in on deal to sign Tanner Tessmann from Venezia.
Gaetano Oristanio to join Venezia and Tessmann to join Inter in 2025, staying one more year on loan at Venezia.
🇺🇸 One more detail needed: agreement on player side on +1 year loan move to Venezia.
We as City fans are spoiled to have All or Nothing, Fight Till the End and these other City docs to watch. Memories of Pep’s tenure that will be easily accessible for years to come
Imagine the reaction if Manchester City’s owners:
Furloughed hundreds of employees during a pandemic
Proposed giving the “Big 6” more voting power than the rest of the league
Were one of the 5 chairmen of the European Super League
Now this
New plan to move Premier League games abroad: Liverpool chairman says he's 'determined' to have matches in New York - and wants to ship fans out worldwide for 'a day of celebration'
First 90 seconds sums up the Jeremy Doku experience this season: unreal dribbler and beats his man with ease, only to either overcook the pass, or can’t pick out the final ball
He’ll improve over time, and when he does it’ll be special
Foden had a great season, but not worthy of PL player of the season. He was instrumental to the team in games when he played central, especially in the absence of KDB and Haaland. Those games weren’t many though. But, when one of Haaland and KDB or both returned, Foden started to
@ArsenalAnoop
That’s one way to spin it.
Arsenal were winning when they went down to 10. It was an avoidable red and a bizarre decision to play the ball (if he wasn’t just booting it away) after a clear foul.
It *could’ve* been a massive win that put them in first, instead it was squandered
Also great job by
@SamLee
of framing the question to get this response. Pep is usually so cagey in these moments, yet he came off actually vulnerable for once.
My Victory Lap
In December l wrote for
@City_Xtra
about City’s history of winter turnarounds. That the absences of Rodri, De Bruyne, Haaland and Stones were mostly to blame, and that Pep would figure it out with a relaxed fixture list ahead.
And he did.
Pep said this about Mourinho 12 years ago, I always think about it whenever these kind of quotes come out.
At one point they were rivals, maybe even equals. Now it’s just history.
🔵 José Mourinho: “Not that I'm jealous, but Man City paid €80 million for Kalvin Phillips and now Pep has said it would be better for him to leave...”.
“So he’ll leave and they'll get someone else. Our reality is very different. It’s not easy for us to sign one player!”.
Talked about Kalvin Phillips and his swan song moment, how Nunes ball carrying was on full display yesterday, and how Bobb and Hamilton highlight just how good of an investment the
@ManCityAcademy
has been
◾️
@OscarBobb2
deserves more minutes
◾️ Matheus Nunes highlighting a tactical tweak
◾️
@micahhamilton07
: Our next breakthrough star
✍️
@IVIeehan
brings you Five Things We Learned from Crvena zvezda 2-3
#ManCity
. Tap below:
Wrote about T-1000 Haaland, how City already look in midseason form without Rodri or Foden, and how Kevin De Bruyne has shaken off whatever rust he had in the spring.
Enjoy 🫡
This is what separates Foden from Saka imo. Saka is a lovely player, but Foden always rises to the level of his opponents. Nearly every clip here is the decisive moment of the match
Haaland has become the youngest and quickest to score 30 UCL goals, and now sits at 33. In just 25 appearances he has scored more goals than:
Robben
Eto’o
Griezmann
Rooney
Kaka
Giggs
Mane
Suarez
Rivaldo
Sterling
Van Persie
Figo
Scholes
Generational.
🚨🚨🚨
I have a new show coming out on
@City_Xtra
’s YouTube channel
It’s called “Monday Morning Manager”
I’ve poured my heart and soul into this thing and I cannot wait for all of you to see it
Subscribe here
Pep Guardiola does not get mentioned until the very end of this piece. The greatest manager of all time is referred to as “an additional factor.” It’s mad that people continue to not associate this success with him
How has Manchester City managed to perform at a level typically associated with a team spending tens of millions more? ⚽
@jburnmurdoch
digs into the data
That run from that league cup start against (I think) Barnsley, all the way through to the UCL final was career defining stuff.
