While everybody sacks coaches too quickly there is little evidence that any make a real and lasting difference once the effect of money is taken out. Ferguson, Wenger, Klopp, Mourinho and Guardiola have at least managed to win the League on multiple occasions with the most expensive squad which is beyond a lot of others. I don't think Levy sacks managers based on results...he sacks them when they don't act as they say they would.
Which has shown to be more or less an anomaly in the last 6 months. We beat Leicester 6-2 and Palace 4-0 last season under Conte, didn’t mean the football was good over the whole season.
No I agree with DH, Money plays a big part in Levy's decisions. He's a fan, a bit like you, he wants to win but money is main route to success and sometimes you have to look beyond the short term.
Equalising income in society is a better solution to that though than watching a meaningless league which your club has little chance of winning.
All the games are anomalies when you are an incomplete team. Conte bored us to death. To be fair to him he suffered 3 personal tragedies during his time with us which must have had an effect.
He sacks them when there’s danger of missing out on added European revenue. He sacked Pochettino when it was looking like we were on course for a mid table/ bottom half finish. He sacked Jose when European qualification was slim, despite a week away from being in a cup final. He sacked Nuno when he realised we were going nowhere. He sacked Conte when 8th/ 9th was likely. I think the only manager he’s sacked who still finished in a European spot was Redknapp and that was rumoured to be down to personal issues. A decision though that was hugely unpopular with fans.
That's never going to happen is it. The football could be sorted in other ways but that's the norm all over the world. Spain, France, Portugal, Nederlands, Belguim, Scotland all have leagues dominated by a very few teams. We have a bit more.
I agree that Conte had a torrid year and will always have my sympathies with that. And I agree his football bored us to death but what I’m saying right now is Ange’s football is also doing that. We may not be sitting back with 9 men and hoping Kane or Son does something anymore but we’re just passing the ball side to side all game, it’s like watching a team of Harry Winks. Edit: and that’s why fans are becoming disgruntled because we’re not being entertained and then I revert back to the financial exploitations of fans and that’s why patience is quite thin in today’s game if either performances and/ or results are unacceptable.
I am not disagreeing, I am making a case for putting up with this for long term gains. This next transfer window will hopefully take us on the road forward. Let's not bring Ange down before he has time to make us successful. You cannot ignore what used to happen. You are younger and it's before your time but you v=can look up the history. Burkinshaw was given time and it worked. Venables was given some time (not enough) but it worked. and so on. You just cannot change the culture in a business or a football team (which is a business) in a year or even two. It's pretty standard in starting a business, the first year you lose money, the next year you break even, and the third year you start to make profit.
I do agree and as I’ve already said as far as I can see I haven’t seen anyone saying Ange should be sacked. But I don’t think fans can be blamed for being annoyed and disgruntled and having higher expectations of the team, even if it is only year one of Ange’s reign. Pochettino’s first season faced similar issues to Ange but what massively helped him was having a strong record in the London derbies as we only lost one and that was away to Chelsea. Derby wins can really provide a huge momentum boost throughout a season and at the end of a season you generally look back and think “****ing loved that result against x, y, z”. In Ange’s first season we lost all home derbies including a battering by Chelsea and only managed two points on the road, two points from eighteen is awful really. If we’re to be brutally honest, come the end of this season, is there anything people will really remember with much fondness? I don’t think so, we had some really good performances in the first few months but we crashed out of the cups early despite having no European football, we had an appalling record in London derbies, we’ve suffered as many battering as we’ve given out and the football for 70% of it has been boring. All of this whilst paying a fortune for the so called privilege.
An yet we will still end up higher up the league than we thought after losing Harry. The first 10 games took the whole league by surprise but then we were sussed out. Ange anticipated this because that's what happened before to him. He's teaching the players how to play in his way and once the opposition suss out what we are doing they counter it. Now Ange begins to see who can cope with that on the field and who cannot. Not forgetting the first Chelsea game where as usual they manage to derail what we are doing. (How do they always do that) Then we lost key players. Bentancur was flying and we know we have to wait till next season until he's back to his best. Madison is a disappointment but I am sure he will come back. He was good at Leicester so he knows and can cope with the PL. We can all see that we need an effective striker, because disappointing as it has been recently we are still creating chances just not taking them. Other clubs saw what we did and made sure their defences were bolstered against it. One tactic that has been noticeable is how teams have tried to close us down very fast and to man to man mark. I hope Ange will find some players in the window that can better cope with that.
We still haven’t secured that finish yet though, Utd and Toon (and even Chelsea) can all still essentially finish above us and our current performances at present don’t leave me feeling confident we’ll secure fifth. Even if we do secure it, fifth having had no European football and out of both cups early isn’t much to brag about though for a club of our stature and - again - after what we fans pay, even if it is better than what was expected after Kane’s loss. As I said, it’s (another) season we look back on with little fondness and few memories.
A transition season and every time we change manager we are going to get this. That's why we need patience.
A couple of points. 1. I'm old enough to remember relegation under Kieth Burkinshaw. We scraped promotion on the last day of the following season. The next season saw us battered 5 nil at home by Arsenal and 7 nil away at Liverpool. We also took 3 games to beat non league Altrincham in the fa Cup 3rd round. By time Burkinshaw got the players he wanted to play his style only Hoddle and Perryman remained from the team that was promoted. It took him until January 81 for him to fix things. Ange has had 9 months. 2. Ange is managing players from FOUR previous managers. Sessengon, Davies, Lo Celso, Son and Ndombele from Pochettinos time. There are 3 of our worst ever signings in those 5 names. Reguilon, Royal and Hoejberg from Jose's time. Rodon and Gil from Nuno. Bentencur, Kuluchevski, Spence, Bissouma, Sarr and Udogie from Contes time. That's on top of Dier, Peresic and Sanchez being sold /released this season. It's clear that certain players can not or will not do as the manager wants and to move on the manager instead of the players will be yet another lesson in futility. Out of those only Son, Bentencur, Udogie and Sarr should be kept. That's speaks lots about the size of the job Ange faces for me.
No doubt it’s a big job and you make some good points about the Mishmash of players from previous managers. Where we differ is, I don’t think he’s able or willing to adapt. His way of playing is too risk and not enough reward as players will always have periods of form dropping off and you still need to get results. This will come across as bitchy but I don’t mean it to be- what have you seen from Ange to convince you he’s the man for this big job?
Would you people also like to add the fact that : - the YOUTH system delivered a cadre of players (Hazard, Hughton, Falco, Miller) who arrived in the seniors TOGETHER - the SCOUTING system found the closest thing to Dave Mackay I am ever likely to see in my lifetime, at a NON-LEAGUE club
