
But to all his credit Guardiola is not a tactical genius. He has been out-thought by Hiddink and looked lost till that dramatic turn-out in the injury time. Actually that was one battle we had trouble dealing last season. The same was with the way we played at Atletico Madrid. His reluctance to use substitutes to change the course of match was very irritating. Many a times we saw he holding back substitutes to be used as a time wasting tactic. The prime example was the Sylvinho substitution against Chelsea, don't call it a master piece, I thought he forgot we had a substitute left. More over he looks like a guy who comes with a lot of pre-conception. His reluctance to accept that Toure was the best defensive midfielder we had was a prime example of that. The way he handled Eto saga earlier last season showed his inexperience and reluctance to accept ground reality. And it looks like he has not learn from that also. Under him and Laporta, we successfully managed to unsettle Eto again without any proper back-up assurance. Strangely now every egg lies in Eto's basket. He can decide to stay in Barca for one more season and leave for free at the end of it, if he stays we will be forced to use him as a striker this season. Guardiola and Laporta went ahead with upsetting him without really taking ground reality of signing a replacement in account. Now mostly we have to cough up a much higer value to land Ibrahmovic, that again depends on Eto agreeing to Inter's terms.
But it might be too early to judge him. He is in his second season as a coach and will probably improve with more experience. He has all the making of becoming a good disciplined coach but I doubt whether he will be able to mold himself into a tactical genius. In FC Barcelona he is the ideal man as we always play a very attacking style and we need a guy to hold the team's discipline intact. But I would love to see him using his brain a bit more in transfer market. The Hleb saga was a disaster in making from the beginning. And we still have not addressed the left side issue. If he is planning to use Iniesta upfront more, that also could backfire as that will deprive us of the service of the best attacking midfielder in the middle. Without Iniesta it is easy for teams to double mark Xavi and take him out of the equation, we had seen it many times last season. I believe this could be the make or break season for Guardiola as a coach. There was not much pressure last season but that success means there will be more and he will be scruitinized in every step he take.
All About FC Barcelona

AllAboutFCBarcelona.com is a Blog dedicated to the Most prestigous Club in the world, FC Barcelona by an ardent fan. Here I discuss about the Latest happening surrounding our Club and present my Views about the same.