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Manager Thomas Frank

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Are you Frank Out or In?

  • Total voters
    623
Solanke would definitely hold the ball better, press better, and link with team mates better

Whether or not he would score more, or get chance to do the above under Frank Im not sure
 
McCOYS said:
He's got 7 goals and 3 assists in 18 Premier League appearances this season.

Solanke got 9 goals and 3 assists in 27 Premier League appearances last season.

So there's nothing to suggest the team would be better off with Solanke over Richarlison based on goal involvements.
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Never said we should rely on Solanke either but our only option upfront has been Richarlison and thats it. Tel is not good enough, Muani just came back. Maddison will come back Jan so let's see what frank can do after January window
 
On the player outs eg Solanke, Kulu, Maddison, Frank is not being held to the same expectation as the previous manager.

Then, expectation was that the manager should "manage" his way around the injuries by utilizing his full squad.

That was repeated over and over when the back five were injured, when Maddison was injured, when Bissouma was out with illness, when Benatcour was still out.

Well is Frank doing that? Is he using Kudus, Muani, Xavi, Tel, Sarr, Bergvall, Gray, Spence, Johnson in lieu of MAddison, Kulu and Solanke being out?

Postecoglou said he would be so angry if he left players like Sarr, Bergvall, Tel, Gray for another manager to enjoy their growth and development. None of those players have progressed with Archie the one exception, perhaps.

Is any of the squad playing at a higher level under Frank than they were last season?

Its hard to see where Frank is taking the club.
 
Kiro Kompiro said:
Its hard to see where Frank is taking the club.
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I suppose he'd argue he's taken the club to midtable. About the identity of the club and how the team is going to approach matches, if the Palace match is anything to go by, we get a lead and then bring on Palhinha, and another CB Dragusin, and try and hold onto the lead.

The Palace match remined me a bit of how the team dug in and held on against United in the Europa League final, except vs Palace we had more shots on target, and didn't need to frantically make a goalmouth clearance.

It's possible we could be 9th if we beat Brentford and only 2 points behind Chelsea who are currently 5th, which is quite likely to become a Champions League spot. My guess is that position is what the club is realistically aiming for with Liverpool likely to be chasing Villa. So we need to try and gazump Chelsea.

I'm not impressed by Frank so far, we're sort of lucky the league is so close between 5th which is Chelsea on 30 points and 15th which is Bournemouth on 23 points. The downside is if we lose to Brentford we could possibly slide down to 15th which won't look at all good for Frank, so he really needs to get something from the next two or three matches.

If he gets the sack for being down there 15th or below, I doubt there will be many supporters surprised or spending their time next season going on about it as an injustice.
 
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I just can't see a world where we're gonna get anywhere near Chelsea and start competing for 5th. Chelsea are in a bit of a weird place, but they're not a fundamentally poor team. They have issues with their squad - mostly the age and a couple weak positions - and Maresca's tactics, but they do have a defined style of play and when they click they're a legit decent team. They have a couple of world class players and completely and utterly destroyed us when we played them.

On the other hand we don't really have a functional style of play and have only actually played 'well' a handful of times this season. Our wins tend to feel random and scrappy; it's very hard to imagine us putting a run of form together. However, if Chelsea won 5 or 6 on the bounce in the spring it wouldn't surprise me at all.

Maybe if we sign some absolute worldie talent in Jan we can scrape into one of the Europa competitions, but even those feel like a real stretch. I'd be genuinely shocked if we finished higher than 8th or 9th this season - and even that would be above par based on how we've played in the first half of the season.

Solidly mid-table between 10th and 15th feels about right. Basically where you'd expect Brentford to finish.
 
Timberwolf said:
I just can't see a world where we're gonna get anywhere near Chelsea and start competing for 5th. Chelsea are in a bit of a weird place, but they're not a fundamentally poor team. They have issues with their squad - mostly the age and a couple weak positions - and Maresca's tactics, but they do have a defined style of play and when they click they're a legit decent team. They have a couple of world class players and completely and utterly destroyed us when we played them.

On the other hand we don't really have a functional style of play and have only actually played 'well' a handful of times this season. Our wins tend to feel random and scrappy; it's very hard to imagine us putting a run of form together. However, if Chelsea won 5 or 6 on the bounce in the spring it wouldn't surprise me at all.

