Peter Schmeichel has taken a dig at Pep Guardiola ahead of the Manchester derby by saying Pep Guardiola made Bayern Munich “boring”, and will find it more difficult to play his brand of football at Manchester City than he did at Barcelona and Bayern.
Pep Guardiola made an exciting Bayern Munich team boring to watch and was fortunate he had the players at his disposal to implement his style at Barcelona and Bayern, winning three Bundesliga titles and two DFB-Pokal in three years in Germany, says Peter Schmeichel.
“He was okay at Bayern Munich. I have to say he was okay,” he told Omnisport . “For me, personally, he changed a really good, entertaining team to be become more boring to watch.
“Where as Bayern before were very direct, they won the treble, had quick players and were exciting to watch, he [Guardiola] made them play more square. He changed the players, but you can’t argue with his results.”
Schmeichel, who made 398 appearances for Manchester United, also believes that Guardiola’s achievements at Barcelona was in part down to luck given the talent he had at his disposal such as Lionel Messi, Xavi and Andres Iniesta.
Guardiola made his name at Barcelona, where he is being Praise for their dominance since. That, though, according to Schmeichel, was largely down to a little “luck”.
With Pep, he comes in with an incredible reputation. What he did with Barcelona was fantastic, his work was fantastic, but he was also very lucky he had the players to bring in the philosophy that he has in football,” he added.
“So whereas [former United manager] Alex Ferguson’s first priority was ‘we have to be able to score goals’ – for most coaches that’s the priority – with Pep its possession, I want to have as much possession as possible.
“So the philosophy goes to ‘I want to have so much possession that at some point we’ll score a goal from that, the goals will come from possession’ and that’s his philosophy.
“That’s what we’ll see at Manchester City or he’s going to introduce that. He was very lucky he had the players at Barcelona but he was clever in what he did.
“The Premier League is a completely different ball Game to any other in the world. It just goes on and on and on, you feel it never stops, even in March you have 12 games to go, you think will this ever stop?”
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