Twitter is toxic but the best thing i saw recently was someone calling Ryan Mason - Ryan Mates On. To me they summed up his tenure as manager
Just because somebody selects the same players doesn't mean the football is identical The fact that Winks and Hojbjerg were used to set the tempo of our play under Mason, rather than people to watch the ball go sailing overhead in the vague direction of Kane or Son under the ubermensch, means the football was clearly different as one actually used them while the other kitbashed them into a system that was clearly flawed yet had to be followed no matter what was happening on the pitch or who happened to be in it And the fact our U18 coach showed more aptitude for adjusting tactics based on who was on the pitch than Mr Winning Mentality is the most damning thing that can be said
I never said it was identical, did I? I originally said there wasn’t much difference and the football was still poor because most of the players are poor.
I’m not gonna **** on the guy too much but his preference of picking his mates was a real nuisance. Hopefully it was as some believed and down to getting them in the shop window. Otherwise Ryan may wanna stick to the U18s for a few more years before considering anything bigger, lol.
And yet he got more out of them. How? By setting up the team very differently, as well as not hammering square pegs into round holes Also, since that idiotic Narrative has started cluttering up this forum as well, here's a simple question: who are Ryan Mason's "mates" that keep getting picked? Out of the squad he had available, the only players he regularly played alongside were Kane, Son, Davies, Dier and Dele - two of whom most people have a foolish idea that maybe they need to be playing as that's where most of our goals come from, one was a guy who clearly had a point to prove after being shat on by our ex-manager, one was injured for most of Mason's time in charge, and the only player that's really worth complaining about is Dier due to his brainfart-heavy season ...however, I'm not finished yet When a team is clearly low on confidence and needs to get some results on the board quickly, what is the best approach to take? Is it to pick a settled lineup to pick up a couple of results in order to build a little confidence, or is it to chop and change the team constantly? Obviously it's the first one, and more than anything else that's not the only example of that happening as both Jol did that to try and get the Santiniball out of the players' systems just as Redknapp did to try and reverse the malaise that Ramos had choked the players with So realistically this whole "mates" narrative is nothing more than childish moaning, just like the people who were ****ting their pants about how Ndombele looked like he was going to die of exhaustion by half time against Southampton then started ****ting their pants because Mason wasn't starting him, and the thing with childish moaning is that people really should have grown out of it before they went to Big School
Got more out of who? Kane was poorer under Mason than he was Jose. Winks - ****. Dier - ****. Reguilon - ****. Son - ****. Dele - didn’t prove too many points. Ndombele - ****. Lo Celso - ****. Hojbjerg - so-so. Toby - so-so. Most of those were like that under Jose. What Mason changed was primarily not to sit back after scoring a goal (although see Villa game) but the overall football wasn’t a joy to watch and the differences between his football and Jose’s was minimal. If anything the main difference was investing more time in Bale, who netted 6 goals in Mason’s 7 games in charge. If Jose had trusted Bale more he may have still been in the job. It’s not an idiotic narrative either but you run with that story if it makes you feel better.
Cluttering up the forum? I literally just mentioned it in one post and only then because Mates On sounds like Mason and I thought it was quite witty of whoever thought of it. Childish moaning? The irony of you of all people saying that when you won’t even call most rival teams or players by their actual names
Kane was coming back from his second ankle injury of the season under Mason, but don't let that little detail get in the way of anything Winks - gave the defence a second option to move on the ball, and was useful in recycling the ball to Hojbjerg and Dele Dier - noticeable drop in the number of fatal brainfarts from him, albeit not a complete removal Reguilon - a ****ing disaster against Leeds, but his tenacity on the left got us the ball in some key positions leading to goals in other games Dele - put in a shift every time, which is what we needed with so many players run into the ground around him Ndombele - dropped after looking shagged out against Southampton, so where's the complaint exactly? Lo Celso - moved the ball around in midfield like an ersatz Modric, and brought Bale into games from deep Hojbjerg - became our main creative outlet with Ndombele dropped and Lo Celso carrying a knock Toby - started using the long diagonals again, which is something the ubermensch stopped him from doing All of those are clear differences either in how they were deployed or how they fit in with the clearly different tactics we were using If you think that there is any similarity between looking to control the match by controlling the ball through central midfield and funneling the ball to the fullbacks in the hope that one of their crosses isn't aimlessly launched in the vague direction of someone in a white shirt, I'm also going to suggest that this is an off-duty Slovakian traffic warden please log in to view this image
There's a reason I keep an eye on r/coys and it isn't for the riveting discussions, but because it's always a good warning signal of whichever Two Minutes Hate will be coming onto this board without having to wade into the chest-high sewer that is Spurs Twitter these days And what was the one doing the rounds before the Wolves game? Mason only plays his mates, even though that's not only demonstrably false as we haven't re-signed Andros Townsend or Tom Carroll but also doesn't explain when or how mason became mates with players like Hojbjerg, Lo Celso, Reguilon, Sanchez, Aurier etc - which also happens to remind me of how people were moaning about Bentaleb being teacher's pet because Sherwood played him every week (and that begs the obvious question, namely if Mason was playing his mates, why weren't Scarlett and Devine getting regular games?) And yes, it is childish moaning, for the main reason that it's moaning and is utterly childish. Seriously, when we're at a point where Ndombele plays and people demand we sell him (thanks for proving my point, Dier Hard) yet when he's on the bench those same people moan as if he's the second coming of Andrea Pirlo it's completely childish, and there's no point engaging with that sort of crap because that's like trying to talk sense into somebody who constantly suggests that levy, Hitchen, the reverse vampires and George Soros are responsible for us signing Gregorsz Rasiak - and that's not even an exaggeration, as I've seen people slating Hitchen for players signed when Paul Mitchell was the DoF, because they've been programmed into a Pavlovian response whenever they see mention of him, and that's the same with so many people at the club I'm starting to wonder how long before we see the hashtag ThirdBallboyFromTheLeftOUT
So Mason continued doing what Jose and Poch done by rushing Kane back? Solid difference there. Guess you didn’t watch Reguilon against Villa then. Lo Celso moved it around like an ersatz Modric? He barely moved it around like an ersatz Winks. Dier was no better under Mason. Dele put in a shift, good on him. Hojbjerg becoming the main creative outlet probably isn’t something to boast too much about. The differences were minimal. Enjoy the banana.
