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Post by weasel on Jun 1, 2018 20:54:06 GMT
Common sense has finally prevailed with PH's disastrous reign coming to an end. He seemed completely out of his depth from the start and whilst his cv at first glance looked good it didn't really stand up when examined a bit more closely. It is rare that I find myself disliking a manager so quickly, I don't even think I wanted Hockaday out as quickly as I wanted PH out even though Hockaday was on paper an even worse appointment. There was something about PH that I didn't like. From the start he seemed smug and arrogant and was able to constantly deflect criticism on to the players, the former manager, Victor Orta etc whilst not once accepting any blame himself. If you are going to have an air of arrogance then you need to be able to back it up such as Mourinho has. I constantly wanted to see any positives happening on the pitch, performances rather than just results, but saw nothing. I wanted the youths to be involved, when the season was effectively over, but they were only played when there was no other option (his mismanagement of Pearce by subbing and dropping him was shocking and it was only due to Berardi's red card and Anita's continued unsuitability at leftback, culminating in conceding a penalty that finally gave PH no other choice but to turn back to Pearce - and even then he hung him out to dry with unnecessary criticism of Pearce after a defeat). Similarly he played a young centreback, O'Connor, (due to no other options) but then dropped him as soon as Cooper was fit even though the matches were meaningless and it made more sense to have a longer look at O'Connor. The result only mattered to one person, PH, and as such he put himself before the team.
It possibly didn't help PH that I was a fan of his predecessor, TC, and was very disappointed when TC was sacked. But if the performances etc were better then I would have got behind PH, I certainly didn't dislike him from the start but quickly grew to dislike him.
So now it really is an intriguing time and a huge decision for AR to make as he attempts to get the choice right at the third attempt. It appears that we are going to repeat the method of the last few seasons so it will be a foreign manager to replace the failed british manager who replaced the failed foreign manager etc. Hopefully it will also see a move back to the first team and youth sides playing a similar way so that integration is easier for the young players as they could be key given their progression last season and the potential is enormous. I have no problem with a foreign manager even if it is someone who doesn't speak english such as Bielsa. If it is to be the Argentinian Bielsa then he will at least speak Spanish so that will greatly ease the problem as Cordoban can be his interpreter and his english is good. It also would be a great way for Cordoban to get close to Bielsa and learn from him much in the same way that the likes of Simeone and others have, if memory serves me right one of Mourinho's main duties in his early career was to be the interpreter for Bobby Robson when he managed Barcelona. Other names have been linked though so it would be foolish to really get too in-depth on any 'candidate' as it could well be a repeat of the TC appointment whereby we appointed someone who had not even been seen as a candidate. The main thing though is that PH has gone and whilst he may go on to be a good manager elsewhere the thought of him managing us next season filled me with dread. Now it is over to AR and VO to turn us into a promotion challenging side unlike many fans who insisted the squad wasn't very good (as a way of defending PH) I think there is the decent makings of a good squad and with 2 or 3 key additions and the right formation and tactics we can be a decent side.
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norm
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Post by norm on Jun 3, 2018 5:01:32 GMT
Bielsa looks a bit high risk and it's a long time since he excelled, but I'd rather an ambitious appointment than a mundane one. He would also wish the 1st team to play the same way that Corberan has got the U18s and U23s are playing so would/could be a unifying figure, as long as he doesn't walk away if his demands aren't met.
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cjay
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Post by cjay on Jun 6, 2018 19:36:31 GMT
Bielsa is a high risk appointment, exciting but im not sure its right for us, at his age, in our position. WIll he learn the language, will we provide the right players, will we have patience, will Bielsa have the patience himself.
Sky Italia mentioned Matias Almeyda as someone we have spoken to, id be happier with him (probably not a popular opinion)
Or Pippo Inzaghi.
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Post by weasel on Jun 7, 2018 22:29:01 GMT
I think we have to look at the managerial position in 2 ways. Firstly the main aim is to get promoted - regardless of styles, tactics, ideologies etc. In that sense the appointment of a Bruce, McCarthy type as a short term solution might be the better option and then once we are in the premiership we can get in a different type of manager - a great example of this was when SOuthampton got back to back promotions with Adkins and were doing reasonably well in the premiership yet sacked him and brought in Pochetino. At the time it seemed like a very strange decision but obviously Pochetino fitted more the style they wanted to play etc having reached the premiership. Would Pochetino have been the right manager to try to get them promoted and equally could Adkins have taken them any further than he had.
The second option is to appoint someone like Bielsa. Now his record is a bit hit and miss but generally he has had good short term success. Get him in and hope that he can inspire the players in the short term and get us promoted. If he isn't then the right person for the long term then perhaps Cordoban can use the experience of working with him in the same way that Guardiola, Simeone, Pochetino etc have. Cordoban then steps up to the main job in a couple of years and is then managing a team which could feature several of his U23 players. Seamless transition and a great learning process for Cordoban who is already well thought of.
Bielsa is definitely a risk but if he comes in and gets us playing good football then the feel good factor can quickly return to ER and we can ride the momentum wave. TC showed, albeit ever so briefly, that you can get a group of players playing in a different way than they were used to and doing well. Under TC we were 2 or 3 key signings away I fell from being a really good team and that will be the case whoever we appoint as manager. Barring us appointing Heckingbottom MkII then I think the key is still whether we can make the 2 or 3 key signings. I maintained last season that if we added Green, Bartley and Wood to TC's team then we would have comfortably finished in the top6 and that is still the case for me. Add 2 or 3 key signings to the team and then get the best out of players that have been inconsistent and we have a team good enough for promotion.