Went from a “what could have been” player to irreplaceable in the span of a few months
If anyone wants some reading material before the Sheffield match, my first ever feature for
@City_Xtra
is out.
Talked about where City are at, why we should maybe not be as concerned, and compared this year against previous seasons. Hope y’all enjoy
To not realize this while watching that moment between those two is strange.
Jesus wasn’t good enough, and was happily sold by City for just £5m less than what they paid for Haaland. Who immediately broke records and helped them win a treble.
How can he not know this?
Real Madrid have identified Rodri as their main objective for next season, according to
@diarioas
. Carlo Ancelotti, Florentino Pérez and the club’s sporting leaders all share a ‘great dream’ of signing the
#ManCity
midfielder. 🇪🇸📰
Foden struggling in the England setup is no coincidence.
He’s been protected by City’s system for his entire career.
The same system that saw Sterling scoring 20+ goals a season.
It’s why I have respect for Cole Palmer for leaving his comfort zone and proving he’s top level.
If you expand minutes per assist out to other top creators, it gets even more ridiculous:
KDB: 176
Berkamp: 235
Fábregas: 237
David Silva: 256
Ozil: 276
Giggs: 286
Henry: 287
Trent: 312
Pogba: 323
Bruno: 342
Rooney: 373
Saka: 378
Odegaard: 457
Lampard: 479
After assisting both goals against Forest, Kevin De Bruyne is now just one assist away from tying Cesc Fábregas (111) for second most all time in the Premier League. Ryan Giggs’ record is 162.
Cesc played 350 games in 12 seasons, Giggs played 632 in 22 years, KDB only 250 in 9.
I hope all of the journalists who claimed the competitiveness of the sport was at stake a few days ago have the same fervor to a proposal change like this.
Would actually forever alter the sport, and not for the better
🎙️ Tom Werner, Liverpool’s chairman:
"I'm determined one day to have a Premier League game be played in New York City.”
"I even have the sort of crazy idea that there would be a day where we play one game in Tokyo, one game a few hours later in LA, one game in Rio, one game a
Don’t understand how so much of City twitter is against this. Obviously Bernardo is better, but Kovacic is a perfect short term signing until we can find a long term replacement. Have trust in the greatest manager of all time
@AndyT_______
He wasn’t any better or worse than Saka or Kane, or Jude was, for me.
He’s never had a consistent role in the squad. Even played wide right in the friendlies before this only to have a totally different role against Serbia. It’s confusing really
@johncenasjock
Jesus signed for Arsenal (July 4th) just a few weeks after Haaland signed at City (June 13th). So technically on the same roster in the offseason.
Rory is framing it like they shared a locker room, when it’s honestly the opposite kinda situation
@cityreport_
@mateokovacic8
Took a little while for him to fit into the system because he’s not the same type of player as Gundogan, but he helped bring some much needed control by the spring.
Solid signing and will service as excellent depth for another 3 years
@LibanLDN
It’s not a weakness that the greatest manager in the history of the sport can play him as high and wide or inverted winger, false 9 or 10. Pep has even said his endgame is in an ever deeper role.
It’s his biggest strength
Now comes the fun part!
KDB is only at 19k minutes over 9 seasons. Kev has four seasons with 16 or more assists, and just two full seasons with less than 10 assists. And is two years older than Fábregas was in his last year at Chelsea!
He averages an assist every 176 minutes!
@scottjwillis
There’s more nuance to it than can fit in a tweet. But Havertz/Arsenal set the tone from kickoff. And clearly getting physical with Rodri was an objective.
It led to both teams getting aggressive and Arsenal picking up cheap cards and eventually Tossard getting sent off
Also can’t stress enough that this isn’t factoring in any other facet of his game. Throw in set pieces, finishing, athleticism, dribbling, physicality etc.
Truly a special player
Foden not yet having 100 starts is fascinating. Pep has done such a great job with his development, but it feels like Foden is gonna benefit so much from the lack of minutes in his early career
Won’t end up like Rooney, Fábregas or other young phenoms who’s legs were shot at 30
Phil Foden doesn't even have 100 Premier League starts. But he already has:
— 70 Goals/Assists
— 7 Club/Individual Trophies
And that's just the Prem. He has 58 G/A and 13 trophies in other competitions.
