Muttley
Bobby Mimms
lol - I hope Munn is having more than an influence. He is our Chief Football Officer. He needs to be running it altogether.
Lange and Ange work for him.
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Contingency planning : If Ange is sacked, who should replace him?
- Thread starter Daisuk
- Start date
lol - I hope Munn is having more than an influence. He is our Chief Football Officer. He needs to be running it altogether.
Lange and Ange work for him.
Well yes but there's some rather vocal posters who consider that all to be an illusion orchestrated by Levy in order to have a sacrificial lamb in place
Muttley
Bobby Mimms
lol - and I did read this morning that LEVY and Lange have flown to Paris to discuss the Muani deal.
I think Munn might be allowed to dial in by Zoom from London
JerusalemMan
Chris Perry
What's the saying? Empty vessels make the most noise?
Finney Is Back
Andy Thompson
The reason is that we were not prepared to pay big fees or, more pertinently, big salaries. If you offer the money you get the players mate, has always been thus, especially when you’ve got the advantage of being located in London.
As for taking a lot of time…. It takes one season.
braineclipse
Terry Dyson
That's perhaps part of it.
Mostly I think it's that Ange has done enough to earn that time. At our best we've been fantastic. The players seem bought in even through a run of results that have been really bad. It's obvious that injuries and fatigue have been big factors. And we went fairly young this summer.
Mr Gogolak
Espen Baardsen
A lot of time OR a lot of money. I'd also argue that, while I agree with the general idea, offering money is no longer enough: you have to offer as much or even more money than your competition. When you're perceived as a 'smaller' club, you either have to offer a lot more money, or you have to settle for ageing players who are looking for one last big payday on their way out - that's what Chelsea did in the early Abramovitch days with Vialli and Gullit, for instance - and then build on from there. Even when Middlesboro were spending money like there's no tomorrow, all they got was Nick Barmby and Fabrizio Ravanelli.
Anyway, it's just for the sake of the argument because I don't think we'll finish in the bottom half of the table (let alone multiple seasons in a row).
veryoldspur
Darren Caskey
No we weren't, we were losing games hand over fist before the injuries as well
veryoldspur
Darren Caskey
He had a good first ten games, albeit he had a lot of luck in that period, pray tell, what has he done to deserve anything (other than being sacked)?
braineclipse
Terry Dyson
We were inconsistent, but nothing like our run of results since the injuries got bad.
I wrote about some of those things in the very post you quoted.
parklane1
Tony Galvin
Amen to that.
veryoldspur
Darren Caskey
Ultimately I don't think he is capable of turning things around, and certainly isn't capable of winning us a trophy. I respect your opinion if it is different, but if you are honest with yourself I think you know I am right. He will almost certainly be gone by Easter, by which time we will probably be out of all three competitions, and are likely to be in the bottom half of the table, regardless of the injury situation. The fact Liverpool will slaughter us over two legs doesn't really doesn't bother me, because they are arguably the best team in Europe with the best manager, I'm not even too upset by the fact Arsenal will give us a spanking, because player for player they are better than us, it's all those games we should win but don't because the opposing manager knows how to cope with our playground tactics
Glenda's Legs
Paul Walsh
That's actually the opposite of respecting his opinion.
This is a big part of the message that gets lost, to me the squad change is insane, and there are three groups
- Core squad, most in only their 2nd season with us, a small group in the just over 3
- Youngsters, players who's impact will be next season or season after (Gray, Bergvall, Moore, Yang and even Vuskovich)
- Old guard, as you mentioned, on really 4 or so left
The challenge for us is
- Incorporating all of those players (and it's one of the reasons the we needed to buy more players last summer had to have some context), big example here is Spence, somehow (and yes, can blame manager) he really wasn't incorporated into team until no other choice was there (would that have happened to others if we bought more?)
- Some of the players probably weren't intended to have to play as much as they have this season, specifically the younger ones, pretty sure we didn't think Gray, Dragusin, Bergvall and probably even Johnson would be in every game.
