Football: The art of lowering expectations

[mormont]

3 hours ago, Heartofice said:

I'm not sure its as bad as everyone makes out. Rashford, Martial, Lindelof, Bailly, Shaw, Dalot, Pogba, Lingard, Fred, Lukaku are all mid to early 20's so the age issue is less of a worry as far as I'm concerned.

From time to time I like to remind people that Fred exists. Otherwise we would certainly forget. 'I haven't had backing from the board' complains a manager who spent £50m on a player he doesn't even put on the bench. Is it any wonder we like to have a chuckle at Mourinho's struggles?

 

[Consigliere]

And the worst part is Fred has looked pretty decent when he has played.

I'd also like to add that Bailly is being underrated. He was excellent in the 2016/2017 season, had a few injuries last season and something seems to have happened between him and Mourinho as well since Mourinho started to overlooked him even when he was fit again and that has continued into this season.

Lindelof never got a run of games last season. When Mourinho was eventually forced to give him a run of games this season due to injuries, he actually improved quite a bit and in the last few games before he got injured he started looking like the player he is for Sweden. 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Somehow I think the ad algorithm on this site is trolling me.

Why else would it show "Mourinho: The Art of Winning" on Amazon? :)

Just 10.99$ I will never spend on Amazon prime. 

[Iskaral Pust]

I've been quite happy to see Bailly shut out by Mourinho because he looked like a decent CB.  He's no VVD or Gomez, but he looked pretty good.  Especially since referees didn't give penalties for his rash tackles.  He's like a faster, more proactive version of Martin Skrtel.  I'm pretty sure any new manager will put him in the team.

[Calibandar]

6 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

You know that Zidane had better players at his disposal at Madrid?

 

No, I had no idea. Who on Earth would've thought?

The fact that he had a great group of players there doesn't change the fact that he's done very well at Madrid, and it's not been the same there since he left. All of that sheds a positive light on him and for me more than positive enough to consider him as a top candidate to replace the sack of shit currently in place.

[Spockydog]

6 hours ago, mormont said:

Would he though? United tried the 'domestic manager with mid-table success' route quite recently, didn't go too well. 

Comparing Howe to Moyes is a nonsense. They have completely different profiles. And unlike Moyes' dour, turgid approach, Howe's brand of football would likely go down very well at Old Trafford.

 

[Calibandar]

6 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Their more established quality players like Matic, Mata, Herrera, Sanchez, Valencia are not gonna be there in 4-5 years.

Who could have thought that bringing in Alexis Sanchez would turn out to be a total flop?

That was always a staggering acquisition that the moment it was announced, I just said "no no no" and yup, a total bust.

So typical of the current reign.

[Iskaral Pust]

Here’s what I mis-posted in Literature earlier:

Liverpool have Lovren and Clyne still out with short term injuries, so covering for Joe Gomez won't be simple for the next couple of games.  Plus Trent Alexander Arnold needs to be rested/protected too.  It's possible Fabinho could see a game at RB, or Camacho might even play.  And it looks like we'll need to continue with Matip at CB for this weekend at least, despite him looking tentative and underwhelming all the time now.

Sadio Mane is injured too, but hopefully not for very long.

[mormont]

9 hours ago, Spockydog said:

Comparing Howe to Moyes is a nonsense. They have completely different profiles.

In many ways they do - Howe is younger, his preferred tactical approach is different, and Bournemouth aren't Everton. But from the board's point of view, there are some similar risks. No significant playing career and no record of managing big-name players. No experience at a big club. No trophies. Never handled a big transfer budget. Moyes had at least managed European games, which Howe has not, but at the time of appointment he hadn't managed outside the English leagues, and neither has Howe. If anything, Howe woMoyes suld be a bigger gamble than Moyes was, and Moyes showed the board how some of these things can be significant weaknesses for an Old Trafford manager.

[Heartofice]

You get the sense that it’s the structure of the entire club at United that is the issue rather than the manager. Fundamental questions need to be asked about:

What is the playing philosophy of the club, what style of football do they want to achieve?

What is the profile of a player to fit that style?

When are you planning to achieve success , short or long term?

Then you go out and recruit according to those principals. Right now the answers to those questions seem to be:

- whatever style wins football

- anyone who sells shirts and seems to be a bargain

- We want to win everything always. Don’t care. 

Chopping and changing the manager might work if you bring them into a system that they can work within. Going from Moyes to LVG to Jose is a scattershot panicked approach doomed to failure. So it doesn’t matter if they get Howe in or whoever.

