Frank Give him time or get rid?

[Muttley]

Because of the two extra league stage games after Xmas, everything has been pushed along to early Feb. I think the rejiggle comes then.

I even thought that we still had Slavia to play and beating them would near enough guarantee a playoff game....but we've already done that! Jeez my memory.

Yeah, I just saw CL as a free hit this year. I had no expectations at all to be in the top 8. Turns out we have Dortmund and Frankfurt left, trhen playoff probably. No doubt that will be a team like Barca.

 

[billyiddo]

LOL, I need to look again myself. I know it all changed to Feb with this new CL system. I have a feeling if we don't finish in the top 8 in the league format then we get a two legged play-off to get through to the knockout stage. I have no clue whether Solanke could be part of that playoff.

It's not really a playoff It's just a knockout round that the top 8 get a bye from, so Solanke will be available and any other changes we wish to make post group stage

 

[Muttley]

It's not really a playoff It's just an additional knockout round that the top 8 get a bye from, so Solanke will be available and any other changes we wish to make post group stage

Yeah, but Solanke isn't in this week's squad and can't come back in for Tel yet. Can he come back in for the Frankfurt game? Don't think so.

So Solanke can come back in for the knockout round along with our other 3 changes?

 

[billyiddo]

Yeah, but Solanke isn't in this week's squad and can't come back in for Tel yet. Can he come back in for the Frankfurt game? Don't think so.

So Solanke can come back in for the knockout round along with our other 3 changes?

Yeah the latter - changes are set till the end of the group stage. I assume at that point Solanke auto swaps with Tel then we can make the 3 additional changes should we wish

 

[braineclipse]

Frank definitely needs as much slack in the UEFA comps in Jan. He might even go into Tuesday with only one fit double pivot midfielder if Gray and Palhinha don't make it. If not he'll be patching these guys up and they won't be 100%. He's also playing with a very lightweight forward line and he's naturally without Dragusin, Gallagher, Solanke because of UEFA squad quotas. Kudus, Bents, Kulu, Madds, Richi etc all injured and Sarr probably not back in time. In one scenario Scarlett might be the only "senior" sub or Olusesi may have to start.

I think we might see on Tuesday a team and squad very comparable to Ange's January ones. I mapped Ange back to mid Feb and the Utd game before I really felt he had a squad. We then beat them 1-0 and went on to beat Ipswich a week later. That was about the best week of the second half of the league season from memory. Difference is, when it comes to Burnley Frank will have a stronger squad than Ange was operating with in January.

Any which way you look at it, it's been the lack of our best attacking players and the assimilation of new players in parallel that has been our Achilles heal. Because of this, Tues will be the straw that breaks the camel's back with Frank and his job, Nobody will be factoring in the depleted squad and the inability to compete.

I think it's very possible the camel's back is already broken. A lot of people have been factoring in the depleted squad, and will continue to.

Tuesday will probably be the first time (and hopefully only time) Frank will have to deal with squad depletion on the level Ange had to deal with for weeks and weeks last season (from memory).

 

[Bishop]

I like a manager to get a season at least as a matter of principle but he's been a dead man walking for a while. I said it after the Sunderland game, the match going fans were done with him and that's a position that is untenable.

We aren't seeing any progress on the pitch or a reaction that says he might be able to fix it so I definitely understand moving him on. He's not hitting a par with what has.

 

[SteveAWOL]

Going 5-0 up!…. I can’t even imagine going 2-0 up under this manager!…

We can but dream

If only the promoted sides were as atrocious as last season though, at this stage last January that woeful Southampton side had already racked up a half century of goals conceded



Russell Martin had that team so badly coached that even the Frank Engine got a 5 goal haul at SCBC!!!!!

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[Bishop]

Brentford have been doing better without TF and despite losing Mbuemo and Wissa.

Sometimes managers look better than they are because the right players were bought in.

Imagine the concept of the right players being brought in.

 

[Muttley]

I think it's very possible the camel's back is already broken. A lot of people have been factoring in the depleted squad, and will continue to.

