This is going downhill faster and further than I anticipated.
Bundesliga 2018/19
- Thread starter uamini
- Start date
Bayern Munich's by far biggest mistakes in the last years were to sell Kroos and Mandzukic.
??????????
Yeah maybe just my opinion but they played much better football with him as striker compared to Lewandowski and he always worked so hard for the team (I have seen that from Lewandowski).
I would love him at Old Trafford.
And when the Götze of 2012 shows up, we can gladly talk about playing him as No 10 and moving Reus out of his statistically best position (career average as BVB player of a goal/assist every 80 minutes, which is a number most offensive players dream of). The Götze of 2012 would be an upgrade for our offense, but sadly he lost most of his former dynamic, his decent acceleration and most of his wit, which made him such a joy to watch. What remains is a decent offensive midfielder with a sound footballing mind and good passing and feel for spaces. Certainly not a player I would change and tailor an offensive system for, not when said offensive puts out three goals on average every game.
When Philipp regains his form he will compete with Larsen for that spot. Moving Reus there does not add goal threat but just shift it away from the center. I think that you are unreasonably harsh on Larsen here. The lad is 20, plays his first real season and scored three goals and two assists in 350 minutes playtime. He has plenty of room to grow and refine his skill set, which is not as one dimensional as you describe it to begin with. His ability to both cut inside the box and stay wide is really only present in one other player: Christian Pulisic. All our other wide midfielders drift to the center in most cases. That makes him a valuable asset for the team, be it as starter or coming from the bench.
The idea that only the FB provide width is not part of Favre´s philosophy. He prefers a more conservative and safer approach here than for example Klopp did. An attacking LB as cover for Schmelzer is a good tool to have and I see Hakimi here as the first option for both sides. Having offensive minded FB on both sides would cost stability in the backline, which already suffered by Schmelzer not being on the pitch.
Stuttgart just sacked Korkut. Next in line: Herrlich and Kovac.
Time to kidnap Klopp and make Gladbach's Eberl an offer he can't refuse. He's from Munich even, he should have a release clause by birth.
Korkut is such a weird case, him getting the jobs in Leverkusen and Stuttgart was a miracle and getting sacked after half a year was what everyone expected, but somehow he managed to sneak in a 2.21 point average last season, before this season went as everyone expected initially.
In his first full season at Eintracht Kovac was blighted with injuries so 11th wasn't a bad position in the end. He also reached the cup final, losing to Dortmund in a match that could have gone the other way.
Last season Frankfurt were challenging for a Champions League spot right up to the point Bayern came in and poached Kovac, and announced it to the media. Frankfurt's season basically nosedived. Yet he could still motivate the team sufficiently enough to defeat Bayern in the cup final
A coach is at fault for a mutiny?
That's complete nonsense.
Players are paid to pay football. If they don't want to act in a professional manner then they should be shown the door, and acting professionally involves accepting you're on the bench and not going crying to the media.
Frankfurt were only close to a CL spot, because pretty much every designated top team aside from Bayern was shit. At the time of the announcement his ppg was 1.59 and that's before they had to face Leverkusen, Schalke and Bayern in away matches. Streich and Weinzierl delivered similar ppgs with Augsburg and Freiburg, are they qualified to coach Bayern as well?
Bayern's squad is a bunch of highly driven professionals, otherwise they would not have made it to the top of the football pyramid. You can cry about their egos all you want, but as a top coach it's your job to handle them, it's called man management and it won't be different at any other club of similar size.
Ah come on. . . . They "he only did well because everyone else was sh1T" is a slightly juvenile form of argument. You acknowledge that, by April, Frankfurt were in a Champions League spot. I can assure that that is a rarity for Frankfurt and "90% of that success was due to Niko Kovac" [quoting KP Boateng]
Egos exist everywhere in football. . . from teams in the regionliga to the top of the Champions League.
What we're witnessing at Bayern at the moment is unprofessionalism, and there's a difference between having a bloated ego and being unprofessional.
Really hope Bayern have a terrible season and don't get anywhere need the league.
Not to pick either side per se but you’re dismissing one opinion as “opinion but not fact” yet putting your opinion out there as a fact every time. Your statements in this topic hardly ever come across as objective.
