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Manager Thomas Frank
- Thread starter The Fighting Cock
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I am not contesting the fact that his win ratio was 41%.
But it was 41% with the side that before he took over had not been in EPL for what? 40 years?
And team that had budget and salary bill consistently among 5 lowest in the league. In that context such win ratio is a raging success. There is absolutely no point to compare his winning ratio to Ange's. The resources, the quality, the background - they are from different galaxies.
This squad is still nowhere near good enough to win the league, with or without injuries. Top 5 is just about plausible with a fair wind.
It’s a double pivot, it doesn’t need a 6
Utterly unrealistic and ridiculous. By your logic, pretty much every club across all divisions "fails" every year.
Anyone with a bit of intelligence will look at context, look at history, look at probability, and conclude that finishing above where we should reasonably be expected to finish (based on and backed up by the above), is a relative success, whilst below that is a relative failure. Talking in absolutes - trophy wins etc - is all very well, but given that 99% of clubs don't win a trophy every season, that's s a relatively poor measure of a manager's performance.
"Expectation to actually win" (your words) is just dumb and lacking in realism when deep down you know, we all know, that it's very unlikely you're going to actually win. By all means dream, aim higher (gradually in my opinion), but expecting to win things is just dumb, it's simply ignoring reality.
Last time in Div one 80 odd years ago. 1946-47 IIRC
How many generations is that.
I remember seeing Rick Wakeman being on telly about 50 years ago and laughing when he started going on about Brentford
It's great that teams like Brentford, Brighton, AFCB and now Palace are playing good stuff and being successful too. Hopefully the likes of Allardici Pulis Bruce are no more than a distant and bad memory
Spurs finished 5th in Ange's first season despite losing Richarlison, Romero, VDV, Udogie, Bentancur and Madisson to lengthy injuries - and having to play a CB line up of Emerson Royal and Ben Davies. And that's with a coach that people here claim knows nothing about football.
So, either Ange is an excellent coach who worked wonders with a poor squad - Or, Ange is a terrible coach who underperformed with an excellent squad. Which one is it?
All we do know, is that when the squad is fully fit, we achieved a 70%+ win ratio - which is title contending form. Even last season, where we couldn't get any consistency in our starting 11, we were just 4 points off 2nd place 1/3rd of the way into the season.
Without an injury crisis, this squad should be top 3 at an absolute minimum.
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Utterly unrealistic and ridiculous. By your logic, pretty much every club across all divisions "fails" every year.
Not every club has spent 800m+ on players over the last few seasons and has some of the best training and club facilities in world football. For that spending, the expectation is to WIN, not just participate.
We know that Spurs can't attract players with 10/10 quality - Kane left; and we can't go sign a Mo Salah level player. But what the club can do is fill the squad with 8/10 players in every position, and get backups that are good enough to step up.
Wow, really? That's a very big ask.
I think we have a better squad that most on here BUT thats abit far. Reason being is that others have improved alot and other teams have got there S*** together more such as chelsea.
We won't know until the window closes so will have to wait for a clearer picture. I think right now this squad is capable of 5-7th. If we can get MGW over the line and sign a top 6 (eg Wharton, hjulmund) and decent lb cover than suddenly we can be in play for anywhere from 3rd to 5th.
Expecting to win when all of the odds say you are very unlikely to win is just dumb. As I posted a few pages ago, all of the bookmakers across the entire country have us at about 38-50% just to finish in the top 6, that's where we are - do you really think that YOU know better than all of them? Anyone expecting anything significantly better than that is just ignoring all history, all statistical analysis, all probability, and all reality.
I agree with your second paragraph btw, I'd imagine every person on here does - but that has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the first paragraph.
Are you saying THIS season anything but a title challenge or European trophy is a failure? Well considering the european trophy we're in for is the actual like Champions League I think we can kind of rule that one out. And if you consider that to challenge we need to be on a par or ahead of Woolwich, Man City, Chelsea to be challenging Liverpool is quite extraordinary really. Agreed we need to be, and should be around that fighting but I think this season is a bit much to hope for. If nothing else the massive advantage the other teams have is a bit of manager longevity and playing under the same tactics, that's really hard to replace and is more important than you think.