Tuesday will probably be the first time (and hopefully only time) Frank will have to deal with squad depletion on the level Ange had to deal with for weeks and weeks last season (from memory).

My only defence of Frank over Ange is putting myself in their shoes. It is way easier as a coach to put a makeshift well drilled defence together as long as you have your engine room and forward line working. You see teams up and down the country with poor defences on paper but very good ones on grass. From what I remember, Ange mostly got by with his engine room being fit but it did take him a long time to stop burning them out and putting them in the red zone. We still had all 3 pressing at the same time and doing these incredible sprints back when it went wrong. Ange didn't use his smarts there at all in season 2. Ange also only lost Solanke and Johnson around this weekend of the season and Kulu much later in the season. Even though numerically he had less players than Frank has now, he at least had some very good midfielders and forwards available. It was probably tougher in season 1 in the midfield. We had way too high a dependency on Hojbjerg in that injury crisis.

Based on what I've seen, I do think a fit Solanke makes such a difference to Frank across this season. Ditto with Kulu. It's not about Solanke's goals either. It's about the way he leads the line and enables others to play.

What I'm thinking will happen is that Frank gets replaced. Then the new guy, caretaker or not, gets access to a mostly full suite of players (the right players) and we all wonder what the problem was. That should bring some optimism back.

 

[Muttley]

If we're that short of midfielders maybe stick Romero in there next to Bergvall and put Draguisin next to Danso with Spence rb and Udogie lb. Either rest Porro or stick him on the right side of the 3 up top next to Randall and Tel.
Fill the bench with youth and give them a run out for the last 30 minutes of Frank's reign.
2-1 Spurs Randall with both.

In the league, yes. VDV is suspended, Dragusin isn't in the UEFA squad and Davies is injured. Takai went out on loan, not that he was named either.

In the CL, I think we're down to Danso and Romero as our only fit centre halves.

 

[braineclipse]

My only defence of Frank over Ange is putting myself in their shoes. It is way easier as a coach to put a makeshift well drilled defence together as long as you have your engine room and forward line working. You see teams up and down the country with poor defences on paper but very good ones on grass. From what I remember, Ange mostly got by with his engine room being fit but it did take him a long time to stop burning them out and putting them in the red zone. We still had all 3 pressing at the same time and doing these incredible sprints back when it went wrong. Ange didn't use his smarts there at all in season 2. Ange also only lost Solanke and Johnson around this weekend of the season and Kulu much later in the season. Even though numerically he had less players than Frank has now, he at least had some very good midfielders and forwards available. It was probably tougher in season 1 in the midfield. We had way too high a dependency on Hojbjerg in that injury crisis.

Based on what I've seen, I do think a fit Solanke makes such a difference to Frank across this season. Ditto with Kulu. It's not about Solanke's goals either. It's about the way he leads the line and enables others to play.

What I'm thinking will happen is that Frank gets replaced. Then the new guy, caretaker or not, gets access to a mostly full suite of players (the right players) and we all wonder what the problem was. That should bring some optimism back.

Also a lot easier to put a well drilled defence together with your better defenders available. The difference in goals conceded under Ange between when Romero and VdV played and not was rather large. Only for the last 6 months he had Danso available. Remember Emerson, Gray, Davies etc at CB, Forster in goal. (Not all at the same time obviously). Had to do without players in the engine room too. Bergvall played most of his games as one of the two deepest midfielders, Frank has never had to use him there. Bissouma has been brought back now because we have no options, he was mostly first choice under Ange. Johnson was mostly first choice, has been sold because Frank got Kudus instead. We didn't have Solanke all of Ange's first season. We did have Son and Madders of course, but also Werner, Richarlison, Solomon, Gil, Johnson. Players who either has been available to Frank too or has been shipped out because they weren't seen as good enough.

I think Frank will get replaced too, more a matter of time. Could it wait until the summer, maybe, but I doubt it. Having a mostly full suite of players at any point would be great. We're without Kudus and Bentancur for a while now. Maddison probably the rest of the season. Tips on a post-it for the next player to get injured, the situation we're currently in tends to bring more injuries before it gets better. Unless a manager makes some real hard priorities on one competition alone and then gets sacked for not competing on multiple fronts.

