I would honestly put my life savings (it's really not that much) on Pep having the same exact philosophy no matter what side he managed, be it the best, most expensive, side in the world or a League 2 side without a pot to piss in.
I concur. He is not the type who will shore up defenses and go negative, he just doesn't believe in that football. His team will still try to dominate the game, whether that will bring him success remains to be seen. But Pep is one of very few coaches in world football whose hand is clearly visible when you watch his teams.
There are other successful coaches whose hands are not so clearly visible actually. There is no very clear recognizable style. Not sure how anybody can think of it as a good thing, to me, that just means that it's mostly players and not that particular coach who get the results.
Also, it was interesting to listen to Hargreaves, Lineker and Ferdinand discuss Pep's style of football. They were saying the now cliche things such as it doesn't always guarantee success, there other ways blah blah. Sure, is there ever just one style that guarantees success in every match every year? There is no such thing. The likes of G. Neville also cultivated this idea that counter attacking football is better than possession style whenever Pep's teams lost. There are tons of games when counter attacking bunkering teams lose, but apparently that does not necessarily mean that counter-attacking style is weak or garbage, yet, every time a possession-based team loses, it shows all the negatives of that style.
This is a strange view. And these days, it is also supported by stats, apparently some number of games are won by teams that have less possession. OK, but then there is another stats that shows whoever has more possession, they are more likely to win the game. All of these things are meaningless in the end as there is no one possession style (there is Pep's style and there is Van Gaal's style, for example), and there is no one counter attacking style (Mourinho's teams, Klopp's teams and Simeone's team are different). But unfortunately, you get this lengthy discussion of Pep's failings and the downsides of his footballing ideas any time his team loses. ManCity played an utterly ugly negative football vs Madrid, but the same pundits didn't spend 10 minutes discussing the shitty tactics of Pellegrini and Pellegrini's failings. Yesteryday was Pep's personal failure, today, coaches are not discussed at all.
