tommysvr
Dean Richards
Yep, Ange has divided the fans. Some genuinely believe that Ange was right to put his stake in the ground about his tactical system and drive everything around it. Others like me wanted him to intelligently plot a path towards his go-to system, not reverse engineer from it. I didn't fully trust it from the time I saw us batter West Ham in preseason and lose the game. There were some immediate red flags from me how easy we were undone. Same as his first 10 competitive games in charge. I would have been more patient if I saw some pragmatism and some acknowledgment from Ange that he new to this league and needed to adjust.
I think it takes a more skilful manager that looks at all the resources he has, makes the assessment that his system cannot work just quite yet and then plots a path. A manager that make the compromises from day 1, but incrementally gets to his outcome in an iterative fashion. It's like anything, you course correct on the journey and end up with something better than your plan A anyway. Just ask Pep or Klopp. There are many different ways to play front foot, entertaining football.
It was way too easy to be Ange especially when you're good with words and can sell the vision. You'll only get away with that for so long though, as he's now finding out. When the P45 finally comes, I hope Ange reflects. If he does, and decides to change, I still think he can make a great PL coach. There's a lot to like about him.
Genuinely...have you not been watching lately??? Do you remember Brenford away just last month? Are you telling me that's the same style that we've seen in every other match? Everton away where he tried something different and massively failed? Emirates Marketing Project away where we did them on the counter attack and won 4-0? Emirates Marketing Project at home last season where he drastically changed the formation?
It sounds to me like you watched literally the first game in pre-season, made up your mind, listened to the "we never change" comments and Jamie Redknapp/Gary Neville punditry and have since ignored all of the evidence in front of you that show...no, we absolutely do not play like that every week.
The philosophy remains the same: try to win the ball up the pitch, overload teams, take risks. But the way the team does that from week to week absolutely varies and that people cannot see it by now absolutely baffles me.
Quite clearly it hasn't worked properly. But not working != not changing.