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Thomas Frank - Head Coach

Given Romeros latest post on social
Media, is it possible the players are looking half arsed because of the owners and wanting out rather than the manager?

Would explain why they looked massively tinkled off half the time 😂
 
Kane said:
Hmm, assuming that's true, would it suggest the club chose - and appointed - Frank knowing we had hardly any players to suit him?
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Do you think Man Utd appointed Amorim knowing they had hardly any players to suit him?

That's just my two pence as a fan, and one who can't even go to the games (unfortunately). I believe a common mistake we all make in our everyday life is thinking a situation is the result of one cause only. It's usually a lot of small things that, added together, produce a particular outcome.

Maybe he said he'd set up differently because he really wanted the job. Maybe his assessment of the squad was completely off. Maybe they chose him because they thought he'd be easy to work with. Maybe I'm wrong (wouldn't be the first time) and we're having a tough time under Frank for another reason.

But I'd say this: either we have a fantastic squad of players who can thrive in any system or the sequence of Pochettino - Mourinho - Conte - Postecoglou - Frank suggests we don't really give too much thought about whether the players and the manager are a good match.
 
Mr Gogolak said:
Do you think Man Utd appointed Amorim knowing they had hardly any players to suit him?

That's just my two pence as a fan, and one who can't even go to the games (unfortunately). I believe a common mistake we all make in our everyday life is thinking a situation is the result of one cause only. It's usually a lot of small things that, added together, produce a particular outcome.

Maybe he said he'd set up differently because he really wanted the job. Maybe his assessment of the squad was completely off. Maybe they chose him because they thought he'd be easy to work with. Maybe I'm wrong (wouldn't be the first time) and we're having a tough time under Frank for another reason.

But I'd say this: either we have a fantastic squad of players who can thrive in any system or the sequence of Pochettino - Mourinho - Conte - Postecoglou - Frank suggests we don't really give too much thought about whether the players and the manager are a good match.
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I think I've posted similar themes to this myself recently. Most players transition seamlessly.

I have a feeling it was @Raziel and I chatting about this the other day. If there is a concern, it is that we're not shortlisting managers who fit a criteria that match to our club football philosophy. I think @thfcsteff articulates this one better than me but if you want your club to player progress, front foot passing football on a high press then you create a shortlist of managers that fit that criteria. I wouldn't have had Frank in that bracket even though he clearly ticks other boxes that would be in the required criteria.

I reckon if we can get manager transitions done better then we wouldn't even worry about player transitions.

Our dilemma now is what to do with Frank. It's possible he convinced our board that his prior brand of football was out of necessity based on the parameters he worked in at Brentford. He may have convinced them that his intent was to start the way we've seen and then manage a transition into the Spurs way. Personally, I didn't like the way Ange did it. There was no transitional phases. He just said this is the way we're gonna play and put round pegs in squad holes. It failed and he did an about turn for the EL tactics. Frank is clearly managing this job in phases and we are starting to see his methods start to work in my opinion. Whether he keeps transitioning to the eventual end game of attractive football is up for debate, but I still have an open mind. I'm noticing that some fans theorise that he will always revert to his Brentford style tactics and won't be able to change these habits.
 
Mr Gogolak said:
Do you think Man Utd appointed Amorim knowing they had hardly any players to suit him?
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If anyone at United's hierarchy thought their squad suited Amorim's 3atb system, they should be fired. They had general issues with aging back line and midfield.

Muttley said:
I think I've posted similar themes to this myself recently. Most players transition seamlessly.

I have a feeling it was @Raziel and I chatting about this the other day. If there is a concern, it is that we're not shortlisting managers who fit a criteria that match to our club football philosophy. I think @thfcsteff articulates this one better than me but if you want your club to player progress, front foot passing football on a high press then you create a shortlist of managers that fit that criteria. I wouldn't have had Frank in that bracket even though he clearly ticks other boxes that would be in the required criteria.

I reckon if we can get manager transitions done better then we wouldn't even worry about player transitions.

Our dilemma now is what to do with Frank. It's possible he convinced our board that his prior brand of football was out of necessity based on the parameters he worked in at Brentford. He may have convinced them that his intent was to start the way we've seen and then manage a transition into the Spurs way. Personally, I didn't like the way Ange did it. There was no transitional phases. He just said this is the way we're gonna play and put round pegs in squad holes. It failed and he did an about turn for the EL tactics. Frank is clearly managing this job in phases and we are starting to see his methods start to work in my opinion. Whether he keeps transitioning to the eventual end game of attractive football is up for debate, but I still have an open mind. I'm noticing that some fans theorise that he will always revert to his Brentford style tactics and won't be able to change these habits.
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I suspect we have abandoned Frank, the fans don't want him, he's continuously 1 bad result from everyone screaming for his head, we are languishing in the bottom half of table with 11 injuries to first team and we chose not only do Gallagher and 2 kids, surely we could have found a loan of some kind.

I'm sure the belief was he could step up, as you said, it's been covered before, numerous reasons why that assumption could make sense.

I think Frank has failed and will fail at this level because a core principle of his is "good enough", he walks away from some of our draws and for him its "good enough", sitting back on 1-0 leads and dealing with the risks/occasional loss of points from there is "good enough" for him, at a smaller club those good enoughs add up to an acceptable position at end of season, here it doesn't, risking more for 3 points is required.

I have family that support United, that we had very similar conversations re Amorim, he thought like some people here do re Frank, that Amorim was doing an ok job, that he needed time and a better squad. He called me after Carrick's last game to admit they should have gotten rid of Amorim months ago, it's not just the results (Carrick has matched Amorim's best run of results literally in his first 3 games), the football is completely transformed.
 