Frank would have done better with a full squad of key players mostly available, obviously. He's also done a imo really poor job here with what he had available. As I've stated before the comparison being Ange, who was sacked despite winning us our first trophy in 17 years, speaks to how low the bar has to be for Frank to even be defended.

 

[Muttley]

Also a lot easier to put a well drilled defence together with your better defenders available. The difference in goals conceded under Ange between when Romero and VdV played and not was rather large. Only for the last 6 months he had Danso available. Remember Emerson, Gray, Davies etc at CB, Forster in goal. (Not all at the same time obviously). Had to do without players in the engine room too. Bergvall played most of his games as one of the two deepest midfielders, Frank has never had to use him there. Bissouma has been brought back now because we have no options, he was mostly first choice under Ange. Johnson was mostly first choice, has been sold because Frank got Kudus instead. We didn't have Solanke all of Ange's first season. We did have Son and Madders of course, but also Werner, Richarlison, Solomon, Gil, Johnson. Players who either has been available to Frank too or has been shipped out because they weren't seen as good enough.

I think Frank will get replaced too, more a matter of time. Could it wait until the summer, maybe, but I doubt it. Having a mostly full suite of players at any point would be great. We're without Kudus and Bentancur for a while now. Maddison probably the rest of the season. Tips on a post-it for the next player to get injured, the situation we're currently in tends to bring more injuries before it gets better. Unless a manager makes some real hard priorities on one competition alone and then gets sacked for not competing on multiple fronts.

Frank would have done better with a full squad of key players mostly available, obviously. He's also done a imo really poor job here with what he had available. As I've stated before the comparison being Ange, who was sacked despite winning us our first trophy in 17 years, speaks to how low the bar has to be for Frank to even be defended.

I read this all the time about our stats being better with the 2 senior centre halves. It's funny that nobody ever talks about the manager's ability to drill different combinations of defences so they are operating almost at the same level as the first choice. It was a huge drop off under Ange through his entire tenure whatever options were fit. I think you may remember but I would put a lot of that down to his insistence on playing that deep offside. We saw so many moments when a single player played the opposition on. We saw so many moments where the defenders were trying to pick a line rather than picking up a player and doing things like getting goal side. Then he encouraged his centre mids to all get on the press together on top of this. Fundamentally, these things were a massive issue with Ange over a long period of time in my opinion. It was very hard to rotate defensive minded players the way Ange setup.

As for prioritisation, there is no doubt in my mind that we need to make the league the priority. Dortmund is what it is. We know the score with the squad on that. Frankfurt shouldn't get any real priority, and hopefully we'll get the next 2 games anyway. We can then assess in Feb where we are but it is likely we may need to sacrifice those 2 legs for the league. It's a horrible place to be in, but we have to get back to basics this season and focus on our bread and butter. Get some optimism and momentum heading into next season regardless who the manager is in May.

Do you fear a relegation scrap?

 

[braineclipse]

I read this all the time about our stats being better with the 2 senior centre halves. It's funny that nobody ever talks about the manager's ability to drill different combinations of defences so they are operating almost at the same level as the first choice. It was a huge drop off under Ange through his entire tenure whatever options were fit. I think you may remember but I would put a lot of that down to his insistence on playing that deep offside. We saw so many moments when a single player played the opposition on. We saw so many moments where the defenders were trying to pick a line rather than picking up a player and doing things like getting goal side. Then he encouraged his centre mids to all get on the press together on top of this. Fundamentally, these things were a massive issue with Ange over a long period of time in my opinion. It was very hard to rotate defensive minded players the way Ange setup.

As for prioritisation, there is no doubt in my mind that we need to make the league the priority. Dortmund is what it is. We know the score with the squad on that. Frankfurt shouldn't get any real priority, and hopefully we'll get the next 2 games anyway. We can then assess in Feb where we are but it is likely we may need to sacrifice those 2 legs for the league. It's a horrible place to be in, but we have to get back to basics this season and focus on our bread and butter. Get some optimism and momentum heading into next season regardless who the manager is in May.