I’d be as happy as any german football fan to see Dortmund and Gladbach fight it out for the top 2 spots this season with Bayern out of the race in February. But it’s clear that the drop in quality has to do with Hoeness’ actions since coming back as well as Kovac seemingly being a much worse fit for the job than their previous coaches.
His cup runs were no doubt impressive. His performances in the league weren't even remotely good enough to even discuss him as a coach for an elite team, let alone his style of play. It doesn't matter that he oveachieved a bit with Frankfurt/did really well out of your view.
And yes, the players share the blame for the performances. Doesn't change the fact that Kovac is still out of his depth. The behaviour of the players doesn't absolve him at all. If you can't convince the players that your ideas will work, you've failed in a pretty big part of your job. There's just no way around that.
Well if you don't think I'm objective then this is what Carlo Ancelotti said about Bayern approximately this time one year ago:
"The experience at Bayern was a bit unusual. Things weren't going badly, we'd won almost all of the games in September. I think there was more of a philosophy problem: they didn't want to change things. I did."
So what did the players do?
They went out and rolled over against PSG, lost 3-0 and Ancelotti got the sack. Then Juup Heynckes came in because they, the players, like Juup.
Well Kovac is undergoing the same scenario. The players are telling him that they're in charge, not him.
I do not think you can judge that Kovac is out of his depth by a playing staff who are clearly unprofessional.
Kovac produced some magnificent performances and some abject performances as Eintracht coach, that's true. However the league table doesn't lie.
This was the league table on March 18th this year (after 27 matches) when Bayern were going looking for their next manager:
Bayern Munich: 66 points
Schalke: 49
Dortmund: 48
Eintracht Frankfurt: 45
People need to ask themselves when the last time Eintracht was in such a position with 7 matches left . . . . You have to go back 25 years or so.
Eintracht then won the German Cup (in a match no one gave them a chance of a prayer) to win their first trophy in 30 years and to secure European football this season.
Kovac did a good job.
Now the corollary to what his happening at Bayern now is that the job is too big for him. A sort of Bayern David Moyes as it were.
I don't accept that can be the situation after 7 matches.
However what I am seeing are players crying to the media about being dropped. This is quite unbelievable.
Schalke were labeled the worst second placed team in history, Hoffenheim were in crisis during winter, with the vultures already beginning to circle above Nagelsmann, Dortmund went through two coaches and still made it into the CL, Bundesliga's top being as weak as ever last season is not something I made up. People were moaning all over about the quality of the football.
There is not a single season in the last 10 years where 1.59 ppg / 54 points (Kovac's average before the announcement) would've been enough for a CL spot, infact there are some seasons where he wouldn't even have made it into the EL, and that's generously assuming that he would not have lost those difficult away fixtures anyway.
It was a (as in one) very good season no doubt, but Bundesliga sees midtable clubs overachieve like that every other season, yet their coaches never make Bayern's short list and for good reason.
A coach who never played dominant football, who never managed more than a midtable club can't install a functioning dominant philosophy at a top club. No surprise, no need to make up fairytales about players making mistakes on purpose. Most Bundesliga team's love nothing more than to play against badly organized possession teams.
Look at Bayern's defending for their second and third conceded goals yesterday v Borussia M.
Utterly disgraceful, especially the third.
That's not bad defending. That's called throwing a game.
Look at the strolling before Hermann shoots for Borussia's third. . .
Utterly disgraceful, especially the third.
That's not bad defending. That's called throwing a game.
Look at the strolling before Hermann shoots for Borussia's third. . .
No one is denying that. Doing a good job most of the time isn't enough to get the job at one of the few elite clubs in Europe though. Favre did a lot more than Kovac and never got the chance for example. Streich twice finished in the Europa League places with Freiburg. That's a lot more impressive than Kovac temporarily being 4th before actually finishing 8th. Now I personally think it would be really funny if Streich managed Bayern, but obviously he's no real choice for the job.
Again, saying that Kovac hasn't done remotely enough to look like a good candidate for an elite football club doesn't mean he did a bad job. He obviously was good, actually considering the cup win, I'd argue he was truely great for Frankfurt. It's just nowhere near as impressive as what for example Nagelsmann did at Hoffenheim considering his playing style and performances from a tactical point of view.