- Also people miss the extent of the ask, replacing Kane, Son (to come), Toby, Jan & Lloris is a hell of an ask that can take years for some clubs (want to see how well Liverpool does replacing Salah & VVD)
So there are two real criticisms of the work done so far that I think are worth discussing (with context)
- Reliance on youth, i.e. while Gray & Bergvall (and likely Vuskovich and Moore) are good additions, they are not now players, is that strategy just exposed because of the injuries or is it an accepted part of rebuild
- Lack of 1st team changes over summer (ready for now), this is related to point one, but vs. injuries maybe a timing choice. i.e. was the expectation that we did the main squad refresh and then expect to add a Solanke/Maddison type (i.e. experienced, ready for now) each window from here on in?
Back to Ange and thread conversation. I actually feel the next manager gets a much better squad position/balance to push on with.
Muttley
Bobby Mimms
On your last 2 points, I readily accept that the trade-offs of going through this transformation is being left with some legacy squad players who don't give us the quality, even if they give us depth. That will change, even this month.
I don't have a problem with the youth at all though and certainly wouldn't make them a criticism. We've only really come to rely on 2 of the kids anyway, and they are more than earning their stripes. I think you might mean the maturation of the 21-25 year olds though. That could be better right now, but will also sort itself out.
Tactical systems are still up there with me. They get a bye for now because of the injury crisis though. Would love to be in a position where it is fair to assess them again though.
thfcsteff
Garth Crooks
Haha, fair play.
Two things. Firstly, do you genuinely believe that it is in his DNA to relinquish even 70% control over football matters? This i not necessarily a criticism of Levy whatsoever -I think you saw a post I wrote a coupkle of weeks back where I very much praised his non-football work as the best in sport- just an observationof who he has shown himself to be personality-wise?
Secondly, here's to me being wrong. Genuinely. It would be great. However the source of my underlying concern remains rooted in 25 years and the odd Commoli and Hitchin. Only Arnesen and Paratici have looked like a match. Arnesen proved to be a mercenary+, and Paratici was nobbled, albeit both were still working within parameters...funnily, I have come to recognize my own hypocrisy when it comes to Paratici, whom I felt bad about because of his fly-by-night dodgy geezer vibe, but who proved to be a brilliant DoF for us and who I now find myself hoping is lurking in then not-too background pulling some string! Books and covers, I should know better!
thfcsteff
Garth Crooks
I am hoping Ange gets the chance to enjoy that. Regardless, I agree. Milo does a very good job articulating everything you're getting into here. I got a greater comprehension of the situation from it, and I consider myself knowledgable about the club yet certainly found there were important nuances which I didn't understand, most of all just when the problem started.
Muttley
Bobby Mimms
The 2 net new things I learnt from Milo were the 3 changes only rule with UEFA squad and the perspective on Josh Keeley. The latter made a lot of sense to me. Now I think about, he probably is being primed for sale.
My confusion was that we talk about Phillips as having to complete 2 years before he can be on the UEFA B-list before he become club trained as part of locally trained. Then we are already calling Gray locally trained because he is at the club and we have put him in that column on the podcast website. I'm not sure he can be there. He holds the same status as the non-homegrown players in my mind and already has that 16th slot in the first column.
My other confusion (with the club) is why don't they just name Max Robson as club trained. As he's over 21, surely he's just a free pick on the bench in a crisis. What am I missing there? What has Max done to be on the naughty step?
Agreed, and I think it's closer than most people think.
By the 2nd leg with Liverpool (early Feb) we should have most of the squad back plus hopefully some additions
We can't lose 10+ games in 2nd half of season
He's (Paratici) still involved, widely reported he was in the suite behind media seating (so we don't care about the visibility) and was on his phone for the entirety of the Saudi Sportswashing Machine match (his old style)
Re Levy relinquishing, none of us know, what I would say is the scale has long passed one man band. I'd also say, there has been changes in last few years, can argue is it enough, is it right scale but there are things that historically wouldn't have happened or happened in the timelines that do now.