So you're complaining that Mason did something that Poch did as a means to say he was directly comparable to the ubermensch. yeah, can't see any possible issues with that... But since we've reached that point, let me just point out Did you watch Reguilon against Leicester, Wolves, Southampton, or Sheffield United? Being **** in one game doesn't make somebody **** in six. That's absurd So the fact Lo Celso was setting Bale free down the right, and got a couple of hockey assists (i.e. the assist for the assist) renders that comment a joke Dier wasn't actively losing us games under Mason, which may not be the most glowing of recommendations, but not assuming he was Baresi went a long way Dele put in a shift, which Ndombele didn't - hence Ndombele was dropped Hojbjerg moving the ball about as no other option is available shows a coach who has the ability to change tactics on the fly The differences were noticeable, and they just so happened to involve players you've been demanding we sell all season long which is why you refuse to see them, which is not a coincidence What banana? I told you, it's an off-duty Slovakian traffic warden
Poch, Jose and Mason all do the same thing with Kane but you’re running the line of how things are different? Reguilon’s form has been poor for most of the second half of the season, just like many of our players. Is it 1 out of 6 or 2? Are disregarding the Villa or the Leeds agne? Lo Celso was ****. He was nothing like Modric or a poor man’s Modric that’s for sure. We’d kill for a poor man’s Modric right about now. Dier was woefully ****. Dele putting in shift done nothing for us against Villa, nor did he contribute anything in the Leicester game. A good game against Wolves though, mind, I’ll give him that. The differences were noticeable to someone desperate in wanting to be proven right in their belief that poor players aren’t poor. Ah right, off duty Slovakian traffic warden... gotcha.
The last 2 ex Chelsea managers were broken when we got them, so if Conte comes at least we get the satisfaction of breaking him
Yeah but it ****ing breaks us as well All seriousness I do like Conte as a manager but he’s someone who’d want a lot more control and a lot of dough to build us in his image... So basically it’d be a disaster in waiting pairing him with Levy.
I'm pointing out that you could just as easily compare Mason to Poch as the ubermensch for playing a clearly unfit Kane, but that didn't fit your argument so you ignored it until I brought it up Reguilon has clearly been run into the ground and was half a step off the pace after injury, with a couple of bad performances, yet that doesn't mean he wasn't contributing to our play with some pressing high up on the left - which is something he didn't do under the ubermensch Lo Celso was not ****. You're saying he's "****" because you've been demanding we sell him all season long, nothing more Dier was woefully **** when he was costing us goals. Was he taking it in turns with Aurier to cost us goals in every game? No Dele was hardly the only player who had a duff game against Villa, the entire team did, and that can be placed more on Gary Neville than anyone Mason picked The differences were noticeable when you see things like our central midfield actually trying to control games by moving the ball around quickly, something we simply did not do under the ubermensch because our central midfield served little purpose because our forward play was based on getting the ball to the FBs or aiming it to Kane or Son, while defending they seemed to serve no purpose at all as our tactics effectively removed them from the game not just when the opponents had the ball but also when we had the ball as we kept hoofing it back to the opponents endlessly The fact is that under the ubermensch any half-decent manager could accurately predict not just how we would play but also predict which player would pass to which, because our passing combinations were insanely rigid which is why opponents figured out putting someone on Hojbjerg would see our CBs either pass it sideways to one another or pass to their respective FB, both of which can both be countered either by pressuring our CBs into a mistake or funnelling our FBs out of dangerous areas Under Mason this wasn't the case, as not only were both Hojbjerg and Lo Celso/Winks dropping back for the ball meaning there were more options for moving the ball from defence to attack, but the ball was moved differently as it moved up into midfield and from there it moved either forwards to Kane or Dele or out wide to Bale, Aurier, Son or Reguilon. And this is important, because rather than playing like the team has half a mind on the game they're currently playing in and half on how to get the ball to the one player they're allowed to pass to, our play was more open as players had multiple options to move the ball to - and by being more open when transitioning from defence into attack we simply were not playing like we were six months ago, and this is what the ubermensch should have been doing if he wanted to stay in a job because by making us so rigid our players were defeated before they took to the pitch because countless coaches knew what we were going to do before we even got the ball moving
This is why Levy has to be stopped from ****ing around with things that he doesn't understand. There is less than no point in appointing someone like Conte, if he's not going to be given the players he wants. It'll be Mourinho - The Sequel. It's far better to accept that we can't afford a trophy wife and marry a homely one, who'll **** like a bunny and love us, no matter what.
Thanks, I wish it was originally my work! I nicked it from somewhere...but I'm too old to remember where...?
Anyone know the quickest way to get a banner reading DO NOT ****ING HIRE ZIDANE across the road from Levy's office window?
LOTS of talk about Poch. Ally Gold’s even confirmed we’ve spoken to him and understands he wants to come back. Athletic saying the players are excited at the prospect of him returning - this bit ****ing infuriates me as most of them got him sacked.