Maybe if we sign some absolute worldie talent in Jan we can scrape into one of the Europa competitions, but even those feel like a real stretch. I'd be genuinely shocked if we finished higher than 8th or 9th this season - and even that would be above par based on how we've played in the first half of the season.

Solidly mid-table between 10th and 15th feels about right. Basically where you'd expect Brentford to finish.
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Chelsea unfortunately are just flat out superior to us in attack and midfield right now. We'd like to get 5th but it's extremely doubtful we do. I do think we are a bit better than most make us out to be though, and with the return of some key players to fitness should be able to finish 7th or 8th. We just don't look up for it against the very physical teams though and seem to shrink from the occasion whenever we play them.

One nice thing is we slowly seem to be getting healthier and recovering from Ange ball where our CBs were constantly getting injured. Obviously we've had some back luck with other injuries in the meantime, but on the whole we're slowly coming back to a place of better squad fitness.
 
bk_spur said:
One nice thing is we slowly seem to be getting healthier and recovering from Ange ball where our CBs were constantly getting injured. Obviously we've had some back luck with other injuries in the meantime, but on the whole we're slowly coming back to a place of better squad fitness.
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Because we only camped at our own half and defend, then pump long balls forward to attack. Our sprinting this season should be alot lesser than last two seasons. I would think more of our injuries this season also wouldn't be muscle fatigue or pull, but collision and impact types.
 
bk_spur said:
Chelsea unfortunately are just flat out superior to us in attack and midfield right now. We'd like to get 5th but it's extremely doubtful we do. I do think we are a bit better than most make us out to be though, and with the return of some key players to fitness should be able to finish 7th or 8th. We just don't look up for it against the very physical teams though and seem to shrink from the occasion whenever we play them.

One nice thing is we slowly seem to be getting healthier and recovering from Ange ball where our CBs were constantly getting injured. Obviously we've had some back luck with other injuries in the meantime, but on the whole we're slowly coming back to a place of better squad fitness.
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Yeah maybe Solanke and Kulu will make some difference, but the latter always takes a while to get going. Imagine he'll be very slow and off the pace for a while, and striker isn't really our biggest area of weakness right now as frustrating as Rich can be. The only player returning that I think might've turned around our season is Maddison but obviously he's miles away.

I'd give us like a 5% chance of getting 7th at this point. Just seems very unlikely that only 6 teams are better than us this season. I'd fully expect Newcastle to find form at some point - they always have under Howe - and reckon United are also good for top 7 provided Bruno isn't out for too long, especially as they have no European distractions.
 
glacierSpurs said:
Because we only camped at our own half and defend, then pump long balls forward to attack. Our sprinting this season should be alot lesser than last two seasons. I would think more of our injuries this season also wouldn't be muscle fatigue or pull, but collision and impact types.
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Maybe so but its hard to win much when your players are injured. Considering our injury history a kamikaze style attack perhaps wasn't the right choice for us. Thomas might not be a very attacking or creative manager, but if he does manage to get most of the squad healthy at the same time we could do better than some expect.
 
Timberwolf said:
Yeah maybe Solanke and Kulu will make some difference, but the latter always takes a while to get going. Imagine he'll be very slow and off the pace for a while, and striker isn't really our biggest area of weakness right now as frustrating as Rich can be. The only player returning that I think might've turned around our season is Maddison but obviously he's miles away.

I'd give us like a 5% chance of getting 7th at this point. Just seems very unlikely that only 6 teams are better than us this season. I'd fully expect Newcastle to find form at some point - they always have under Howe - and reckon United are also good for top 7 provided Bruno isn't out for too long, especially as they have no European distractions.
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Just having a bit more depth and attacking options should help out immensely. Most folks think little of Kulu but he could really help us out with Maddison out. Solanke and RKM rotating up top could allow us to play more Richarlison at LW. I know most folks hate that idea, but at least we'd have 2 LWers in our depth chart.
 
COYSinnit said:
We’ve passed 1,000 pages now.
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rookie-numbers.gif
 
bk_spur said:
Maybe so but its hard to win much when your players are injured. Considering our injury history a kamikaze style attack perhaps wasn't the right choice for us. Thomas might not be a very attacking or creative manager, but if he does manage to get most of the squad healthy at the same time we could do better than some expect.
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Never been touched on really, but maybe the injuries of the last 12 months are partly why the players aren’t being thrashed to an inch of their lives with pressing and this will change as the season goes on. Unlikely perhaps. But it’s something I’ve not considered. Let’s see.
 
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