We are 14/15th. That is an easy sack for anyone that has a top 4 objective. Personally would have sacked him quite a few games PL games ago. Didn't work out, move on.
 
Raziel said:
I have family that support United, that we had very similar conversations re Amorim, he thought like some people here do re Frank, that Amorim was doing an ok job, that he needed time and a better squad. He called me after Carrick's last game to admit they should have gotten rid of Amorim months ago, it's not just the results (Carrick has matched Amorim's best run of results literally in his first 3 games), the football is completely transformed.
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It looks, on the face of it, like it was the correct decision to sack Amorim, only time will tell and that time is not now imho. Utd fans are going in waay too early on Carrick. He's admittedly had some brilliant wins so far. But it's been what 3 games? Come back after he has had to deal with a 2-3 game loss or injuries to key players or the new manager bounce has worn off. He has a week to prepare between games too, which affords a better perspective to managers at top clubs. He had a similar good start to life at Middlesbrough before it tailed off over the next 2 seasons. Let's wait and see.

TF is unpopular I get that and there is a reasonable case to be made as to why. But putting aside that dislike for a second, compared to Carrick, his record is more impressive. Not only did he successfully achieve promotion to the PL with an unfancied, Brentford team, he also established them there, over 3 seasons. If it had come to replacing him before, I would not have been advocating for Carrick to be that replacement.
 
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Raziel said:
If anyone at United's hierarchy thought their squad suited Amorim's 3atb system, they should be fired. They had general issues with aging back line and midfield.



I suspect we have abandoned Frank, the fans don't want him, he's continuously 1 bad result from everyone screaming for his head, we are languishing in the bottom half of table with 11 injuries to first team and we chose not only do Gallagher and 2 kids, surely we could have found a loan of some kind.

I'm sure the belief was he could step up, as you said, it's been covered before, numerous reasons why that assumption could make sense.

I think Frank has failed and will fail at this level because a core principle of his is "good enough", he walks away from some of our draws and for him its "good enough", sitting back on 1-0 leads and dealing with the risks/occasional loss of points from there is "good enough" for him, at a smaller club those good enoughs add up to an acceptable position at end of season, here it doesn't, risking more for 3 points is required.

I have family that support United, that we had very similar conversations re Amorim, he thought like some people here do re Frank, that Amorim was doing an ok job, that he needed time and a better squad. He called me after Carrick's last game to admit they should have gotten rid of Amorim months ago, it's not just the results (Carrick has matched Amorim's best run of results literally in his first 3 games), the football is completely transformed.
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It was THFC that created the Spurs fans mentality. It is also their job to reverse that mentality and build trust. That includes sticking by managers and demonstrating to fans that is the right approach. Our contingent of online fans literally turn on a dime. They turn against on a bad result and they turn back on a good result. Our managers are either the messiah or the devil and nothing in between. We do the same with players as well. We watch them go through 2-3 months of injuries and conditioning work to get back and after one or two bad games after being back they turn on them. We watch them patch themselves up when they're in the red zone and call them not good enough because they don't play a blinder.

As for the "good enough" narrative, I don't really relate to that. Frank has said so many powerful things in pressers and they are completely ignored because they don't make news stories. If he makes smaller, irrelevant comments then they are jumped on. What we're actually seeing from Frank is a rock solid consistent communication approach. Unlike Ange, he won't avoid the questions and start telling stories to avoid the subject. He won't get deliberately spiky with the press, again to avoid answering the actual question. Frank is playing a straight bat and once again this is about fan conditioning.

It's a shame about Carrick joining them. Like we spoke about a couple of weeks back, perhaps utd did the right mapping between managers and their club philosophy. Perhaps they eliminated some really experienced, highly paid managers because they didn't fit the criteria. What was left was a guy like Carrick. I wish him well, although it obviously works in our favour if this is just a honeymoon period and they crash and burn.
 
Robspur12 said:
It looks, on the face of it, like it was the correct decision to sack Amorim, only time will tell and that time is not now imho. Utd fans are going in waay too early on Carrick. He's admittedly had some brilliant wins so far. But it's been what 3 games? Come back after he has had to deal with a 2-3 game loss or injuries to key players or the new manager bounce has worn off. He has a week to prepare between games too, which affords a better perspective to managers at top clubs. He had a similar good start to life at Middlesbrough before it tailed off over the next 2 seasons. Let's wait and see.

TF is unpopular I get that and there is a reasonable case to be made as to why. But putting aside that dislike for a second, compared to Carrick, his record is more impressive. Not only did he successfully achieve promotion to the PL with an unfancied, Brentford team, he also established them there, over 3 seasons. If it had come to replacing him before, I would not have been advocating for Carrick to be that replacement.
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Yep, it becomes a bandwagon with Frank unfortunately, mostly from a very noisy online minority. I still think most fans are putting objective arguments together for or against him though. I certainly feel that on this forum.
 
Muttley said:
Yep, it becomes a bandwagon with Frank unfortunately, mostly from a very noisy online minority. I still think most fans are putting objective arguments together for or against him though. I certainly feel that on this forum.
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Accepting the description of this as a "bandwagon" I'd say it's an entirely predictable bandwagon. 14th at the start of February, having played rather boring football for significant parts of the season. I think the reactions are predictable.

Imo the only way to change fan perception/mentality is by performances and results. Imo it's on the manager first and foremost to show that he's the right man for the job, to show that he deserves that time and patience.

If results and performances continue more or less as they have done this season you'd keep him come the summer?

For me he has to turn things around, it's to me looking unlikely though somewhat less unlikely than it did a couple of weeks ago.
 
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