We were told that but I genuinely can't see how people thought he was a vocal leader when he hardly opens his mouth
Fonte was the leader in the Saints defence last season, and Lovren also had the added protection of Wanyama and Schneiderlin. Once Waynama was out injured, they conceded a lot more goals.
So is he a tinkerer or stubborn or is he a stubborn tinkerer? I think he's trying to find a new way with a lot of new players (we needed squad, and WClass didn't want to come yet), significant back to back injuries and losing the guy he admitted dropping his incoming theories for and staeted building a team around. We may hate it but transition...again is what it is... Intensity is our main issue but then again you need a definitive direction to go in to have that focus and then intensity....I genuinely dont think he knows what works because he hasn't yet decided what is his best 11_20 players and he still feels he's in a position where he has to pick players due to finance and politics. That shouldn't go beyond this year me thinks. Personally? It's the midfield he has to decide on. Pick the way he wants the midfield to set up and then select the players to perform best in it, irrespective of name. He's been here 2 years he has the right to live or die on his ideas not history's. I honestly believe once he sorts that, the defence will settle and our strikers will know their roles. It's merely a question of whether he has the balls to do it now or wait for leaving/retirements I'll be annoyed but accept waiting, I'd prefer he man up and do it now. But again its whether he believes he's more likely to survive waiting it out with bad results or making the decision with bad results..... After that judge by performance and let players go that can't meet the standard.... Money is irrelevant as it's not ours, let him buy who he wants and if they fail individually let him go and buy again....I'll worry when his bosses say there's no money to fix bad gambles/ choices describe them how you will. If he fails to get top four this year by a distance then I'll question his purchases if they failed to deliver. Just like i'll judge him if failed to drop a player because they're on 100k or once played well a while back when. 8 games in 4 points off second while having played ****e in a league where our main CL competition (as opposed to the clear favourites for the league) are having the same performance and player integration problems and injury problems as us ,as well as facing the same lower order teams who have been able to strengthen their squads with money levels they've never seen before this year? I'm grumbling about match day performances I find annoying but I'm far from convinced the project has failed. Let's see how the year pans out.
the doubt is.............. well... we are worried that we bought badly at first then were locked to 7th, then we performed with a 33 game suarez season and coutinho and sturridge integrated. now we seem to be back to year one performance without suarez. the inevitable doubt is was it 90% suarez and not rodgers. can he get back to 4th? who knows. was last year an outlyer in terms of nobody thought we'd do so well but the theory was 4th by year 3 so if we over performed to get 2nd did we also grossly over perform to get about 70 points? If we end up on 63-67 points is it a failure... its spurs level. i dunno
Saw a lot of Soton last year and Lovren made a lot of mistakes last year as well especially when Wanywama was out injured. The mistakes he's making are nothing new, not in my eyes anyway.
I think calling Brod stubborn is very harsh. All managers have to have a stubborn side to them, its part and parcel of being a manager. But Brod as shown he is willing to accept he is wrong and change things, he's also shown he is willing to accept when he is wrong about a player too.
October 2013 tomw23 wrote this - ... yet last week when having the conversation about Lovren/Fonte he said Lovren was rubbish and Fonte had always been the main man! A little revisionism there There was also a vote on their board as to who they would hate to lose and Lovren came either first or second [I'm currently looking for the thread]
i think he fronts up and goes attacking the ball. he doesn't back off so for me.... if he had carragher beside him he'd be really good at that side. thats my view. he's a brave lad. but organiser? he's not a sweeper upper or a reader of the game so thats rodgers issue in talking about him that way. I think he's good, brave, got bottle but he's not the leader we were sold.
I think he's far too aggressive and literally goes for every ball - for QPR's second goal, he was on the edge of the box ... Having said, it's nice to have a defender who is proactive and trys to win the ball - however, he really needs to work on his judgement because he's very easy to beat (City's 3rd goal highlights this). The other problem is that Skrtel just isn't interested in what his partner is doing - he just does what he wants which is sit back and deep. At least Sakho would recognise that Lovren goes for everything and then cover for him, and Sakho is naturally an offensive defender - this partnership really could have developed.
What do you make of those quotes from saints fans I've posted? It looks like Lovren was one of their best players last season, Fonte comes pretty low in their estimation .... until Lovren came to us and their opinion changed.
Yeah I remember the insta opinion flip too which is why I only gave the Saints fan a when he came on claiming Fonte was the rock
Oh I agree Mito. He still has to prove he can build rather than rebuild. It's also a matter of perspective. When United lost an important player or Chelsea were their managers in a position where they couldn't attract direct replacements or alternatives in the world class bracket? No, as has been seen they could bring them in both in terms of money and deservedly in terms of recent reputation. They could also afford for those big buys to be wrong..(well managers sacrificed notwithstanding) I mean BR came in with what sounded like a "team of equals" philosophy playing a certain way. Let's face it, he discarded this as soon as he realised a) the current squad were not up to it even after his influence and b) he couldn't afford to buy a squad in immediately to do it. So then luck in, he inherited a worldie goal machine. So all he had to do was buy a few technically proficient players that could pass it to him and run off him. All good as that didn't need individual outlays for players that he couldn't afford and even when he could weren't convinced we were back enough to sign up. Result? 2nd. It's not an over achievement because it was done with a world class player and a couple of good players. If that player hadn't been a twat of the highest order and stayed around we'd have had more chance of building on that and yes building around him until his departure might not have hurt as much. He ****ed off the little bitch. This year, no world class player, no replacements in that band...neither BR's fault. They simply wouldn't come or we couldn't afford to pay the increase in wages bringing it in. What we bought was a few more "good" players. So now, once we get those players settled and the best of the remaining players fit again, with a bit of luck with injuries we will be where we thought we'd be by year 3, competing for 4th. Personally I didn't believe that meant we'd automatically get 4th. Once settled I believe we have a better squad than the one BR started with, with the important exception of the world class player. If we don't find another star to be discovered it'll just be slower progress. If we do an arsenal and scrape through to CL enough times until stadium is refurbished then maybe we can speed it up with bigger money transfers.....otherwise....we will most likely plateau around the 4/5th Mark.
See the quote above from that same saints fan - tomw23 who also posted his ranking of their players in May 2013 - Boruc - 10 Clyne - 9 Fonte - 7 Lovren - 4 Shaw - 3 Morgan - 8 Wanyama - 5 Rodriguez - 2 Davis -11 Lallana - 1 Lambert - 6 The 'rock' 7th best player
Good find Can't comment on what they think, only what I saw - with Wanyama and Schniederlin in front of him, Soton were solid. But without one of both of those midfielders, Soton leaked a lot of goals - you only have to look at the dip in form when Wanyama was out injured. Lovren was voted one of the worst players at Lyon, which is some achievement. I'm not a fan of him, especially considering he cost £20m.
