How would you know? It is actually more probable that against Palace, the players didn‘t follow instructions correctly. Casemiro and Evans were caught 1v1 without anyone covering for them.
Nah, an exact timeline is irrelevant. We need to change the way we do things no matter how long it takes. Do that and eventually we should get it right. Could be 2-5 years.
They don't even get that.
I feel like this is somewhat inaccurate, the issue is - as we know - there's no real recruitment plan whatsoever. A manager comes in, gets promised a load of stuff, doesn't get it and reverts to players they know. The idea of 2 8's is really an 8 and a 10, given Bruno is our captain and was made captain by ETH, which is exactly how the best teams play these days. The issue is you need a specialist player to allow that to work and our recruitment team thought the natural progression from getting FdJ was somehow Casemiro. I don't agree at all with your assessment of De Jong for what it's worth, but the point is his style of play is what is important to ETH and so you should try and find a number of players in that mould.
What was better was his stubbornness levels. They've gone through the roof this year and we saw that if we played the exact same compact style as last year against Arsenal and a few other big games, we could have done so much better.
Because that notion was always rubbish. Things change quickly in football, with transfers, growth of players and managers. Napoli didn't do a 3 to 5 year plan to win Serie A. Neither did Leverkusen this season. Good teams with the type of resources we have can have really quick turnarounds. Chelsea from 02/03 to 04/05 became the best team in the world in just two seasons of having Roman Abramovich. We aren't Man City pre-Abu Dhabi who needed to change the entire club and even they didn't need 5 years.
You've completely lost me now mate. We seem to be talking about different things.
Or in the middle of a manager tenure. Everyone and everything needs to be changed outside of the manager and his decisions.
Yeah I don't think I've ever encountered another fanbase where large sections of it at any given time seem to think an entire new squad is needed with every new manager.
Donny was a weird one, bought a player to fill a role we didn't really have. A lot of people seemed to convince themselves that he was this multi-purpose player (because: Ajax) who could play different midfield roles and it was crazy that Ole couldn't find a spot for him in the team. Even bringing in ETH there was this belief he could get the best out of him. It's kind of bizarre that even Erik couldn't see a role for him in his team yet seemed to think Antony could adapt to the league.
Madrid literally sacked Benitez after a few months of shite. And then people are shocked when they are in the UCL final every year. Highest standards in the world and they don’t just clap their hands after every embarrassing defeat to “show support” of a bunch of dogshit spoiled players.
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The reason I pointed out the 2 8's system is that it was completely illogical to pursue that plan last summer when our only DM was Casemiro who's not someone you can rely on to be a single pivot at his age, so the fact that Ten Hag focused on that shows he has a glaring lack of understanding of the team's core weaknesses. He genuinely believed the money spent on Mount was a good idea instead of focusing that cash on trying to go all in for players that could make critical changes to the team like Kane, KMJ, or a midfielder that can actually progress the ball from deep. De Jong is not good enough defensively, he does not have the positional discipline to hold down the midfield considering his tendency to roam. I'm sure he'd be good at a team that's already defensively solid such as City, but adding him to our midfield is not going to help stop us leaking goals. Also, he's a bit overrated on this forum. There's a reason Barca want to sell him - his wages far outstrip his talent.
You can absolutely trust Casemiro to be a single DM, we are not talking about a geriatric player. The issue is that teams that play with a single DM don't setup the way we do because it doesn't matter how young or in shape he is a single player can't cover the entire width of the pitch and also massive vertical gaps. Our system is senseless regardless of personnel.
I mean you really can't trust Casemiro in a single DM system these days, he's a step or two slower than he was just last season already. But I agree anyways re: the system being idiotic. Just saying that not targeting a DM when our only player for that position was Casemiro himself with not a single backup was fecking stupid.
Honestly, that's one of the things that annoys me as well. Good on Rashford for taking a jump in 2021, but we treat youth like we treat managers. We overrate them, don't put pressure on them, main supportive regardless of poor quality performances and always let them go past their sell by date. We're then hit with the realization after three seasons that they aren't as good as we thought they'd be. We also then try to hide the reality that they never truly performed consistently, using few individually good performances to justify a bucket load of average or terrible ones. When Bruno came in, we didn't need 6 months to see how influential he was. Pep may have had a poor season by his standards, but in regard to play, the style he would use was obvious from pre-season 2016. Like for Vinicius Jr., it might take some time for performances to lead to end product/results, but you should always be able to see consistent quality.
You absolutely can, speed isn't a factor in that role and you are not talking about someone that is actually slow. Our issue with him is that one he has been used as box to box since around midseason 22-23 and we expect our duo of CM to cover the entire width, around 45m vertically and to make runs into the box. No one can do that and all our midfielders have struggled especially defensively.
I'm struggling to think of CM who greater resembles a geriatric.
Yeah i can't deny i'm somewhat curious about the idea myself, especially if the alternative is Southgate or someone like that, but then as other people have said, I needed to see a clearer idea of what he's actually building towards and a better idea of the players we need in order to make this system work. It's very obvious you need physically strong, very fit, hardworking and fast players to implement it and cover the ground but that doesn't fit the profile of over half the squad here-Varane, Casemiro, Eriksen, Rashford, Lindelof, Shaw, Maguire, Martial, Antony. And then you have players who are closer to the right profile but just aren't good enough- McTominay, AwB, for example. And who are these players coming in that are going to make it work? The squad and the idea for going forward looks messy. I'm not saying it's impossible but it's hard to keep any faith with how this season has gone.
Why isn't it?
No it's about do we play type A football and continue to regress to irrelevance (which we already have) or do we start playing type B football knowing we will lose a shit ton of games while we get there, but when we do we will have a shot at success. Obviously the answer is type B. The question is how do you mitigate the losing a shit ton of games. The answer is NOT, repeat NOT, to employ a type A coach. You need someone who knows how to do that transition as quickly and efficiently as possible, but far far more importantly you need the entire club doing it with you. And that latter is what ETH has not had.
Ah but what’s our injury difference compared to theirs?
The folks that banged the Ole drum are absolutely ETH out. In fact, they were the first cohort to be critical, even when he was doing decent enough last season. Then the ETH fans will likely be critical of the next man. It's a never ending loop of manager worshipping. The Jose cultists were also different from the Ole and ETH versions.
What's the point in comparing 2 teams at completely different points of progress? Arsenal scored 55 goals in Arteta's second season, and 60 the season after.
I was against sacking Ole early on. I felt it was just going to be a continuation of our recent cycle. New manager, new players, an okay first season followed by a poor 2nd or 3rd season, sack and repeat. I was ready for Ole to be sacked around the time he was sacked. I've been ETH out since around November. The standards have continued to drop with him as manager and the football is wack.
You seem to be falling into the trap that all DMs need to be the same? There’s a world of difference between most, it’s just what skillset you need.
About 40% are newbies with few posts and few likes. Also a lot of 0 post accounts.
I don’t necessarily think that is true. Of course, many that wanted Ole out want ETH out, those prioritizing results. I think we tend to simplify these things because it is easy.
Utd would get about 80 times as much column inches if they did it, that’s for sure.
Burner accounts? But why?
I mean, if the team you manage gets knocked out of the CL and doesn't even make it to EL, you suddenly have a lot of free time on your hands.Burner accounts? But why?
If he does then great but you or anyone else hasn't got has got any grounds to say "i told you so" if it does happen other than sheer blind faith.
McKenna at United, make it happen.
I sincerely hope your source is wrong.
Honestly, would rather we went for McKenna than De Zerbi.
Name checks out
