Football: The Giggs up!

[Soylent Brown]

4 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

Are you really complaining about your form when 'you won the title'? 

Like seriously? I don't mean to be rude but you sound pathetic. 'My team won the champions league and the league title, we got about 200,000 points over 2 season, had a run where we won about 30 games in a row but I didn't like how they played'. 

Seperate note, if you fuck up a paneka you should be fined 2 weeks wages. 

Don't get me wrong, winning the title after waiting 30 years for another one was great, but do you not like the matches you watch to be fun too? We stopped being fun to watch quite a while ago.

[Spockydog]

Arsenal's invincible season had its fair share of tight games where we had to grind out a result. When you're winning, how you win doesn't really matter. 

Liverpool are great to watch. When they're good, they are really fucking good. And when they're bad, it can be almost as entertaining. 

[BigFatCoward]

19 minutes ago, Soylent Brown said:

Don't get me wrong, winning the title after waiting 30 years for another one was great, but do you not like the matches you watch to be fun too? We stopped being fun to watch quite a while ago.

We had the most attractive team ever, we were 12 points clear and walking it. Then we started choking while still playing open attractive football that everyone loved. Then we had the best game ever, lost 4-3 to Liverpool. And we won nothing, I'd take George Graham's Arsenal grinding out 1-0 every week if I had the choice. 

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

15 hours ago, Soylent Brown said:

Klopp is done. We're about 25% the quality of the players we have.

I'm curious, why does there always seem to be a rush to move on from managers after just one down year? Furthermore, how much value do most individual managers have, because I can really only identify when one is either really good or really bad? The rest seem interchangeable.

[Spockydog]

1 hour ago, BigFatCoward said:

We had the most attractive team ever, we were 12 points clear and walking it. Then we started choking while still playing open attractive football that everyone loved. Then we had the best game ever, lost 4-3 to Liverpool. And we won nothing, I'd take George Graham's Arsenal grinding out 1-0 every week if I had the choice. 

 

That was a great team you had then. That 4-3 remains one of the PL's best ever games. 

[Rorshach]

Victor Lindeföf is impressive. How he's still playing CB at United after showing time and again he's not really all that good - that's impressive.

 

Different note, I think United should buy a new CB or two this summer.

[Rorshach]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

I'm curious, why does there always seem to be a rush to move on from managers after just one down year? Furthermore, how much value do most individual managers have, because I can really only identify when one is either really good or really bad? The rest seem interchangeable.

First one is a bit difficult to answer. Can be several factors, as in that there's a deteriorating relationship with players / board (see: Mourinho, Jose, early career), that one sort of exhausts the squad (think Pochettino fits here), that motivation is gone or whatever. Might also be your answer is why fans turn on a successful manager, and as to that I can't answer well. 

Second one - there are possible upsides in getting a manager whose philosophy fits the squad. Might not be great in himself, the manager, but may be able to better make use of the players available. Mostly, however, it's the vain hope to find the manager that just happens to be The One, who will lead you to the Promised Land of titles and European qualification. It almost never is.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

10 minutes ago, Rorshach said:

First one is a bit difficult to answer. Can be several factors, as in that there's a deteriorating relationship with players / board (see: Mourinho, Jose, early career), that one sort of exhausts the squad (think Pochettino fits here), that motivation is gone or whatever. Might also be your answer is why fans turn on a successful manager, and as to that I can't answer well. 

Doesn't have to deterioate or implode in Mourinho fashion. Sometimes the relationship just becomes a bit stale, while players and manager still get along fine on a personal level. The players just know what to expect in training and from each other and become a bit saturated, and sometimes they just need something new/different. Usually you try to combat this by injecting some fresh blood and competition into the squad. After 4 seasons with the same set up give or take you can hit that point.

City also dropped off from their 100 points and close to 100 points season quite a bit last year. Of course, by not as much as Liverpool this year. But their squad has more depth and this was really a mare of a season for Liverpool with injuries and gifting points due to poor finishing. They have come back a bit better this year. They are not nearly as good as they were at their peak.

 

Anyway, since we are talking about games.

German Second tier football has provided some entertainment.

Dead rubber game between Aue (11th placed) vs Paderborn (9th) was quite something.

Aue took an early 2-0 need only to get picked up apart by Paderborn. Score at half-time was 2-4. Final score was 3-8.

Meanwhile Dortmund seems to be able to finish top four afterall.

Mainz are determined to end their relegation worries for good this season in their derby against Frankfurt. They are in the lead and we are approaching half-time. Would be three huge points for Mainz, and a big blow for Frankfurt's CL dreams.

