A couple of things... 1. All these stats should also be balanced by the number of games played. For example, Haarlands record is very impressive, but his career is much younger than Kanes or most of the 'greats'. 2. I must get my rose coloured glasses cleaned, cos I would have thought Defoe's scoring record was better than 3...
I don't disagree but Nuno wasn't given nearly long enough to implement anything. I don't think he was ever the right fit for us and the fact he was something like 6th choice suggests that his appointment was done with great reluctance. But this is what pisses me off about Levy. With the exception of Romero, he gave Nuno absolute bilge to work with in the transfer window and then also didn't give him enough time to coach the existing players to be naturally better. Doesn't give time. Doesn't give money. Still demands results. Daniel Levy.
That half season had people on here wanting to sign another RB in Ange's first summer, so he's definitely improved in much the same way that Danny Rose had people annoyed to see him in the starting xi under Villas-Boas/Sherwood Bentancur certain can work in the 6/8 hybrid role - if he was the player he was before Matty Cash ****ed his ankles up, but he doesn't seem to have that same swagger since then. He could possibly work in a Pirlo-like role, but that would require Sarr and Gray alongside him to offer him the cover, which pushes Maddison out of the team
So if you were the Chairman, knowing that there would be five teams with better squads what answer would you expect from your prospective coaches in interviews when asked where they expected to finish in the League? Would you appoint the ones that reply 'I am bang average, sir, so I expect I could lead the sixth best team to sixth position'? If, as I expect, most of them claim to have skills that would get a higher finish, you would then grill them on what exactly those skills were and how long it will take them to have effect. I doubt anyone says 4-5 years to the second part. When 18 months later they have had no effect and no such skills are evident....why would you keep them? And for accuracy wasn't it obvious that Paratici both hired and sacked Nuno?
Paratici was in charge of Nuno's window, so pinning that on Levy makes no sense That being said, looking back it does feel like the window was built around assuming that Harry Kane would flounce off to the Emptyhad so we were expecting to start the season with Sonny up top which explains Bryan Gil's signing, before having a big splurge on Deadline Day when the windfall came in - which of course never happened That being said, Nuno shot himself in the foot by not standing his ground when he was likely pressured into playing Ndombele and his system immediately went from solid if hopelessly uninspiring to hopelessly brittle due to some fatass who couldn;t be bothered to defend needing to take a breather after they ran with the ball for ten seconds
The second season is very much crucial for managers here, any danger of no European football and they're gone. The three best managers we've had in Levy's tenure all had great second seasons: Jol got 5th (robbed of 4th due to lasagna-gate) Redknapp got 4th Pochettino got 3rd Almost everyone else was sacked for being around 7th or below with a few weeks/ months left of the season, Conte the exception who was 4th albeit it was almost a certainty we weren't going to finish there. It's why I've maintained in Ange's case that if by late Jan/ Feb we're still around 8th, Levy will almost certainly get twitchy fingers.
I expect that Levy knows that less than two years of Data is entirely insufficient to make that sort of decision. But comparing claims made in the interview to what actually happens in the training centre is very easy and is much more plausibly the reasons for early sackings in my view. So if Ange continues to do what he said he would do I think he will be safe independent of results.
There will be little point in investing in all the young players if we are going to sack the manager before they mature, but of course you may well be right.
The young players will probably do no better and no worse under a replacement manager so I don't think that's an issue. Any coach worth hiring, and there are not many in that category, should be able to develop the current group, not want wholesale changes.
Firstly, there aren't necessarily five teams with better squads. There are five with more money. The latter doesn't inevitably lead to the former. United have much more money than us but for the majority of the past decade have had a poorer squad. There are far too many variables in football for the interview to count for as much as you think it should. A manager could paint a picture of success based on how he will build the team around his best player, who could then pick up a season ending injury in the first game of the season, or move to another club after the season had started. I highly doubt Ange factored losing 5-6 key players every November into his interview, for example. It is also certainly not unreasonable for manager to promise progress X on the proviso that they buy players of the quality of y, which is within budget but for whatever reason the transfers don't end up going through. So much can change in the world of sport. It can't be approached like any other business. In conclusion, the line between a meh interview and an enticing one is extremely fine. A bloke who turns up and claims he'll get us challenging for the title without needing any additions to his squad is obviously talking out of the wrong orifice and Levy is an idiot if he believes it. But on the other hand as you've said, a bloke who turns up and says the best he can do even with additions is 6th, Levy would again be an idiot to appoint such an unambitious candidate. Which therefore narrows the job spec to someone who claims they'll be able to get us finishing 3rd-5th i.e. a window of just three positions, which at PL level are often separated by a few points or even GD, which in turn are almost always logically blameable on mitigating circumstances such as injuries, suspensions, packed fixture list due to stupid TV times etc. These are ridiculously fine lines which cannot be held up as reliable evidence one way or another. So a manager who claims to target 4th but finishes 6th should not imo be sacked, even after your arbitrary measure of 18 months. They have shown themselves to be significantly better than useless and are likely to be just a few small tweaks away from securing 4th at next attempt. Better to make those small tweaks, such as deepening the squad to cope with extra fixtures and adding a bit of quality to the first team, than to make the biggest tweak of all and sack the manager pressing reset on the whole project in the process. Yet Levy will invariably choose the latter over the former every single time.