A football manager/team can only beat what is placed in front of them. It is not Kovac's fault that Hoffenheim were in crisis or Schalke were a terrible second placed team. This is all a matter of opinion anyway.
Likewise I don't subscribe to the view that Leicester City won the EPL because everyone else was crap.
It is allowed for other teams to do well.
I agree with most of this, for sure.
Let's remind ourselves that Kovac wasn't first choice.
I'm not even sure he was third choice.
So why are others refusing Bayern for other clubs?
We're just spectators.
Could it be well known that the manager is not in charge at Bayern?
Certainly Ancelotti seems to be suggesting this.
Nevertheless this does not prove that Kovac is not up to the job. . . That cannot be concluded so early on.
What we can conclude is that there are serious elements of unprofessionalism ongoing at Bayern among their players.
You talk about facts, but the only facts are that Bayern have had their worst start to the season in years, could not win for four matches in a row and lost 0-3 at home for the first time since 2014 probably, and that Kovac is the man in charge of the team.
Laying sole responsibility at the player's feet or making up cl qualifications after 29 match days are not facts but nothing more than wishful thinking.
Laying sole responsibility at the player's feet or making up cl qualifications after 29 match days are not facts but nothing more than wishful thinking.
Hoeneß fecked it up with pretty much every potential successor when he announced that he wants to convince Heynckes to stay. Our board is obviously a huge problem. You won't find many Bayern fans on the Caf who defend Hoeneß anymore, if any. One of the truely great German managers was on the market and clearly interested, but instead of praising Tuchel publicly and trying to sign him, Hoeneß went chasing shadows until it was too late. I'm convinced Tuchel would have taken the job, if we had sealed the deal in December/January.
Now Tuchel is obviously a difficult character as well and there's a good chance it would have all collapsed after 2 or 3 years. But that's been the case with every manager since Hitzfeld's first spell with us anyway, so who cares.
/edit:
oh and if only 10% of the criticial stories of Ancelotti's work ethic at Bayern are true, we should be happy he's gone anyway. don't care what he talks about now.
I am telling you that a team where one player, having had to sit on the bench, went to the media and said "I'm not a benchwarmer".
Another is going around screaming "This is not Frankfurt" after having been left out also.
Others are upset that Kovac, his brother, and Hasan Salihamidzic are speaking Croatian in training.
All of which is coming a year after a three times Champions League winning manager (Ancelotti) got the sack after the players behaved in similar circumstances.
This is all pointing towards player power, and not the manager or his perceived lack of ability.
Like I state perhaps Nagelsmann, Tuchel, Favre & others know the score at Bayern, and so are not touching the job with a barge pole.
When results are dire, you sit on the bench more than you like and the coach fails to inspire confidence players get upset. It's not rocket science. Whether some of the players are bigger assholes than the average top player is speculation, not fact. Especially for people like us who can only look in from the outside.
Guardiola and Heynckes didn't seem to have these problems at all, but then again those two were capable of delivering attacking football, probably a coincidence.
Kovac's first four BL matches this season: P4 W4.
Also won 2-0 away to Benfica in the CL.
Results went "dire" at roughly the same point as when players started whinging.
Perhaps results haven't improved because Bayern players are so arrogant and dismissive of the rest of the Bundesliga that they feel they can throw enough games (Like yesterday) to get rid of Kovac early on . . . such that they'll still have enough to breeze the Bundesliga with Juup or some other puppet in charge.
You conveniently left out Ancelotti, I notice.
Not every manager is a Pep Guardiola (although he does have his own limitations).
If you cannot see that this is a clear case of unprofessional player power going on at Bayern then that's your choice not to see it that way.
Rightly so. You can't tell players to learn German and talk to each other in German, so that the dressing room is healthy and there aren't any groups built depending on where the players are from. And then have the coach and director of football ignore that rule and do the exact opposite. That's truely awful man management.
ULi Hoeness after sacking Ancelotti:
"As coach, you can't have your most prominent players as enemies. In my life, I've learned a saying: the enemy in your own bed is the most dangerous. That's why we had to act.The fact that, in my view, in the past few days the coach turned five important players against him - Coman, too, whom he also didn't let play - at a stroke, he never would have made it."
In his last match in charge Ancelotti, probably knowing he was about to get the sack, made a significant statement. He left Hummels, Robben & Ribery on the bench at PSG in the CL. . . coming weeks after Muller, Lewandowski, Coman, Boateng & Kimmich appeared to be critical of Ancelotti.
