Absolute bollocks.
Zidane won the league last season and challenged for the league this and reached CL semi with a pretty average squad that doesn't have any more than 5 top players at best and most of them are on their last legs.
Honestly when I read things like this I feel people don't follow football outside Premier League.
I am not going to argue, that Zidane hasn't done very well with Real Madrid. Far from it - my point was that he didn't do anything outside of the Real Madrid bubble. Plus while being successful I can't remember any time I stumbled upon some articles detailing his tactics and their excellence. That doesn't need to mean he is bad at it, but indicators are there that he isn't a future great. He also has to take a share in current state of the Real Madrid squad - for good and bad. For me he is to much 50/50 (arguably my personal opinion).
This pointless dithering is why there is limited options available now. We missed out on Tuchel, Nagelsmann, potentially Rose, Poch etc. all because to some fans and to the board supposedly, what was evident to some a while ago still isn't evident. Under him, we've had 2 and a half seasons of failure. No matter how you spin it, he's failed. No-one gives a feck if you come second in a season where other teams around us are uncharacteristally struggling. Our points finish this season would of had us in 3rd/4th in previous seasons. Our previous managers all won trophies in the same time Ole has been given and were still deemed not good enough, with worse/ageing squads and against stronger competition. He has been a failure, there's no other way to put it. He hasn't won a trophy himself in approaching a decade. We keep hearing this nonsense of progress and patience, but he has no history of patience in him paying off. He won a title with Molde early on and has not done much else since in a very poor league for approaching a decade. Jose goes a season or two without winning a trophy and the Ole-in people claim he's washed up, not with the times etc. but Ole goes almost a decade without winning a trophy in a piss poor league and he's SAF, just needs more time apparently.
I can live with you seeing it like that. I don't agree with it in full. I understand where you are coming from and I think that "the progress" often is grossly overstated, denying it fully doesn't feel right. The squad today is in better shape than it was 2,5 years ago. Plus we are at a point where we at least are good in countering. Back then, even small teams were comfortable enough to have a go at us because we couldn't even really counter. Again, we can argue the extent of the progress but denying it fully doesn't seem very rational to me.
In this climate, managers don't usually stick around for longer than 4-5 years a cycle, and we've spent almost 3 of them supposedly trying to learn how to play progressive football (which I still can't see, as lesser teams are still playing superior football to ourselves).
Even if, during this time, the manager got rid of deadwood, helped a few players to establish themselves and improve them - things we would have expected from any manager. He also seemingly re-established a few traditional values, certainly also not a bad thing to have. Does that mean we have to stick with him - no it doesn't. But when we want to decide how to proceed, we have to evaluate everything.
I still do think there are better and more exciting options available - Poch seemingly could have his head turned by the Spurs talk, Zidane would be interesting, so too will Ten Hag - none of them are guaranteed success' but no manager is. The approach we need to fecking bin is this rubbish that a coach needs 3-4 years to start 1. winning trophies and 2. implementing a progressive style of football, two things Ole has still failed on, 3 years in.
Ten Hag is a good idea (was expecting Bayern to go for him instead of Nagelsmann), I also like what Jardim has done with Monaco for a while some time ago. But, to be honest, currently I don't think the club has it in him to bring in such a manager. A smart progressive choice. I feel, they would go for a more established manager like Conte or Allegri. And I think that would be a much bigger issue in the long run than sticking with Ole until the obvious right candidate is available.
This isn't like Klopp, even though that comparison is made many a time. Klopp didn't join Liverpool on the back of 8 years of failure in a shite league, Klopp got them into CL finals in the same time Ole is getting us knocked out of the CL, Klopp had them playing a high intensity, progressive game, it was evident they just needed the players. Meanwhile we still look clueless without a mile of space to play into and counter attacking, our pressing is a fecking joke and uncoordinated, our passes are slow and predictable and the movement is static and predictable etc. Even though we finished above Liverpool under Jose, most fans on here knew they were the ones on the up and it proved to be correct. I wonder how many Man City fans feel that way about us for an example.
Lets simply stop with the Klopp-comparisons. I think, we have established that they are faulty as f***.
I am absolutely ready to overthink the manager position, but I dont want to see the same mistakes made again. Impulsiveness got him the permanent job earlier than needed, following new impulsive urges like craving for short-term success would, for me, be such a mistake all over again. And right now, there is no obvious candidate available that is worth the trouble. I know this is highly subjective but thats the thing with football discussions, isn't it?