Also WTF Spence isn't good enough? He was superb so many times for us last year, I thought he'd make the position his own with Udogie as back up. And you can't expect amazing back ups in every position just yet. Players like Davies are great squad players and perfect for the dressing room, especially when it's a new gaffer coming in and men like Sonny possibly leaving, every changing room needs an experienced senior player who's been at the club a really good while.
Actually our lowest amount of games in a season was in 2005/6 where we played just 40 games that year, going out in both domestic cups at the first opportunity.
Funnily enough, we also finished 5th that season, under Martin Jol. He must have been a fat Dutch fraud as well I suppose?
The Aaron Lennon breakout season I think, defenders didn't know if they were coming or going when he set off with the ball.
We finished 5th in first season soley on other managers refusing to believe someone would be so inept, stupid and inconsiderate to effort level of his players in first 10 rounds. After that it was figured out and all straight downhill never to improve again.
In the end of first season the injury issues were absolutely normal if not minimal. But his one approach had been figured out and physical toll on players had it's effect. It was one off flash and that is it.
Clearly this side has potential to play for places 3-4-5 as things stand. And with that Ange achieved 5th and 17th places in his 2 seasons. Massive underperformance.
But how is stuff contradicting and with what ? Over season this team could perform quite well, but not to play for title. There was flash at the start, but this was never something that could be sustained, it was found out and realistically this squad could play for 3-4-5th place which is still bit off from 1st place / league win.
Where did the bookmakers have us down to finish last season? Or where did they have Man Utd? For that matter where did they have Leicester in 2015/16?
Bookmakers odds usually fluctuate in accordance with the amount of money bet on a particular outcome. They are by no means a reliable predictor of the future.
Those were anomalies, as anyone with a brain would know. Where did they have Liverpool, City, Woolwich, Chelscum? And the season before? And the one before that? If you looked at the predicted top 4/5/6 finishes in the last 20 years, and compared to the actual finishes, you would see that it is over (say) 90% correct on average.
With regard to your 2nd paragraph, of course that is true generically, but the bigger the data set (38 games for each team), the less the fluctuation as the far bigger set of data smooths out all of the smaller anomalies. I repeat, in most (maybe all) seasons, the predicted top 4/5/6 is not far off the eventual reality. Obviously you will get the odd anomaly, but the predicted finishes at the start of the season are as reliable a predictor as you are going to get (certainly more reliable than some lunatic fan who is expecting us to win the league...)
It is a common myth spread by people with some, but only limited, understanding of odds and statistics, that bookies odds "are by no means a reliable predictor of the future" - it seems you get 3 levels of understanding when it comes to bookies odds:
1. People who don't understand that bookies odds "usually fluctuate in accordance with the amount of money bet on a particular outcome" and think instead that the bookies decide who they think will win and stick to it etc;
2. People who do understand the above, but conclude across the board that "they are by no means a reliable predictor of the future" - this appears to be where you are;
3. People who relate both of the above to the particular context they are looking at, and recognise factors such as the size of the data set in question, the drivers of the initial odds etc.
Whether you like or not, pre-season bookies' odds of end-of-season finishes tend to be a reasonable proxy for likelihood of those outcomes.
You're still batshit and I kinda respect it.
Nice try to get us back to your boi Ange, btw.
That was such a fun team. Not sure what he is up to but I would still have the Big Man back as manager.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qxif53bzvEk
I don't..... It's contradictory shite.
Basically arguing that anything less than a title challenge for Frank is a sackable offence; meanwhile dying on the hill that Ange shouldn't have been sacked.
Football is really hard to predict accurately because of so many variables.
However, bookies (or the analysts they employ) are the best predictors of football in the world, that's how they make untold billions in profit.
Their odds are subsequently skewed by markets, of course.