ETH took over a broken team.
The worst season in decades, we’ve picked up 11 points from our last 11 matches last season, in which we scored 15 and conceded 23.
He took over a bunch of lazy, timid, unfit and under-coached individuals that were not fit to wear the shirt and had every ounce of confidence sucked out of them, and he is turning them to a team, players that fight for each other, players that work their arse off and play with aggression, a will to win second balls, a will to get stuck in.
We’re seeing massive improvement in the team mentality from the first two matches and last season, the difference is night and day, I genuinely don’t know what people were expecting, you can’t just take over a completely broken squad and turn it into a well oiled machine overnight, these things take time.
There are obvious signs of improvement in movement and passing, decision making under pressure as well.
People may bring the LVG comparisons and how much more possession we’ve had in his early days but I remember these matches well, we were never getting pressed in our own half by smaller teams, I remember us having our entire half to ourselves almost and people just passing to each other rinse repeat, smaller team weren’t even trying to press us because they knew that all they’ve had to do is to sit deep and we’ll struggle to score, ETH is a lot more flexible than LVG which I like.
We’re going to get better and better, and from a group of individuals that were under-coached for years we’ll become a well oiled team, have patience, remember that state of what he took over, he’s doing a fantastic job.