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Management Ange Postecoglou

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Murphy said:
But it's not 5 matches of poor form.

Poch was sacked after fucking woeful form across 2019, but paid the price 12 games into the season following the CL final. Was that too soon? This is a results business.
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with poch it wasn't that straight forward imo, it was a culmination of his time here that he didn't win anything, followed by poor form, his attitude with the players and his demeanour around the club.
There was also this narrative going around at the time that the squad he had at that point, which included newly acquired ndombele, locelso and sessegnon adding to the already "world class" squad of toby, rose, dele, kane, son, lucas, eriksen etc should've been competing right at the summit so he was massively underperforming.
of course it turned out half that squad was washed up

whatever nuno's form was like when he was sacked would be a better yardstick as there were other factors with poch, jose and conte
 
Top_Spur said:
Poch and Ange are completely different scenarios, Poch was done after 5 years it was the right time for him to be sacked.
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He also wasn't properly backed, for at least 18 months and with the benefit of hindsight despite have lashes of cash in the summer of 2019 they all turned out to be pony. After what he had achieved, did he deserve more patience?

Conte, for all his shit football wasn't really backed. Jose wasn't really backed. Neither could play their true football, but both had prime Kane and Son. Ange has neither, with just an ageing Son that has moments.

I don't think Levy is *that* rash, but suspect Ange is very much into thin ice territory. Whether that's right or not is a different matter, but this is about results and if this 5 or 30 games sequence, however people want to dress it up doesn't improve by the Villa game we all know what will happen.

I'm not willing it on with an Ange voodoo doll, I desperately hope it changes. Because it means we started getting results.
 
What would it take to push some people? Hypothetically lets say we beat Brentford but lose to Utd and Brighton. Given our away form its a reasonable bet. That would be 9 league defeats out of 14, less than 1 ppg and would probably see us in the bottom 4 or 5 going into the international break. You're starting to get into the fringes of a relegation fight. Enough or carry on?
 
Confusius said:
This inverted fullbacks system doesn't work for us.

Porro and Udogie should be flying down the wings(not playing midfield), not Werner or Johnson primarily.

But if we are to find something positive about last night. The seasons before this, when rotating heavily like we did last night, we would have gone out against Newport.

So maybe our second string are better now, which should make our first string better.

Sacha Baron Cohen Thumbs Up GIF by Amazon Prime Video
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For a time last season Udogie was brilliant in the inverted role. Another one where something isn’t quite right at the moment.
 
Current PL managers

Hard to pick out more than 5 worse managers.
Kaz Hirai said:
that's the problem I have, the manager market is dead, was only ever interested in nagelsmann really when we went on our clown search.

That dream is dead so I'm happy to trust the process for now
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I'd take Rodgers (would be difficult as he got a lot of stick for leaving Celtic mid season last time but doable).

Edit: tbh id also take Potter over Ange and he's on the dole.
 
Murphy said:
Normally I'd agree. But we spent many games under Jose and Conte winning ugly, were still derided and there's only so many times you can defend that style of play. It's not sustainable.

Scraping through the cup whilst playing terribly would be admirable if:

a) it wasn't against a championship side that has not only won just the once this season but also rotated heavily themselves, and

b) on the back of 30+ mostly turgid performances and poor results.

Yesterday was a continuation of the terrible form, not an exception.

Ultimately, Levy is the root cause of everything wrong, but he's not changing. The players are at fault to a degree, but it's not their fault if they are not suited to a system or not good enough. Which is why the manager has to affect the change.

I WANT Ange to succed. Because it means we succeed. I just don't believe it's going to happen. I, like many others, are fed up. Not because of five games. Not because of 30 games. Not because of Ange, specifically. But because of 30+ years of mediocrity, with the odd bit of silver thrown in and a few "oh so close" moments that we never capitalised on. We have to break this cycle that began with Poch's dismissal, and we have to give someone time to eradicate the perpetual failure and disdain we feel. But that also has to come from the man in the seat realising that it's not working and fixing what he can.

He wasn't backed adequately this summer. On the counter he's mostly playing the same players as last year, when we scored 74 league goals. We don't look anywhere close to matching that based on current performances. We ARE tighter at the back, we are seeing more of the ball. These are improvements and of course we will lose football matches.

All that's happening for me is that I'll end up evaluating whether this thing - which is supposed to be an escape and fun, entertaining - is ultimately beneficial to my mental health. I'm sure some will be "great, fuck off them" but I won't be alone. We already have a stadium which is full of tourists now, as the club cares little who fills the seats. I was a ST holder before I passed it up, I'm back on the list but I'm 78,000. 78,000 ahead of me wanting a ticket. It's just a licence to print money, and be just "good enough". I'm not sure if "good enough" is what I was hoping for. Not when the game is about glory.
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Really good post.

If you can't change the situation, change the attitude. Take a moment to appreciate the small miracle that occurs any time something goes slightly right. Allow the frustrations to coexist with you.

Or just stop watching.
 
Just re-watching the highlights.

It seemed to me that we shipped those chances last night because of individual errors (we were very sloppy), but that's to be expected when you make so many changes. Especially against plucky underdogs who pressed the shit out of us.

Having said that, we didn't score because of Ange's 'play it around the box until they fall asleep' approach, we scored two through balls into space after quick, one-touch passes. That's one to watch.

BJ played some cringe-worthy balls behind our attackers running into the box/6-yard box. Either he has poor vision or just can't pass, but it's unacceptable either way. Lovely run and finish for the winner, though. Werner had a good defensive game (*cough*). Both of them are incredibly frustrating to watch at times. Porro was missed.

Solanke was really unlucky not to get that foul (when he dragged two defenders out wide and beat them). Was nice play and I'm liking what I see from him (albeit hardly anything due to no service).

Coventry were unlucky, but we almost scored first (great save from their keeper) which would have played into our hands.
 
daveyboy88 said:
say no more.
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It's funny how the narrative around the Chelsea game has almost become that if we'd just been more pragmatic, we would have got something from the game. Like something was thrown away.

I'm here to tell you that we wouldn't have gotten anything. We had a CB pairing of Dier and Hojbjerg. There is very, very little chance that we weren't conceding again had we sat back and constantly invited pressure. And we certainly wouldn't have created the chances we did which up until extra time had us right in it.

When Liverpool went down to 9-men against us, they were defending with 4 recognised CBs, including an elite one in VVD. They still lost. Again, we had Dier and Hojbjerg. We were almost definitely losing that game regardless of approach.
 
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