This is a three times CL winning manager we were talking about.
They must have been devastated that they couldn't use their "This is not Frankfurt" line on him.
A year later and they're at it again but, hey, it's all Kovac's fault according to some.
"As coach, you can't have your most prominent players as enemies. In my life, I've learned a saying: the enemy in your own bed is the most dangerous. That's why we had to act.The fact that, in my view, in the past few days the coach turned five important players against him - Coman, too, whom he also didn't let play - at a stroke, he never would have made it."
In his last match in charge Ancelotti, probably knowing he was about to get the sack, made a significant statement. He left Hummels, Robben & Ribery on the bench at PSG in the CL. . . coming weeks after Muller, Lewandowski, Coman, Boateng & Kimmich appeared to be critical of Ancelotti.
This is a three times CL winning manager we were talking about.
They must have been devastated that they couldn't use their "This is not Frankfurt" line on him.
A year later and they're at it again but, hey, it's all Kovac's fault according to some.
They are communicating in a language among themselves in private conversations. All three - Kovac brothers and SH - speak German fluently of course.
If you're telling that Pep doesn't speak Spanish at City or Mourinho Portugese at United then I would laugh at such a prospect.
Four wins in a row doesn't make a season at a club of Bayern's size, it barely buys you any credit.
And just think about what you're implying for just a second. Do you honestly think players will feck over an "innocent" coach and their season and themselves in the process just for the fun of it? That's naive to say the least. If it's only James bitching it's James being an asshole, but the more players are upset the more it points to a man management problem, unless you believe the same squad that won 6 BLs in a row is uncoachable.
I didn't leave out Ancelotti, he actually fits the pattern, as it never looked like he could deliver the kind of football that Bayern desire. That doesn't make him a bad coach, but it's no surprise that things look bad when you have a stylistic mismatch and maybe some cultural differences as well.
Hummels post match interview:
"The problem is, we have the ball, but we have it in unthreatening spaces, because we have way too many players staying in uncritical spaces. We have too few players in spaces where it hurts the opposition."
When players feel these systemic issues and the resulting attacking impotence on the pitch the coach either finds a way to fix them or he loses the player's trust and his job; at a club like Bayern in lightning pace.
When something like this happens to someone like Tuchel he tells the players how to fix it, that's why even players like Neymar follow him and that's why he won every league match at PSG, while Kovac is at the edge of losing his job at Bayern.
Very interesting discussion, this is sort of copy of Manutd conversations/arguments we have here everyday, whether to sack players or change coach
In most cases Players vs coaches is a battle that only one party is going to win, especially when we are talking about world class players vs coach who is yet to achieve anything big in his career.
In most cases Players vs coaches is a battle that only one party is going to win, especially when we are talking about world class players vs coach who is yet to achieve anything big in his career.
They're obviously doing it in front of the players, creating an atmosphere where the players feel excluded and talked about without a chance to understand it. I've actually experienced that in a working environment and it's a problem. No clue if Pep did/does it as well, but for some reason it never angered any players. Maybe the Kovac brothers and SH actually do it in a way that's detrimental to the atmosphere. If it doesn't matter, just speak German instead and the problem is solved.
You make a sensible argument and I'm glad that you seem to agree that Kovac/Ancelotti [two managers with different pedigrees in terms of winning trophies] have both come to the same end - that the players are not happy. Not happy with their managers, training, system, style of football or whatever. Therefore Kovac's previous performances as a manager are not relevant.
So what did the players do?
They got rid of Ancelotti.
What are they trying to do now?
They're trying to get rid of Kovac, and they'll probably succeed.
In both cases how are they achieving their objectives?. . . By going out and giving abject performances like yesterday or at PSG last year (in Ancelotti's case).
Which brings me back to my original point. . . .The players are in charge. If they like the manager (as they did with Pep. . . and who wouldn't like Pep?) then all is well with harmony in the camp and the Bundesliga titles will come flowing. If they don't well they won't give a damn. . . about the club & its fans.
I would argue that this is engrained in Bayern Munich.
Let's face it when current top players see former Bayern legends running the show. . . It is probably not difficult for them to end up coming to the conclusion that they want a piece of the action as well.
