This is the reality of life without Kane unfortunately! And a manager who is still finding his feet in the premiership. ( and that's being nice towards Ange )
That's really harsh, the man has been out for ages. You can't just come back and straight away find your touch. These are not robots.
Lee had a 1 in 3 ratio over 62 games and 3 seasons which is a decent record. Moores was only here for a season and a half and injured for a lot of that time if I recall. He certainly didn't have that many games. But we digress....God, we were **** today!!
Kane is obviously the gold standard but neither of those two are fit to even lace Berbatov/ Keane/ Defoe/ Pav/ Teddy’s boots. It’s honestly worrying. Both work tremendously hard and I’ll never fault their attitude and ethic but they’re just painfully below-par goal getters.
I think the winter cluster period could be make or break. Tend to have a lot of games in Dec/ Jan, come out of it well and he’s safe, come out of it not so well and Levy gets twitchy fingers.
Balances out our midfield which is so easy to play through without his energy. We saw it last week and it seemed like Ange got the message when he started Maddison and not Sarr on Thursday. Dunno if he changed his mind or Sarr had a knock but it was very frustrating to see Ange naively walk into the same problem again. The other problem is that Bergvall is the only creative replacement we have for Kulu and Maddison and he's still very raw. I don't understand why we persisted with that flat 424 for the last half an hour, it never looked like working either keep Maddison on or just hope Bergvall can do the job. Either was better than having Solanke drop deep.
Yeah without a doubt. Whether he himself would’ve found space for a shot or created space for another. We saw it countless times over the years, he came in clutch on so many occasions. We were very, very fortunate to have watched him play football for the best part of a decade. Phenomenal player. Maybe we’re now paying for it.
The following : 1. League cup against Citeh 2. EL games against Galatasary/Roma 3. PL game against Villa are more immediate key markers.
I’ve said it before, but I think we’ll have plenty of days like this against PL opposition. It’s such a competitive league, and we aren’t consistent enough, and still lack quality. We’re far better off taking the Europa really seriously this season. The teams are weaker, and more on our current level.
9 games in, as many defeats as wins. Bang in mid table. This season has a whiff of predictability already.
In the short term yes but I don’t see Ange being sacked if we were to lose all of them (even though it’d be a very rough time). The pressure would be massively building but he’s got just enough credit in the bank to see him into the January window I’d say.
Gave the ball away a lot and didn't create anything. The worrying thing is that Palace didn't even have to press or defend particularly well, we just set ourselves up to fail. Even when we've been poor there's usually been reasons to watch but that was the most boring I've seen us play since Ange joined. It would be nice if we could just shrug it off and call it an off day but 13 points from 9 is pretty ****.
For me it's less about any credit he's earned and more about it being stupid to sack him when we've spent so much building the kind of squad he wants. Days like today he irritates me cos he'll give the usual "it's on me if we don't play well" and then not change anything. If he meant that he'd actually look at what he's doing but he won't because he doesn't want to.
He isn't a young player. At no point in his bizarrely high profile career has he ever resembled a good footballer. Fully fit or not, it makes no difference. This is hardly newsworthy.
It’ll look stupid now, without a doubt. But if we’re still labouring along around the end of January I don’t think Levy will settle for it. Ange has been backed with about £320m so far, we should be expecting far better than what he’s delivering. Our form and performances in 2024 has largely been poor. Needs to finish the year well and continue it in the following year otherwise I don’t see him lasting this season.
Not sparing the manager any criticism, but again I find myself dwelling on the fact that the squad is extremely light on payers who are a significant step up in quality from what you'd expect in a mid table player. There are plenty who, given time and proper coaching, should develop into that higher level of quality but in the here and now? Very very few players and certainly far fewer than too many of our rivals for top 4 to be considered a realistic goal. Imo the domestic season should primarily be used for intensive youngster development, and we should go all-in for the cups. Not going to happen, but that's personally what I would do with such a young squad.
This ignores who he's been backed with, though. Apart from Solanke which does remain a really questionable decision, most of his other signings have been 'jam tomorrow' investments who we won't be seeing the best of for a good few years yet. Sacking Ange won't just look stupid, it will make a mockery of our entire recruitment strategy for the past two years.
Citeh away in the PL next month too. My stage 1 thesis recalls AVB 2013-14 specifically (but other than that I am going purely "by the numbers" ) .
