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Welcome Ange: To Dare is to Didgeridoo

I saw a team last night that thought they just had to turn up to win the game. AZ played with much more intensity and bravery than we did. Luckily the game is over two legs and I doubt the players will take them so lightly next time (I've no idea why they did take them so lightly seeing as they knocked out Galatasary over two legs in the previous round).

If that was the case, we seem to take just about every team 'lightly' these days...
 
4 duds in a row. And bizarrely it looks like Nuno might have been the best of the lot of them
Nuno and Ange are at least the right profile of manager so I understand those appointments. Nuno should have been the guy to follow Poch rather than a Mourinho but either way his actual style of football probably didn't fit the squad we had at the time.
 
What I saw tonight was a squad that has had their heads completely scrambled by a manager whose methods don't work. Those players don't know when to run, where to run and can't do basic things like pass and move. They don't know when to cross or when to take their man on. They don't have a shape and they can't communicate with each other. They are scared to find solutions themselves in a match situation. They think the matches will just go like the very artificial training ground routines they clearly go through.

I started this season 40:60 in Ange's favour this season. I was 60:40 against Ange for the last few months. That shifted to 80:20 tonight. We need him gone when the EL season ends. We should immediately go to caretaker manager for the last part of the season if we go out of the EL. He shouldn't be getting the 38th league game if he doesn't keep us in this tournament.

Even if there are some great periods of play with Ange, we will never find consistency. His system only works against certain types of other tactical systems. Too often he is getting undone by other managers. Tonight was yet another bad day at the office for him. Our king of philosophy and life coach had no football answers. Perhaps he's in the wrong career.
Fundamentally he gets out coached by pretty much everyone he comes up against. It's hard to think of any games where we can say we out fixed the opponent or had a strategy to successfully negate their strengths. All I see is us pretty trying the same thing repeatedly just with different players when the base didn't work in the first place it's not going to work with the lower quality replacements.
 
I saw a team last night that thought they just had to turn up to win the game. AZ played with much more intensity and bravery than we did. Luckily the game is over two legs and I doubt the players will take them so lightly next time (I've no idea why they did take them so lightly seeing as they knocked out Galatasary over two legs in the previous round).

My thoughts as well, i am sure some will disagree but imo that was our worse effort of the season. As you say the whole team played as if all they had to do to win was turn up.
 
My thoughts as well, i am sure some will disagree but imo that was our worse effort of the season. As you say the whole team played as if all they had to do to win was turn up.
For me, albeit a simplified view, the performance came from one - or many! - of three things:

1) Over-confidence
2) Under-confidence
3) Confusion

Would love to know which one(s) it was.

It doesn’t excuse the lack of effort though, which was shocking to see from the majority of the team.
 
For me, albeit a simplified view, the performance came from one - or many! - of three things:

1) Over-confidence
2) Under-confidence
3) Confusion

Would love to know which one(s) it was.

It doesn’t excuse the lack of effort though, which was shocking to see from the majority of the team.

Would be number 1 imo.
 
The one thing I don’t understand about over confidence is surely there comes a time of realisation during the match? Surely the players go a goal down and that should shock them into upping their game, only we didn’t see that. So why?

I think we have a lack of a true leader in the centre of the pitch. It’s what I’ve said before and it seems so true after last night. We need to spend big money and bring in a commanding midfielder that can influence the game and lead by example. Someone a bit like a Roy Keane who won’t take any brick from team mates and pushes team forwards but is strong on ability themselves and works tirelessly. A bit of a tosser to all outside supporters but hugely rated and appreciated by our supporters. Not sure who fits the bill.
 
For me, albeit a simplified view, the performance came from one - or many! - of three things:

1) Over-confidence
2) Under-confidence
3) Confusion

Would love to know which one(s) it was.

It doesn’t excuse the lack of effort though, which was shocking to see from the majority of the team.
It's a combination of 2 and 3. There is absolutely no way that this team would currently be going into any match over confident. They have absolutely nothing to build that confidence upon.
 
I saw a team last night that thought they just had to turn up to win the game. AZ played with much more intensity and bravery than we did. Luckily the game is over two legs and I doubt the players will take them so lightly next time (I've no idea why they did take them so lightly seeing as they knocked out Galatasary over two legs in the previous round).
Personally I saw the same team as I've been seeing for ages.

One that has been poorly prepared to deal with whatever the opposition is going to do. Everytime we play it's like we're taken aback that the other team isn't doing what happens when we practice in training.
 
I struggle to understand how this team could’ve been overconfident going into last night’s game. If they were it would indicate an appalling lack of leadership on and off the pitch. But I suppose we knew that already.
You not seen us in this cup over the years?
 
Personally I saw the same team as I've been seeing for ages.

One that has been poorly prepared to deal with whatever the opposition is going to do. Everytime we play it's like we're taken aback that the other team isn't doing what happens when we practice in training.
I suppose we'll see next Thursday. Personally, I think we'll go out there, not take the opposition lightly and beat them.

Time will tell.
 
Personally I saw the same team as I've been seeing for ages.

One that has been poorly prepared to deal with whatever the opposition is going to do. Everytime we play it's like we're taken aback that the other team isn't doing what happens when we practice in training.

Yep and I also struggle to see anything that we are trying to do now.
 
Just thinking they had to turn up to win is such tired cliché - 9 times out of 10 in those instances the team is just ill prepared, but I guess that's not the managers responsibility either.
I thought that the opposition clearly showed a lot more desire than we did last night. Maybe that is us being ill-prepared or maybe the players have an overblown opinion of our place in the football pyramid compared to AZ and didn't put it all in last night.

Everton showed more desire than Liverpool a few weeks' ago in a PL game. Was that because Liverpool were ill prepared by Slot?
 
I thought that the opposition clearly showed a lot more desire than we did last night. Maybe that is us being ill-prepared or maybe the players have an overblown opinion of our place in the football pyramid compared to AZ and didn't put it all in last night.

Everton showed more desire than Liverpool a few weeks' ago in a PL game. Was that because Liverpool were ill prepared by Slot?

When you are ill prepared and working to a plan that isn't er working then the impression can be that there's no desire imv

Not sure what the relevance of Everton v Liverpool is, often underdog teams will go in to games against better teams knowing they can make up for a mismatch in quality by working (extra) hard - one team working harder than the other isn't a sign of one team being unprepared nor is it a sign that one team thought the game was won before turning up.
 
Just thinking they had to turn up to win is such tired cliché - 9 times out of 10 in those instances the team is just ill prepared, but I guess that's not the managers responsibility either.

Yep, the culture comes from the manager in these games, if you are not chomping at the bit when let off the leash then there is something seriously wrong..........

8 days of prep and thats what we got, sorry mate........
 
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