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cjay
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Post by cjay on Jun 7, 2018 23:01:29 GMT
I think we have to look at the managerial position in 2 ways. Firstly the main aim is to get promoted - regardless of styles, tactics, ideologies etc. In that sense the appointment of a Bruce, McCarthy type as a short term solution might be the better option and then once we are in the premiership we can get in a different type of manager - a great example of this was when SOuthampton got back to back promotions with Adkins and were doing reasonably well in the premiership yet sacked him and brought in Pochetino. At the time it seemed like a very strange decision but obviously Pochetino fitted more the style they wanted to play etc having reached the premiership. Would Pochetino have been the right manager to try to get them promoted and equally could Adkins have taken them any further than he had. The second option is to appoint someone like Bielsa. Now his record is a bit hit and miss but generally he has had good short term success. Get him in and hope that he can inspire the players in the short term and get us promoted. If he isn't then the right person for the long term then perhaps Cordoban can use the experience of working with him in the same way that Guardiola, Simeone, Pochetino etc have. Cordoban then steps up to the main job in a couple of years and is then managing a team which could feature several of his U23 players. Seamless transition and a great learning process for Cordoban who is already well thought of. Bielsa is definitely a risk but if he comes in and gets us playing good football then the feel good factor can quickly return to ER and we can ride the momentum wave. TC showed, albeit ever so briefly, that you can get a group of players playing in a different way than they were used to and doing well. Under TC we were 2 or 3 key signings away I fell from being a really good team and that will be the case whoever we appoint as manager. Barring us appointing Heckingbottom MkII then I think the key is still whether we can make the 2 or 3 key signings. I maintained last season that if we added Green, Bartley and Wood to TC's team then we would have comfortably finished in the top6 and that is still the case for me. Add 2 or 3 key signings to the team and then get the best out of players that have been inconsistent and we have a team good enough for promotion. I dont think we can appoint a Bruce, McCarthy etc type manager. For one the football will be so bad, awful to watch, probably wont be very exciting, and there is no guarantee either of those would be any good anyways. For those to have a chance Orta would have to change his approach and start signing there style of player, which is likely to be experienced, ageing, high wage players, with no resale value and little use beyond a season or two. Those sort of managers are the sort of managers other club fans seem to want, but if you check the fans of the clubs they are at, most of there fans want gone, Villa would be doing cartwheels if we took Bruce off of of them, Ipswich fans couldn't get rid of McCarthy fast enough, i dont want us to go down that route. Appointing an old fashioned manager just because he has a few promotions, i know that sounds daft, but i think we need to try and keep an eye on the bigger picture. We appointed TC for a reason, we signed all those youngsters for a reason, we signed Saiz, Alioski etc for a reason, none of them are McCarthy players, thats absolutely certain. I mentioned the 2 above for 2 reasons, 1) we have reportedly spoken to both, its just rumours but we have apparently only spoken to them, Bielsa and Silva. 2) They are young, hungry, decent records under difficult circumstances in recent years, they are big names from there playing days (important to have that if you want a brand like Radz presumably does), i dont expect there wages would be as high as Bielsa, i dont expect they would demand so much input, bit more flexible, apparently they both play decent football (Almeyda similar to Bielsa) and on there reputations, players would want to play for them. I think we as fans got a bit swept away with Bielsa and didnt think of practicalities, his wages, at Lille well over 100k a week, we cant afford that, we also cant afford to stretch ourselves and end up stuck with him if it doesnt work out, or having to pay him off millions and millions. He doesnt speak English, atleast not past the very very basics. He is 62, does he really fancy a long hard slog in another country where he doesnt speak the language. Wouldnt be upset with Bielsa, lord knows he is leagues above Hecky. Just hope we are being sensible, if we get this wrong, if he does come and doesnt work out, we could be looking at wasting tens of millions of pounds, on him, his staff, his signings. |
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Post by weasel on Jun 8, 2018 6:31:24 GMT
It does seem that we keep trying the long term approach then halfway through a season panicking and sacking the manager and then going for the short term fix. Why we keep doing this and expecting it to work is baffling as like you say we then don't have the right type of players to fully suit either way. The closest we really got to having a manager and his type of players was Warnock who was allowed to bring in his type of players.
I am not too concerned with the negatives surrounding Bielsa. I doubt he is in the position to be demanding the huge wages he was on given his lack of recent success as well as his short terms at previous jobs. At present he would be deemed high risk wherever he goes. Likely that I think we'd be looking at going down the route of offering him a hugely incentivised contract which is a great way of getting round the Fair Play rules (i.e. if the budget for a season is say £20m he gets his wages according to the wage budget say £20k per week but would get £5m bonus if we got promoted - as shown with various teams once you get promoted the Football League have little power so you can simply then pay the bonuses or alternatively pay them at the start of the following season where the budget would be much bigger). I don't see the english speaking as a problem, yes would be better if he was fluent, but if he has someone like Cordoban as translator and they are on the same page then it shouldn't be a problem - don't forget that a lot of the players that arrived last summer didn't speak english so it is just a case that this is the way with modern football. It seems a lot of Bielsa's best work is with the use of video etc rather than during the match so easier to make sure that the translation is right than in the heat of the match. If he sees us as just a final payday then it would be disappointing but the hope is that he sees the lack of recent success on his cv and is wanting to finish his career in style. His best chance may be at a sleeping giant where he can mould the team, I feel he has probably missed out on the big jobs due to his lack of playing success as it does seem that top players get shortcuts to the best managerial jobs. It is certainly a gamble but like you I would prefer this type of gamble than the McCarthy, Bruce etc gamble.
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