Do you fear a relegation scrap?

Remember his options at CB? Emerson Royal, Davies, then Dragusin (who seemed a rather poor fit to his style). Then Danso in the last 6 months.

I'm not saying Ange was the messiah and would have made us world beaters. For sure there were big issues. But I think it's worth noting that how well Frank would have done defensively with those players remains an unknown.

Will be interesting to see if the league is seen as a big priority tomorrow. I think probably not.

I fear a relegation scrap. I don't think we're in one now. But if we get in one I think we could be in trouble. For now a win or two should see us safe from that, just need to get a win or two... I struggle to see how the current trajectory gets us those wins. I also fear further injuries and if we get that in combination with a relegation scrap that could get ugly. Again, priorities. Do we rest some of the more important and more fatigued players tomorrow? Or do we just keep playing them hoping that they don't break down? Surely a tactically flexible, pragmatic manager will find a way to not make the injury situation worse?

A Stellini style caretaker would be a disaster. So if the club is planning on getting rid of Frank I'm glad if they're having a think about it.

 

[SissokoWasGood (BoL)]

Our 5 star attackers who were available for that entire sequence of games; well aside from Solanke being ill for Fulham when Son was up front and Richarlison was back for Everton when Johnson joined the injury list.

Kulusevski
View attachment 21328

Sonny
View attachment 21329

Maddison
View attachment 21330

Solanke
View attachment 21332

Johnson
View attachment 21333

So he had 5 attackers fit, through a contested part of the season where he also had his centre backs and goalkeeper out. Remember he would play 2 two 8’s (could be Madders and Deki), Sonny on the left, Johnson on the right, and Solanke up front. What were his options again?

 

[SissokoWasGood (BoL)]

Frank definitely needs as much slack in the UEFA comps in Jan. He might even go into Tuesday with only one fit double pivot midfielder if Gray and Palhinha don't make it. If not he'll be patching these guys up and they won't be 100%. He's also playing with a very lightweight forward line and he's naturally without Dragusin, Gallagher, Solanke because of UEFA squad quotas. Kudus, Bents, Kulu, Madds, Richi etc all injured and Sarr probably not back in time. In one scenario Scarlett might be the only "senior" sub or Olusesi may have to start.

I think we might see on Tuesday a team and squad very comparable to Ange's January ones. I mapped Ange back to mid Feb and the Utd game before I really felt he had a squad. We then beat them 1-0 and went on to beat Ipswich a week later. That was about the best week of the second half of the league season from memory. Difference is, when it comes to Burnley Frank will have a stronger squad than Ange was operating with in January.

Any which way you look at it, it's been the lack of our best attacking players and the assimilation of new players in parallel that has been our Achilles heal. Because of this, Tues will be the straw that breaks the camel's back with Frank and his job, Nobody will be factoring in the depleted squad and the inability to compete.

Yeah to be honest, I think Frank deserves immense slack for the squad he’s going into Dortmund with. My point was just that the reason it hasn’t worked with Frank is not because of the same level of injury situation or congestion that happened to Ange.

 

[SissokoWasGood (BoL)]

Remember his options at CB? Emerson Royal, Davies, then Dragusin (who seemed a rather poor fit to his style). Then Danso in the last 6 months.

I'm not saying Ange was the messiah and would have made us world beaters. For sure there were big issues. But I think it's worth noting that how well Frank would have done defensively with those players remains an unknown.

Will be interesting to see if the league is seen as a big priority tomorrow. I think probably not.

I fear a relegation scrap. I don't think we're in one now. But if we get in one I think we could be in trouble. For now a win or two should see us safe from that, just need to get a win or two... I struggle to see how the current trajectory gets us those wins. I also fear further injuries and if we get that in combination with a relegation scrap that could get ugly. Again, priorities. Do we rest some of the more important and more fatigued players tomorrow? Or do we just keep playing them hoping that they don't break down? Surely a tactically flexible, pragmatic manager will find a way to not make the injury situation worse?