If you disregard De Bruyne’s injury riddled 19/20 season, he averages 13.5 assists a season for Manchester City.
But in the four seasons under Pep Guardiola with a true striker, it’s just under 18.
If he signs an extension Giggs’ record could fall by 2027.
City fans are incredibly spoiled to have someone like
@slbsn
on here. Does an incredible job of breaking down financials in a clear and easy way. Would love to have an entire space dedicated to a potential Liverpool sale
This isn’t Wilt’s 100 point game, there’s footage of all of this
Inter are walking Serie A, comfortably have the best defense in the league and a +35 advantage in GD with almost the same lineup
Think Stones was actually pretty effective, tbh
@tacticalfouling
Yh Inzaghi coached a win. The stones in midfield thing was pretty ineffective tbh, seemed like people were amazed by the concept of a CB moving up rather than what actually happened on the pitch
It gets even sillier is when you look just a little deeper
Fábregas played 26k minutes for Arsenal and Chelsea, yet only had more than 13 assists twice, 2008 for Arsenal (17) and 2017 for Chelsea (18) with 6 full seasons under 10 assists
He averaged an assist every 237 minutes
Haaland has scored 8 less Champions League goals than Zlatan despite playing in *87* less games. His goals per game game ratio is literally almost 3x higher in the most difficult competition in the world.
How does Erling Haaland do it then?
De Bruyne was out until January, Grealish, Stones and Haaland have all missed significant amounts of time. Kyle Walker is the only senior fullback on the roster.
Mahrez was replaced with an unproven 21 y/o, and Kovacic is a totally different profile compared to Gundo
Pep is obviously a genius, but great squad depth is a significant factor as to why sides like City and Madrid finish the season extremely strongly, especially the former.
When you’ve got the luxury of 50m+ players essentially everywhere, the quality eventually prevails.
Meanwhile, Giggs is pure longevity.
46k minutes in 22 seasons for United. In his first 16 seasons he only plays less than 2K minutes twice. Yet he never gets more than 12 assists in a single season and only hits double figures 5 times.
He averaged an assist every 286 minutes
Without a shadow of a doubt there was intention to put him under pressure, foul him at every opportunity, etc.
It doesn’t mean they wanted him injured, but that kind of mentality is very normal in professional sports
Caught a flight out of LAX at 6am last week just to see the trophies in person. Remember when City couldn’t even make it out of their Champions League groups, now they’ve won the treble. Doesn’t even feel real.
Thank you
@PepTeam
@MancityGP
I don’t understand it tbh, it’s been happening as far back as 2018 WC. I have distinct memories of Henderson constantly just booting it forward. Just invites constant pressure
Pep: Kovacic is a guy couldn’t regularly start at Real Madrid or Chelsea. Why would you want him to replace Gundogan?
Txiki: Because what does Kovacic do?
*snaps and points to a data analyst*
“He’s in the 99th percentile on FBref for progressive passes and carries”
Telling his team filled with attacking talent that they are moving too fast when in possession and need to create the space first.
All the Pep memes are true
This is elite coaching
“We are trying to play fast when it’s 5 on 5, we can’t do that. We have to manipulate the spacing first”
Really good stuff
He’s a young coach but you can tell he is a non stop student of the game
(Via
@NBCSCeltics
🎥)
@philcaso
That Bayern performance in particular was special. Totally understand why people love Doku, and still think Grealish has more to give, but Grealish has been excellent for the past 12 months
Since this video posted, Phil Foden has won FWA player of the year, has 21 goal contributions, helped City go unbeaten in 26 of their last 27 matches, get to the FA Cup Final for the second year in a row, and be on the precipice of a fourth consecutive Premier League trophy.
It’s clips like this that make Lyes’ video about De Bruyne so frustrating.
Love that Zidane played well in a squad with Viera, Blanc, Deschamps, Desailly, Pires, Henry, Thuram, Petit, and Trezeguet.