Situation with Bayern and United in 2013 following the appointment of Moyes is eerily similar.
United players did exactly the same to Moyes. They called him "Everton" behind his back and generally disrespected him. Probably Moyes' main problem for the players was that he was not Fergie. Perhaps this is the same for Kovac. . . He is not Juup Heynckes.
The main difference between the two scenarios is that there are/were clubs in England that were ready to capitalise on the unprofessionalism of United's players - City, Chelsea and a resurgent Liverpool - whereas in Germany Bayern know they can piss about, get their managers the sack, and still win the Bundesliga.
I don't want to give a long explanation but there was no way that Kovac was qualified enough for the Bayern job. He had good seasons with Frankfurt but with a big club you need an attacking style of succeed, that wasn't something Kovac's side showed. Moyes had similar success at Everton but again his tactics weren't able to be translated to United, where teams defend more and you cant depend on defensive tactics to succeed. Some coaches are just good enough for midtable teams and don't have the tactics to succeed for top table teams. That's one thing that distinguishes Kovac from Nagelsmanm, whose team play a high octane style football that can be adapted for bigger teams.
Oh look, I just wrote a big explanation
Oh look, I just wrote a big explanation
I don’t know if I’ve ever read a post from you about anything in this topic where it wasn’t your aim to “prove something” about Bayern. It’s like you’re addicted to talking about them. At first I thought it was just you trying to defend your former coach, but it seems to be just another instance of “Bayern are the true face of the devil.”
Not a single person in here is agreeing with you, no matter from which camp they are. Yet you word everything you state like it’s a commonly accepted fact.
@RW2
I think Ancelotti did and Kovac will get sacked because the players are convinced that their coach can not help them achieve success and at that point it doesn't matter whether some dressing room leaks or dysfunctional performances succeed first. It's always a dysfunctional coach<>team relationship that's bound to break soon. If the players were actually able to play good football under these coaches they would do so, simply because of their own self interest. No one wants to lose games, no one wants to look/feel impotant and no one wants to get whistled at by their whole home stadium.
The Moyes comparison is actually a good one. Both were/are midtable coaches who were promoted way above their league because of where they came from. The difference is that Bayern likely won't be watching their trainwreck of a season as patiently.
It's also mildly delusional to asign the blame for the Moyes fiasko to the players, given the jobs he got and quickly lost after leaving United. Just as Kovac won't get anywhere close to a club of Bayern's stature after he gets the sack, the market will put him back into his place, just like it did with Moyes.
Given that Leverkusen just failed to win against Freiburg we might see the second top 7 coach of last season sacked in the coming hours.
I think Ancelotti did and Kovac will get sacked because the players are convinced that their coach can not help them achieve success and at that point it doesn't matter whether some dressing room leaks or dysfunctional performances succeed first. It's always a dysfunctional coach<>team relationship that's bound to break soon. If the players were actually able to play good football under these coaches they would do so, simply because of their own self interest. No one wants to lose games, no one wants to look/feel impotant and no one wants to get whistled at by their whole home stadium.
The Moyes comparison is actually a good one. Both were/are midtable coaches who were promoted way above their league because of where they came from. The difference is that Bayern likely won't be watching their trainwreck of a season as patiently.
It's also mildly delusional to asign the blame for the Moyes fiasko to the players, given the jobs he got and quickly lost after leaving United. Just as Kovac won't get anywhere close to a club of Bayern's stature after he gets the sack, the market will put him back into his place, just like it did with Moyes.
Given that Leverkusen just failed to win against Freiburg we might see the second top 7 coach of last season sacked in the coming hours.
Nagelsmaan is a great manager who has done so much in a short space of time at Hoffenheim.
However I've seen plenty of Hoffenheim matches where Nagelsmann has his teams sitting back for the entire match and relying on the counter attack.
When do you think Kovac will get the sack?
It would not have surprised me to see him sacked after yesterday's matched. But since I don't know what Bayern's replacement options are or how good/bad the situation actualyl is in the dressing room it's hard to tell. Bayern's leadership is probably reluctant to sack him early since they went out on a limb when hiring him and Bayern's squad is strong enough individually to win matches even when things are a mess underneath so this might end soon or it might go on for a little bit longer, but I would bet big on Kovac not surviving this season.