[Consigliere]

While I think United need to move with the times and implement a modern football structure, the manager is still the most important person at the club. It's not as though Woodward signs whoever he feels like - managers give him a list of targets and he works off of that. It's not Woodward's fault that nearly every single player has regressed under Mourinho.

A change of manager can make a big difference. Nobody would have said Michael Edwards was doing a great job until Klopp arrived and gave direction to the football club. Begiristain did not exactly do a good job in preparation for Guardiola either - basically one season was wasted because of that and Guardiola had to axe numerous players and invest heavily to get a proper team in place. City's big leap forward is solely down to having Guardiola as manager. Without him they would not be much different to what they were under Pellegrini or Mancini.

[Jordan La Cabra]

On the topic of Eddie Howe, if I were a Man United fan, he’d be one of the managers that I would want to takeover from Jose. 

I agree with the comments suggesting he’d be even more of a risk than Moyes was, but the job he has done at Bournemouth is incredible, the football he has them playing is exciting, and he has done all this on a much smaller budget. 

Under Jose, more players appear to have regressed at Man United. Howe improves players and gets them playing at a level beyond what you think they are capable of. Look at the transformation of players like Callum Wilson and Ryan Fraser as examples. 

I was watching a Premier League Review show the other night and there was a feature on Howe. In it, he basically said he didn’t think he had the personality to be a manager. This ties in with one of the issues levelled at him when people talk about him taking the next step at a big club. People say that he hasn’t managed ‘big name players’, but that might actually be a good thing for a manager at Man United. Jose certainly has the personality and has managed some of the biggest names in the game, but he seems to be doing a poor job of managing these players at Man United. Part of that could be that Jose’s man management techniques don’t work on the current generation of players at Man United. It might well be that some experienced managers like Jose have too much experience managing big names, and not all of that experience is good. 

ETA: If Poch was to become available, I think he would be the best fit for the role.

 

[polishgenius]

18 minutes ago, Jordan La Cabra said:

Howe improves players and gets them playing at a level beyond what you think they are capable of. Look at the transformation of players like Callum Wilson and Ryan Fraser as examples. 

I agree with much of what you're saying but the reason this would be such a gamble is there's a difference between doing this with players like Wilson and Fraser and doing it at the highest level. Moyes, after all, spent years getting Everton players to play beyond what we thought of as their means, even if he did it with less attacking flair than Howe.

[Mark Antony]

Clearly offside *shrugs*

[Jordan La Cabra]

21 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

I agree with much of what you're saying but the reason this would be such a gamble is there's a difference between doing this with players like Wilson and Fraser and doing it at the highest level. Moyes, after all, spent years getting Everton players to play beyond what we thought of as their means, even if he did it with less attacking flair than Howe.

What I think is different is that Moyes was taking over a group of players that had experienced Sir Alex managing them. A lot of them vastly experienced senior professionals who were already PL champions. Rio Ferdinand has mentioned how he noticed the drop off in training techniques and mentality going into games when Moyes was in charge.

This current crop of Man United players aren’t senior pros who have won lots of titles. The core of this Man United team is quite youthful, with a lot of players that you would imagine could improve even further under the right coaching/tactical system. 

Moyes was taking over from what was already a successful coaching/tactical system. The current system at Man United doesn’t seem to be getting the best results out of these players. 

[Consigliere]

59 minutes ago, Jordan La Cabra said:

Jose certainly has the personality and has managed some of the biggest names in the game, but he seems to be doing a poor job of managing these players at Man United. Part of that could be that Jose’s man management techniques don’t work on the current generation of players at Man United. It might well be that some experienced managers like Jose have too much experience managing big names, and not all of that experience is good. 

ETA: If Poch was to become available, I think he would be the best fit for the role.

Jose is just a poor man manager - or at least his man management style has a very limited shelf life i.e. 2 years. It was only at Porto and Inter that he didn't cause huge rifts with the players and those were the 2 clubs where he only spent 2 seasons. At every other club, Mourinho started causing problems in his 3rd year.

[Mark Antony]

Lovely stuff from Mo that. Was around this time last season he really started catching fire iirc . 

[lmanion]

Leading them a merry dance in the box for the hattrick

[lmanion]

Get to 4 up and Wijnaldum decides he can stop hiding

[Mark Antony]

One of if not the best performance of the season I think. Good timing with the Napoli game coming up. 

Fabinho/Naby need to start as much as possible.