Football: A Blizzard of Games

[Mark Antony]

Tuchel did get the best of Auba at Dortmund but doubt the Arsenal board would hire someone with such a history of clashing with front offices. 

[baxus]

2 hours ago, Consigliere said:

Bouhafsi reporting that Poch is likely to be the new PSG manager.

I was under the impression that Poch was still under contract with Spurs and that that was the main reason why he hasn't taken any other club over by now. Spurs would ask for some transfer fee for him, but I guess that PSG wouldn't have a problem with that.

[Consigliere]

11 minutes ago, baxus said:

I was under the impression that Poch was still under contract with Spurs and that that was the main reason why he hasn't taken any other club over by now. Spurs would ask for some transfer fee for him, but I guess that PSG wouldn't have a problem with that.

Spurs were continuing to pay him an agreed upon compensation which is the usual thing when a manager is sacked. When he was sacked, it was reported that Spurs would only be due compensation if Poch had taken a job within the next six months. That has now passed so PSG will not be paying Spurs anything. Once he signs for PSG, Spurs will not have to continue paying him either.

[baxus]

Makes sense.

[Consigliere]

1 hour ago, Mark Antony said:

Tuchel did get the best of Auba at Dortmund but doubt the Arsenal board would hire someone with such a history of clashing with front offices. 

Tuchel will probably take six months gardening leave and assess his options at the end of the season. Better opportunities might be available by then. Just spitballing here: Pirlo is not exactly setting the league alight at Juve, Koeman is limping at Barca and once the new board is elected they would likely want to appoint their own man, Chelsea have been ruthless with managers, Conte could go off the rails at any moment and if Solskjaer fails to secure CL football, his head might be on the chopping block too.

[Iskaral Pust]

Good outcome for Poch.  And now he can defy all the haters who mocked his trophyless success.  Can he be criticized for no trophies at Spurs as well as lots of barely contested ones at PSG?

Although, can Neymar fit into Poch’s scheme of selfless running and harrying?  Even Eriksen worked hard and pressed in that system.

[AncalagonTheBlack]

The 100 best male footballers in the world 2020
https://www.theguardian.com/football/ng-interactive/2020/dec/21/the-100-best-male-footballers-in-the-world-2020

Mane, Salah and Virgil in the top 10.A total of 12 Liverpool players make the list.

Some of the player rankings are weird

[A Horse Named Stranger]

1 hour ago, Consigliere said:

Tuchel will probably take six months gardening leave and assess his options at the end of the season. Better opportunities might be available by then. Just spitballing here: Pirlo is not exactly setting the league alight at Juve, Koeman is limping at Barca and once the new board is elected they would likely want to appoint their own man, Chelsea have been ruthless with managers, Conte could go off the rails at any moment and if Solskjaer fails to secure CL football, his head might be on the chopping block too.

Pretty much that. There also seems some grumbling in the background at Real Madrid, and Löw's job security is not as high as it was six years ago (very mildy put). I still have my money on Kuntz as next Germany boss, but with Tuchel on the market, who knows. As for United, I think you mgiht actually be better served with Rangnick. He might be a total control freak, but at least he would wrestle some control away from Woody in the absence of a DoF.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

3 hours ago, Mark Antony said:

Tuchel did get the best of Auba at Dortmund but doubt the Arsenal board would hire someone with such a history of clashing with front offices. 

Not entirely sure that is a fair describtion actually.

Dortmund was more of an issue between him and senior players. And that was arguably be more down to his personality. Tuchel often came across as a bit aloof, even more so than Guardiola during press conferences. Now then, his direct predecessor at Dortmund was Klopp, who is a totally different beast. Klopp is rather gregarious and more accessible to players. So that was a bit of a culture shock for his players. Rumoredly he took that criticism to heart, and has worked a bit on that, and did rather well managing guys like Neymar. I don't follow French football closely enough to say for certain.

