Wait until we've appointed someone before making that statement. (Although tbh I agree that him returning would have been a bad idea. But equally I have no confidence in Levy to get the next appointment right.)
Either way, the top two most popular choices among our members are no longer relevant. @Dier Hard are you able to replace them with Alonso and Kompany and see where the votes are reallocated? Glasner should probably also be up there.
I must admit, it’s quite worrying reading in places that we should be appointing Mason. Seems to be a bigger push on this over the last few days.
I think there will be open revolt if Levy does that. Mason would be walking into a track that would set his career back several years and several layers of confidence. He is far better off getting out of the chaos at Spurs and taking a position at a well run club in the lower leagues. Make his name, learn the ropes and maybe in a decade when we're either not in a mess or alternatively we are also playing in the lower leagues, he can join us.
Fully agreed but Mason himself has made it clear he wants the Spurs job. We don’t really know what Levy’s thinking is and I still wonder if he’s going to pull a rabbit out of the hat with an appointment that will be considered as a coup. I can’t help wondering if the leaks about Nagelsmann not joining us is a smokescreen!
Poch at Chelsea feels like seeing an ex with another guy. Like a punch to the gut even though you know they’re not the one anymore. It’s a big test for him. Chelsea under the new ownership are nominally different to the Chelsea of old but haven’t demonstrated any of the patience required for a project to work. Poch has to deal with a lot of expensive players on long contracts and who knows what their recruitment will be like this summer. There’s also question marks about whether he can tactically evolve to match the elite managers in the game right now. Obviously we all hope the wheels well and truly come off.
Completely agree mate...just don't want to see pochettino fail with us and damage his legacy. Should never have sacked him IMHO. We need some one who can sort our squad out (including getting rid of lo celso, ndombele, winks, richarlison, sanchez, tanganga, lloris, forster, dier, lenglet, regulion etc.) plus cope with the loss of Kane. At the same time they need to bring in some new players, integrate youth team players and get the team playing attacking football. They'll need to take the cups seriously and have a long term plan to make us competitive. On top of this they need to fully use the squad available and be tactically flexible. If that all happens I think most fans will be patient and give the manager a chance. But I have no idea which manager can do all that and I have no faith that Levy does either.
This is an interesting point worth pondering. A lot of his "innovations" that made us so strong so quickly have since been mimicked and bettered by teams with greater resources and longevity to their plans. Things like the high press, overlapping full backs and CBs supremely comfortable on the ball are run of the mill theses days - all of them integrated and in all honesty improved upon by the Pool and City sides who overtook us and left us in their wake. 2016/17 was the last season we/he had a real tactical edge and we were ultimately only beaten by Conte's Chelsea side playing a different innovative tactical approach who had no European football to contend with and a side overflowing with players with vast experience in winning trophies. After that, Pool and City built on what we'd done, augmenting the system with FBs who provided exponentially more assists than ours did, while also innovating a ball-playing GK with Allison and Ederson, both of whom due to their distribution were vastly superior to Lloris. I hadn't thought about this until you mentioned it, but it is very much worth thinking about.
Anyway, for us, Slot is the one I’m gunning for now. I know managers from the Dutch league can be hit or miss but I think he’s done a mightily impressive job at AZ and Feyenoord. By all accounts he actually wants the job, which I think is really important for the overall vibe. And he seems to have a good mix of vision, and knowing the kind of players he wants, while being able to work with young players and work with what he’s got, which let’s face it, will be important, because there’s a lot of change that needs to happen and it will take more than one window. The DoF is the key appointment, though. Finding someone who can interface between Munn and Levy (who let’s face it, is going to still be involved somewhat), and who can help us find the right talent AND make the case for moving players on, is going to be absolutely key. Realistically in addition to whatever budget we have, we have so many surplus players that even if we take hits on the prices, we can still raise a lot of additional transfer funds for a rebuild. Whatever happens we need to stop sitting in our hands and get someone confirmed the next few weeks so they can start well before pre-season begins. If we don’t have both positions filled by mid-June latest then it’s going to go badly. But ideally we announce the day after the final game of the season.
Feyenoord are currently 3-0 up against Go Ahead Eagles, so the title is basically theirs. They're out of all of the cups, so their season ends today, for all intents and purposes. They've lost one league game, which was a 4-3 away to PSV in the middle of September. This will be their 12 consecutive win in the league, too.
The next few weeks will mainly consist of trying to read the most hysterical takes on r/coys before the mods remove them due to the subreddit rules on posting cringe
Why the hell would De Zerbi leave Brighton to join us - they are all the things we should be. Brilliant to watch and today I am loving them.
It does have to be said that the high press is also getting worked out Go back a few weeks where The Sheikh Mansour Team gubbed the Runners 4-1, they were set up to invite their press and once they were committed forward they sprung the trap - and then Arteta adopted the Wile E Coyote approach of thinking that they wouldn't expect the high press a second, third or fourth time Even under Poch there were times the high press was invited so the trap would be set, most obviously against Juve (and I seem to recall that Man Utd did so at least once) which indicates that high pressing needs to be married to either a relentless attack like Norbert preached, or hoping you can ****ehouse your way through games like Arteta is set up to do (which just so happens to mean neutrals can also enjoy when the wheels fall off)
I watched the match back. With little knowledge of the Dutch league it’s hard to tell if it wasn’t competitive because they went 2-0 up so quickly and just saw the game out from there, or because the Go Ahead Eagles are a bit ****, or a combination of the two. Hard to read too much into the game and how they played, given the circumstances.
It's a very weak league, especially since Ajax's recent slump which began while Seven-Hag was still in charge. Their squad was strip-mined and hasn't recovered. At the very least, the style of football and level of physicality is far closer to the PL than the Portuguese and Italian rubbish we've had to put up with in recent years, so there's that. I wouldn't say no to Arne Slot but for me, PL experience is becoming a stronger argument for potential candidates. So De Zerbi or Frank move ahead of him, for me. I've just changed my vote from Nagelsmann to De Zerbi.
Feyenoord's squad was stripped even more, though. They lost about 8 starters and some loanees that played quite often. Nobody was expecting them to win the title or even significantly challenge for it, apparently.
At this moment in time I can’t do anything as I’m completely ****ered. Budapest chewed me up and spat me out and now the travelling home has ruined me, I’m genuinely impressed my cousin (the stag) is actually still alive. Must’ve trained him well over the years. But essentially I can add one or two more names I think, however I can’t edit any previous ones nor remove anyone. If a mod wants to delete the poll, I can re-do with new names tomorrow once I’m a bit more coherent .
