It has looked to be the mantra of our last few managers, don't lose and win the possession stats.
Now (hopefully and with a bit of luck and some real decision making) we have a manager who's mantra is "go and win".
I believe that the biggest thing that we will have this season is a change in mentality and become more resilient. This has been the biggest downfall for us in recent years.
As much as everyone hates LvG, he was the strongest when it came to mentality to operate under pressure. But his methods became difficult for players to grasp.
Mourinho did a decent job but he subsequently lost the dressing room because of his mentality in the face of adversity.
I believe Ole initially benefited from the relief bounce from Jose’s era which ended on a very toxic note. It gave the whole team a lift by having the nicest guy and the legend in charge. But it was only a matter of time for it to become clear that the team needed innovative ideas to become better. This ultimately never came because Ole didn’t have it. Then to top it off, Ole’s mentality of being too nice led to the team lacking sense of direction that would have come from a strong manager with precise demand.
Enter Rangnick! There was the initial promise of a shift toward progressive football when Rangnick took over. But ultimately, the season was already dead in the water and he never even had a leverage as an interim manager amongst the egos within the team. Further, the lack of signings to shore up a sht egocentric team in January showed that the club had by then given up on the season and had started planning for the next.
There were still talks toward the end of the season that the club should have gone for Conte. Even in hindsight, I think that it was wise of the club to pass on Conte given the complex dynamics at the club. Conte’s siege is not the team needs. What we needed was get a manager that wasn’t an emotional choice nor one dictated by the media as an “obvious” choice.
It is still early days to even talk about how things will go for the team under Ten Hag. But one thing that is definitively clear is that he is clear in his vision and he communicates that vision effectively. He is also fairly hands-on with implementing a system from the training sessions that we’ve seen so far. But most importantly, he is strictly result-driven.
In the preseason games so far, it is also clear that he knows that this is work in progress. He has not provided any hints of celebrating what are largely meaningless games. Watching him on the touch lines, you almost get the sensation that he wants far more from the players. Biggest test will be when the chips are down. But I believe ETH has the right tools to pick up the team when all is lost.
In close, I see ETH as the perfect manager for our current predicament. The club did the right thing to wait until the end of the season to get him in as opposed to trying to stop the bleed midway through last season. There wouldn’t have been enough time for any manager to work with that mess, or at best even a better manager would have only made the team marginally better as opposed to a full 180 turnaround.