With PSG I'd allocate more of the blame to Leonardo. Who has a track record of sacked managers left and right and center. And you could see why Tuchel had been moaning this season. The squad has lost depth compared to last season (and it wasn't that deep to begin with), just look at the departures and new arrivals. Now there'S the corona fixture pile up, and with an essentially weakened squad, there's still the expectation to be in the running for the CL title and dominating the domestic competitions. Tuchel just whined about it continuously, and Leonardo told him there's no money for transfers and he should shut up and get on with the job. Well, and Tuchel continued to whine about the lack of alternatives, and injuries piling up. Basically, I know it's not pretty, but I am doing what I can here. Get me some more players, and things will look better.

[Consigliere]

Rangnick won't join United because Woodward would never agree to hand him the level of control that he wants. The Glazers are just here to collect dividends, director fees and sell shares.  They don't take an active hand in the football side of things and are happy to defer to Woodward. 

[Mark Antony]

3 hours ago, Consigliere said:

Tuchel will probably take six months gardening leave and assess his options at the end of the season. Better opportunities might be available by then. Just spitballing here: Pirlo is not exactly setting the league alight at Juve, Koeman is limping at Barca and once the new board is elected they would likely want to appoint their own man, Chelsea have been ruthless with managers, Conte could go off the rails at any moment and if Solskjaer fails to secure CL football, his head might be on the chopping block too.

Melissa Reddy reported that Tuchel is interested in a Premier League move. Arsenal obviously seems the most likely but yeah waiting for United could be the right move just don’t see United dropping out of top four

[polishgenius]

1 hour ago, Consigliere said:

Rangnick won't join United because Woodward would never agree to hand him the level of control that he wants. The Glazers are just here to collect dividends, director fees and sell shares.  They don't take an active hand in the football side of things and are happy to defer to Woodward. 

 

Ah I see we're seeing the biannual pre-transfer-window 'Manchester United will appoint a Director of Football' charade again.

I also see that although there is some chatter, the rumour mill is holding off on linking us with every single player in the world, I suppose to see how we do vs Leicester and Wolves.

eta: man, even if Solskjaer does drop out of top 4 and leave, I hope we don't get Tuchel. He's not a bad coach but at this stage he's proved himself pretty soundly sub-Klopp, I think it'd be tough to say he'd got the best out of PSG even before things started to sour, and surely the idea is to get someone who at least might be able to go toe-to-toe with Klopp and Pep.

[Heartofice]

The director of football at Utd thing seems in sharp contrast to Arsenal, who seemingly have the system Utd want, but it’s actually a total farce over there.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

1 hour ago, polishgenius said:

 

Ah I see we're seeing the biannual pre-transfer-window 'Manchester United will appoint a Director of Football' charade again.

I also see that although there is some chatter, the rumour mill is holding off on linking us with every single player in the world, I suppose to see how we do vs Leicester and Wolves.

eta: man, even if Solskjaer does drop out of top 4 and leave, I hope we don't get Tuchel. He's not a bad coach but at this stage he's proved himself pretty soundly sub-Klopp, I think it'd be tough to say he'd got the best out of PSG even before things started to sour, and surely the idea is to get someone who at least might be able to go toe-to-toe with Klopp and Pep.

This was more Rangnick as successor for Solskjaer. You will never get a DoF at United.

Sub-Klopp, probably yes. But that's down to Klopp arguably being the best head coach in the game right now. So who do you have in the can go toe-to-toe with him category? Simeone?

If you want to stay away from Tuchel, fair enough, there are reasons for that. That you don't think of him in the same bracket as Klopp and Guardiola is imho not a particularly good one. That's abit like saying, you don't want a player that is not roughly in the same bracket as Messi or Ronaldo.

[polishgenius]

5 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

That's abit like saying, you don't want a player that is not roughly in the same bracket as Messi or Ronaldo.

Not really. Klopp's arguably the best manager in the world- he's not without question one of the two best managers who ever lived. The level we're aiming for, we should be getting someone who can challenge Klopp. Even if he's not as good, he needs to be good enough to step to with our resources, and I don't think Tuchel is that guy.

It's more like saying a replacement for Pogba should be a player with at least the potential to be as good as Pogba at his best, not, say, Danny Ceballos.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Just now, polishgenius said:

Not really. Klopp's arguably the best manager in the world- he's not without question one of the two best managers who ever lived. The level we're aiming for, we should be getting someone who can challenge Klopp. Even if he's not as good, he needs to be good enough to step to with our resources, and I don't think Tuchel is that guy.