A Stellini style caretaker would be a disaster. So if the club is planning on getting rid of Frank I'm glad if they're having a think about it.

Yeah, asking any coach to drill non centre backs to be as effective as first choice actual centre backs is just a tall order.

 

[SteveAWOL]

So he had 5 attackers fit, through a contested part of the season where he also had his centre backs and goalkeeper out. Remember he would play 2 two 8’s (could be Madders and Deki), Sonny on the left, Johnson on the right, and Solanke up front. What were his options again?

Well I’d take those 5 even running on fumes over Tel, Odobert, Muani and Simons; all of whom are downgrades on what we had at this point last season.

Which is a damning indictment of the continuing incompetence from our transfer committee, who should’ve been capitalising upon the prestige of us being CHAMPIONS OF EUROPE combined with the financial clout of having the best stadium in the country to upgrade our squad.

Instead we’ve simply swapped Johnson for Kudus (who Frank ran into the ground with the over-dependence upon his hold-up ability) and now signed yet another tenacious #8 (which at least means we have some cover for the injured Begvall and Bentancur) but still lack a single CMF capable of dictating tempo. Nor do we have a left footed FB to cover for Udogie, who’s suffered 4 hamstring injuries in the past 20 months.

 

[SissokoWasGood (BoL)]

Well I’d take those 5 even running on fumes over Tel, Odobert, Muani and Simons; all of whom are downgrades on what we had at this point last season.

Which is a damning indictment of the continuing incompetence from our transfer committee, who should’ve been capitalising upon the prestige of us being CHAMPIONS OF EUROPE combined with the financial clout of having the best stadium in the country to upgrade our squad.

Instead we’ve simply swapped Johnson for Kudus (who Frank ran into the ground with the over-dependence upon his hold-up ability) and now signed yet another tenacious #8 (which at least means we have some cover for the injured Begvall and Bentancur) but still lack a single CMF capable of dictating tempo. Nor do we have a left footed FB to cover for Udogie, who’s suffered 4 hamstring injuries in the past 20 months.

I don’t disagree with any of that.

I think Tel was an earnest attempt and getting us a new Sonny. Obviously someone who would have to grow to get to that level but has clear potential and talent.

I also do think in general the club made an earnest effort to make sure the squad was deep enough for all comps this year. Like I’m not sure we go and get RKM done in previous years.

I think that there was at least an attempt to have more depth this year, but due to some extreme bad luck it seems like it just hasn’t worked out.

 

[Muttley]

I don’t disagree with any of that.

I think Tel was an earnest attempt and getting us a new Sonny. Obviously someone who would have to grow to get to that level but has clear potential and talent.

I also do think in general the club made an earnest effort to make sure the squad was deep enough for all comps this year. Like I’m not sure we go and get RKM done in previous years.

I think that there was at least an attempt to have more depth this year, but due to some extreme bad luck it seems like it just hasn’t worked out.

I think there is a school of thought that the moment Ange walked into the club we realised we needed a bigger squad. It goes with his philosophy of high tempo, front foot attacking football and keeping everyone fresh. I remember some great posters on here building arguments that we needed to complete the squad first numerically, before we could move to the next level. I wanted to keep the quality over quantity model going and live with the pain of a slightly reduced squad. I wanted even more younger players and trust them more. There is no right or wrong about that as the counter argument is that a guy like Ash Phillips has had a couple of fantastic loans and is probably further ahead than if he was making up numbers.

So any which way we look at it, we've ended up stacked and back in the sell to buy model again and it was quite deliberate on our part. It was based on our budget to bring in this many players. The potential danger is that we're still buying Gallaghers for £35m and not Whartons or Andersens for the really big money. We're still using band-aids and improving the squad depth not the 1st team strength.

The most concerning part is our squad is so stacked with players and we still can't name decent squads because of more injury crises. I've never known a period like it.