[Rorshach]

In local news, Bryne FK (utterly uninteresting to the world except for being the mother club of Erling Braut Haaland) has rejoined the Norwegian Championship.

Watched their last training match yesterday. May be a long season - looked relatively solid, but not very creative.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Rorshach said:

First one is a bit difficult to answer. Can be several factors, as in that there's a deteriorating relationship with players / board (see: Mourinho, Jose, early career), that one sort of exhausts the squad (think Pochettino fits here), that motivation is gone or whatever. Might also be your answer is why fans turn on a successful manager, and as to that I can't answer well. 

The last line is just as hard to explain here, but I was mainly focusing on successful managers. Here in the U.S. great coaches/managers tend to get to stay at the institution they built their name on for a long time, sometimes for decades. That doesn't seem to happen in European football as far as I can tell and I find it a bit odd. It's possible that may actually be the better approach, cycling mangers in and out rather than keeping one for a long time, but that model does harm long term planning (though that works quite differently on your side of the pond).

Quote

Second one - there are possible upsides in getting a manager whose philosophy fits the squad. Might not be great in himself, the manager, but may be able to better make use of the players available. Mostly, however, it's the vain hope to find the manager that just happens to be The One, who will lead you to the Promised Land of titles and European qualification. It almost never is.

But how many approaches are there if you have a quality team? There are a number of small changes you can make, but I would think any knowledgeable person could do it so long as they're not rigid in their approach. I'm not trying to downplay the importance of coaching at the youth and developmental levels, but at the pro level it doesn't appear like the managers do a ton outside of scheme ideas. 

[Rorshach]

1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

The last line is just as hard to explain here, but I was mainly focusing on successful managers. Here in the U.S. great coaches/managers tend to get to stay at the institution they built their name on for a long time, sometimes for decades. That doesn't seem to happen in European football as far as I can tell and I find it a bit odd. It's possible that may actually be the better approach, cycling mangers in and out rather than keeping one for a long time, but that model does harm long term planning (though that works quite differently on your side of the pond).

But how many approaches are there if you have a quality team? There are a number of small changes you can make, but I would think any knowledgeable person could do it so long as they're not rigid in their approach. I'm not trying to downplay the importance of coaching at the youth and developmental levels, but at the pro level it doesn't appear like the managers do a ton outside of scheme ideas. 

First paragraph, it seems it's changing. Wasn't too long ago that Ferguson was at United and Wenger was at Arsenal, and both had been there forever. Back then, managers lasted longer generally, heck, even Allardici was doing solid work with Bolton over a long time span. Now, it seems that the demand for success leads to faster changes in management structure, and it also seems that managers generally move on faster than before. 

May be just my impression, but seems like that to me.

Second one - you can at least change between the defense first or attack first. Then you can differentiate between how direct you play, how fast the ball should move forward, which runs to make etc. If we take a couple of gererally okay managers like Eddie Howe and David Moyes as examples, they are fundamentally different in how they approach the game. So switching from one to the other will only make sense if you feel the first one completely misuses the squad. But finding a manager that actually fits your squad is hard.7

Not sure I explain myself well, though.

[polishgenius]

2 minutes ago, Rorshach said:

May be just my impression, but seems like that to me.

 

West Ham had eight permanent managers in the 100 years from their founding in 1901 to Harry Redknapp leaving in 2001, and 9 'permanent' managers in the 20 years since, one of them twice. They're extreme but sum up the situation pretty well.

There seems to be some tendency to pushback now among the clubs who can afford to take a chance a little- Solskjaer got more patience than other post-Fergie managers did and is slowly paying off, Arsenal are sticking with Arteta for now, Southampton have kept with Hasenhuttle despite some dreadful runs, Wolves do not look minded to boot Nuno despite falling well short of expectations this year, Hodgson at Palace is on his longest stint at a club since Malmo in the 90s (and Palace's longest serving manager for a single stint since Coppel's nine years in the 80s and 90s).

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

47 minutes ago, Rorshach said:

Second one - you can at least change between the defense first or attack first. Then you can differentiate between how direct you play, how fast the ball should move forward, which runs to make etc. If we take a couple of gererally okay managers like Eddie Howe and David Moyes as examples, they are fundamentally different in how they approach the game. So switching from one to the other will only make sense if you feel the first one completely misuses the squad. But finding a manager that actually fits your squad is hard.7

Not sure I explain myself well, though.