It's more like saying a replacement for Pogba should be a player with at least the potential to be as good as Pogba at his best, not, say, Danny Ceballos.

From a historic perspective, no. But I didn't pick C. Ronaldo and Messi for their historic achievements, but for their current abilities. And Pep and Klopp are atm the top two guys. So I was genuinely curious, who do you think is their equal. Pretty much any appointment seems to be a step down compared to them, at least to me.

I think he is a genuine step up from Solskjaer. I don't consider Hasenhüttl to be better than Tuchel (actually, I am fairly confident to say, that Tuchel is better). So that's also a step (or two) down compared to Klopp and Guardiola. Nagelsmann recently said himself, he isn't at Klopp's level. I mean Barca have made Ronald fucking Koeman their manager, who is quite obviously not in the same ball park.

 

[Consigliere]

2 hours ago, polishgenius said:

Ah I see we're seeing the biannual pre-transfer-window 'Manchester United will appoint a Director of Football' charade again.

Yeah, the 'United are looking to appoint a DoF' rumours have started up again. Last I've seen we apparently have a shortlist including Paul Mitchell, Luis Campos and Marc Overmars.

 

I don't think we should appoint Tuchel either but not because he isn't good enough. I think Tuchel will run into problems here with Woodward and Judge and it'll turn into a public shitshow again with a pissed off manager. The Chuckle Brothers insist on conducting transfer and contract negotiations in the most inefficient and idiotic way they possibly can and that is going to infuriate certain managers. At the end of the day, if Solskjaer does get sacked, we need to look for a manager who isn't going to publicly kick up a fuss over the inevitable incompetent transfer dealings. I'd say Allegri would be a better fit.

[polishgenius]

1 hour ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

 

I think he is a genuine step up from Solskjaer. I don't consider Hasenhüttl to be better than Tuchel (actually, I am fairly confident to say, that Tuchel is better).

Yeah I wouldn't want Hasenhuttl either. Nagelsmann isn't at Klopp's level, but might become that, which has to be the aim (I'm not saying we're gonna pick up a Klopp-ready manager off the bat, because if those guys exist there's two of them max and they're not available. Maybe Simeone is also that level but also not easy to get, nor necessarily what we want). But we don't have to get a German in, though they seem to be the management stars - there's guys making names in France and Spain too, and they'd be risks, but I just think Tuchel would be a non-risk in the wrong way- we'd know what we're getting and it would definitely fall short.

I'm honestly not sure that he is better than Solskjaer, overall. Certainly there are things he's better at, he'd definitely make a faster start, but I distrust his man-management (something at which Solskjaer is proving good, in way more than the accused-of 'he just does what the players want way), like Consigliere says he'd be unlikely to fit in wth the club management issues we have, and for all the frustration Solskjaer so far is improving as he goes along, something I'm not sure Tuchel has proven he can do. Dortmund fell apart on him, realistically he's underperformed at PSG - where's this proof that he's a genuine high-end manager that would lift us, or any team looking to step up a level from 'in Europe' to 'challenging for leagues and CL', really?

[Daemon the Leaner]

I think the reason why Tuchel's reputation hasn't dropped so much despite being sacked is his first half-a-season with PSG. Like, that was really impressive.

That's their record in Ligue 1 back then

Their record in CL (less impressive but they kinda had the group of death with Napoli and Liverpool)

Everything started to collapse when we knocked them out from CL. I think that as mere spectators of the game, we can't fully understand how mentally damaging it can be to miss out that way.

[Consigliere]

2 hours ago, Ser Glendon Fireball said:

Everything started to collapse when we knocked them out from CL. I think that as mere spectators of the game, we can't fully understand how mentally damaging it can be to miss out that way.

They reached the CL final the following season so can't have been too mentally damaging. PSG did not collapse under Tuchel either - they won their CL group and are only 1 point off the top in the league. They were very likely to pull away in the league eventually anyway. They've also had a lot of injuries to deal with this season as well and those teams that participated in European competitions in August have tended to take a while to get going this season due to no preseason. Tuchel was sacked because his increasingly fractured relationship with Leonardo reached the point of being untenable rather than over results.