I will add an example to this: I doubt Arteta turned up for his interview and promised that he'd be able to do no better than 8th for his first two seasons. But having done so (and then screwing up 4th in his third season), the board looked at the problem, rationalised that they could either go for one big tweak and sack him or a few small tweaks by adding more quality to the team, and they chose the latter and are now reaping their rewards. Arteta wouldn't have lasted past February of his second season under Levy and Arsenal would probably still be going round in circles on to their fifth manager in as many years thanks to their chairman having the footballing intelligence of a cardboard box and the patience of a toddler.
Not really, most young players signed at clubs will likely develop and excel under new managers. Bale was signed under Jol and became world class under Redknapp. Walker was signed under Redknapp and became an elite RB under Poch. Sarr and Udogie were signed under Conte and are now regulars under Ange. I think Ange himself has said he almost certainly won't be here to see most of these players develop too and I don't think that was a pessimistic answer or anything from him, just a realistic one. Levy also doesn't really care about the development of young players other than the potential financial return, he cares about getting Champions League football or Europa at a minimum, if that doesn't seem achieveable then the manager gets sacked.
It seems a common belief that changing the coach is always a very big change....why should that be? If his main job is to get the best out of the current group of players then surely changing him should also just be a small tweak. The reason I think the interview is important is because it should be about philosophy not data and I don't think data is a good way of assessing short term performance. I would almost never sack a coach on results but if he said he was going to blood young players then didn't, or said he was happy to work with the squad and then asked for more money to be spent then my trust in him would be gone and he would be out of the door pdq.
It depends on who is appointed. A club like Brighton has a clearly defined philosophy and style of play, with clear parameters defining their market strategy and this philosophy informs who they approach in the first place, which is why they can transition pretty seamlessly from one manager to the next. I think we are living proof to the fact that it can often be an enormous tweak and that is if the club willingly opens the door to a radically different philosophy. The shift from Poch to Mourinho was disastrous and currently the shift from Conte to Ange has been extremely difficult and is yet to show any sort of consistent improvement. United have had a similar experience, lurching from SAF to Moyes to LVG to Mourinho to Solksjaer to Ten Hag...all of them have very different interpretations of how the game should be played. So I think you are fundamentally mistaken. The philosophy comes from the Club, not the manager. His role at interview is to demonstrate how he aligns with that philosophy and how he will implement it in reality to improve results. Because ultimately this is a results business wherein unlike other businesses which can and will absorb multiple terrible years running at a loss before hitting a growth stage, football moves far too quickly and under far too much scrutiny for that, so ultimately results are more important than philosophy. The problem we've had imo is that Levy and the DoF haven't provided a unified coherent philosophy from the top down, while simultaneously not empowering managers to at least achieve results in their own way. Our treatment of Jose and Conte was akin to giving Lewis Hamilton a Fiat Punto with an iffy transmission and sacking him when he doesn't win the grand prix with it.
That’s the DoF’s job though - to recruit for the now and to make sure that the next manager will also be able to work with the young players who he brings in who are assumed to be the future of the club. The manager who comes after Ange will need to play a style of football that will suit the likes of Gray, Bergvall, Dragusin, Mikey Moore, Brennan Johnson, Sarr etc because those players have been recruited with timeframes in mind that are longer than the average tenure of a manager, even if they do well.
This is what baffled me about Baldini: he managed to assemble a core of a team that would be perfect for Poch...but he assembled it for Villas-Boas
Agreed. And Brighton have been a huge example in recent seasons of ensuring the manager is the right fit for the team and ethos. The transitions from Potter to De Zerbi to Hurzeler have been seemless. Slot's so far taking over and actually improving on what Klopp was doing last season too. Many clubs across Europe have similar success like Dortmund/ Ajax/ Salzburg etc. It's not to say I or anyone wants Ange sacked, far from it but as long as you hire managers with similar principles, the success (or failure) should be relatively the same. The biggest difference is the quality of player they get to inherit or buy - the latter's what Ange needs here if he's to truly succeed.