Don't worry, your explanation was fine. You could basically make the same argument in terms of basketball though. There's an offensive and defensive approach and a good coach predicates his system based off what his or hers talent does best. Sometimes you need an all out aggressive attack, say like what the Brooklyn Nets want to do, or you need to base your team off of it's defensive strength, like the Utah Jazz are want to do. Both teams could reasonably win the title this year through very different styles of play, but in both cases I remain skeptical that the coaching matters all that much outside of identifying what each team is best at. Any above average coach could fill the void and do just fine, literally highlighted by the fact the Nets' coach is a first year guy with no coaching experience, but he got the job because he was an elite player in his day. 

I imagine coaching/managing for European football is more or less the same. The greats and the shit stand out, but most are just in the middle and hope they can make the best of the talent available to them, sometimes getting really lucky and striking gold. 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

It's also question of club philosophies and expectations, and the managers standing at the club (how much credit he has).

Moving away from the EPL to the Bundesliga.

Now relegated Schalke have burnt though a lot of headcoaches/managers over the years. Schalke is an extreme club, with a rich history, with the third biggest pull in attendances (stadium and tv screen).

Check list here.

The last really long term manager they had was Huub Stevens, who stayed there well over 5 years, and departed on his own terms. (1996-2002). The only other manager that managed to keep that post for longer than 2 years since then was Mirko Slomka, before he was given the boot. Ok, that club is an extreme example of great expectations (delusions of grandeur) and mismanagement of a club, meets reality. 

On the other end of the spectrum are basically Freiburg.

Since their first appearence if the first Bundesliga in the mid 1990s they had exactly 4 managers.

Volker Finke was there from 1991 until the end of 2006/07 season. His successor Robin Dutt stayed there for 4 full seasons leaving on hiw own will and failing elsewhere (2007-2011). Marcus Sorg was there only miss (2011), who didn't last half a season. And now Christian Streich has been in charge there since late December 2011. Finke survived relegation from the Bundesliga (2005), he was given two tries to win promotion, and was only escorted out of the door at the of the 06/07 season (check above), and even that was a bit controversial as he is pretty much the reason for Freiburg being a Bundesliga club. Streich did also survive relegation in 2015 (?), and there were very little calls to sack him. Ofc, he got them back up the next season quite convincingly the following season. That club isn't particularly panicky, and know what they can realistically achieve. Streich should have sufficient backing to even survive another relegation (if they were to get stuffed every game and totally uncompetitive that'd be a different story).

Anyway, point is, if you accept the position at a top club, you get better players, a bigger contract, but you get way less job security/patience to build something. Going back to the EPL. Check Chelsea's manager turnover for the past couple of years. So I'd be tempted to bet, that the chances of Tuchel* or even Klopp getting sacked next year are somewhat higher than Dyche's at Burnley, or Farke's at Norwich.

*Ofc winning the CL would earn him a bit more credit.

[Consigliere]

Good win for us. It's nice that we keep coming back from going down to win games this season but also annoying that we concede the first goal a bit too often as well. It was a great strike from Traore but aside from a great goal against the run of play, Villa didn't trouble us much and it was a comfortable win.

Leicester are the big beneficiaries of our game with Liverpool being postponed - they get a gimme against what is likely going to be a second string lineup on Tuesday. They could do with a free 3 points as well because they've been teetering again. I hope Maguire's injury isn't too bad but it's not looking good with him leaving the stadium with his left leg in a protective boot.

 

So it looks like Frankfurt have bottled a top 4 finish.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Yeah, a pity Mainz couldn't hang onto their lead. That draw is really helping neither team that much. It's helping Mainz a bit more in their relegation battle, and htey should be more or less safe now. But a win would've removed any last doubts.

[Rorshach]

Introducing a petition for us to play the rest of our season away.

[Consigliere]

Milan are putting in a big performance against Juve. Hopefully they don't fuck it up. 2-0 up currently and a win would take them up to 3rd level on points with Atalanta.

eta. Ha! Make it 3-0. This one is over.

eta 2. Sevilla are also currently 2-1 up against Real Madrid which keeps the title race very much alive for them - 4 points would separate the top 4 with 3 games to play if Sevilla hang on to the win.

eta 3. Big win for Milan winning 3-0. They are now 3 points clear of Juve in 5th and that scoreline gives them the better head-to-head which is the first tiebreaker in Serie A.

[BigFatCoward]

Yeah, its a shame sevilla didn't get the draw last week against athletico, it would be absurdly tight then. 

[Consigliere]

Ouch. Real score the equaliser in the 94th minute.

 

eta. Rennes have taken a point off PSG which leaves Lille 3 points clear at the top with 2 games to play.