robsblubot

sure, but that's orthogonal to the roster point. You can't win anything without a good manager and a good squad. You cannot even play decently without a good squad. I've seen good managers park the bus and get results with poor squads before (Scolari, Jose), but they play like shit and that only works in smaller cups. You talk about silverware, and the manager does not get on the pitch and play. We need players so that the better manager can actually build something: improve short-term and perhaps get us to be competitive in a season or two. From what we hear they are not even allowing managers to have much insight into transfers, so I'm not sure how a better manager will address the gaping holes in the roster. He'd point out obvious and will get another kid... hmm project to fill that. Good luck winning titles with kids. That will be a first, so we will make history alright. 😅

No, we aren't the ones doing that. The club is even before they signed Poch.

Now, just for fun, I'm going to be mean. 😅 If you believe a manager has a big impact on developing players -- I don't, I think they have a much bigger impact on team performance -- would it be fair to give him credit for Sun and Kane? 🤭 If I were arguing with ... myself, I'd claim that Sun kept on developing just fine after Poch left and he's now a much better player than he was back then. That spurs must hire good coaches, have good facilities, and for that reason are able to develop their players regardless who is the manager.

Nope I was referring to the good players 😆 Some of these players need to be shipped far far way -- they are not even PL material. And there are thousands more of good managers not being able to do much with poor rosters. It's actually difficult to establish causality with so many different variables, club and its many professionals involved. A top PL club like Chelsea usually have the best coaches money can buy. Defensive, goalie, set pieces, you name it. Best physios, fitness coaches, etc. Why would the manager have that much of an impact on developing players? How come players develop well despite having multiple different managers often at the same club? Managers come and go. Why do clubs like to buy very young players from lower leagues? their top coaches will have more time to work with these players. I totally get improving players--I just don't tie it to the manager that much.

No, some of these players are shit. That’s my take. Better system can marginally improve the play but significantly improve them? Nope I will be right or wrong in a fee months, but I have a feeling the club will try to shake things up. some are actually so young that a second, or first, preseason might actually help regardless of manager. speaking of which, we focus too much on the manager where it is the club and its myriad of coaches who have a bigger impact on improving players.

They produce a marginal and temporary boost mostly due to a new take in the locker room. Usually does not last long nor does it work. Teams who change manager midway through campaigns are usually the ones in trouble and also the ones who drop. Good managers make good players click. There little that can be done with bad players. Other than parking the bus and hoping for a miracle that is. Everyone is talking about Liverpool kids, but how about mudryk and madueke who came on with fresh legs and did what?

yeah not trying 3atb was baffling to me as well. No I don’t see poch winning anything nor would I want him here long term, but I still think football is players and we don’t have them. Playing marginally better isn’t good enough for me.

I missed nothing, I merely disagreed with your point, but that seems like an alien concept these days on this forum. "The argument here is that managers have a very significant effect on the players performance and can do so instantly." Disagreed. BTW, your evidence is incorrect: you cannot do AB testing without control.

Yeah, same way Werner was great in Bundesliga before joining us. Same way Cuccurella was amazing before joining us. Same as Caicedo and so many others... different standards different team setup. I don't have a problem not disagreeing about a choice, preferring a player over another. My point is that it is literally the manager's job to find a balance for the team. He may have preferred to field more ready players considering how many youngsters he already has to employ. He may have preferred a more defensive LB in Colwill so that the winger does not have to track back so much. There are a lot of potential reasons for each choice and honestly, again, that's his prerogative as it is his team, not ours (not our preference). And once again, the focus on the manager is VERY misguided IMO. This shit imbalanced roster wasn't built by Poch, so if he has blame for not doing more with it, the roster is what it is and no manager will change that unless we fix it in the following transfer windows. It's still just Chilwell as the only LB option atm, for example. Could he have tried 3atb? maybe maybe he should have, which may have opened up a place for Maatsen as an option, but I still blame the club a lot more.

Pulisic and RLC are better players than we have now. Poch did not have them. At the very least they would make far better bench options than Madueke and Mudryk. It wasn't Poch who sent them packing--it was the brilliant leadership we have now.

You must be joking... did Maatsen look remotely ready when playing with much less defensive responsibilities (right wing/mid)? Because to be me he looked shit. Besides, Poch might have wanted a more defensive option to balance out the team, which is his prerogative as manager. There is a very respectable take on what the best starting XI is: that the goal is to get the best players on the pitch regardless of position. SO, this stoic way of thinking regarding position I see here, is really debatable. Brazil 82 is the prime example: there were several players out of position... some say too many.

With this logic it's impossible to give the manager any credit, even when he deserves some. No, he's not a great manager and likely not the one to get us out of this hole, but ultimately football is about the 11 players on the pitch and ours aren't anywhere near good enough. A simple exercise is to think which of our players would walk into any of the top6 teams in the PL. Reckon some of our rotation players wouldn't sit on the bench for many of these teams. Palmer was let go by City. Agreed on Sterling and Disasi, but Poch tactics, playing a low block of late helped the slow CB Disasi is. Colwill played as LB because Chilwell was always injured or unfit. Cuccu is deemed surplus and we will try to move him in the summer. We have an abundance of CBs, not so much FB. As soon as Chilwell was fit, colwill was moved to CB and stayed there. Honestly I can't imagine another manager acting much differently here. I think unless we bring a manager who can help build a squad, like find the right player and decide which should go, I don't really care too much who the manager is. If the next one will be another yes-man, then nothing will change... why bother?

And people were complaining "Poch" (it wasn't him) was not starting Nkunku. 🤷‍♂️ Clearly it wasn't safe and they (physios and fitness coaches) knew it. Very worrying considering his injury history.

Thank you for the link. Great points and I agree with almost everything he says esp about what the owners are going for. i think he is missing a couple of things tho: 1. Footballers at their peak also mean physical peak. There is also physical prowess which isn’t just stamina/resistance (outmuscling or outrunning someone). Virgil did not seem tired at all by the end of extra time and neither did Diaz or Endo. Their kids played for a short time for a reason. 2. I’m not sure we man-mark on set pieces some manager hate that, some do a mix. Virgil made 2 great runs to score — he wasn’t standing still. The first his marker, chilwell (mismatch for sure) was blocked by the Liverpool player (Endo) hence the offside call. The second disasi, I think got blocked by mudryk who is clueless defending Tbf. So, chilwell was the cover. point being that it is very hard to know how much was entirely on poch vs the players failing to execute simple tasks. It’s easier to think that both players and manager felt short of the task. At least that’s the way I think. I don’t personally pay much attention to what managers say esp after a loss. The job demands making up shit to feed to the press. his point of academy kids vs overpaid kids brought from somewhere else sounded familiar. Like someone here may have written that we were paying millions for literal nobodies early this season eh.

👍 I also envy folks here who believe we are in a "normal" situation: quality group of players being held back by a less than optimal manager and that a mere swap, apparently with another B-lister, would significantly improve our game. I look at the players on the pitch and have no idea where this improvement will come from.

That's hard to believe considering how little his contribution up front has been. Like I don't really see evidence he's capable of doing that right now. He's a good disrupter, a *ball-winning mid* and that's about it. I hope Lavia adds a new dimension to our midfield otherwise we are fucked. yep. MacAllister is a good passer and a good player. He's also more experienced. We still hope Caicedo improves, but I prefer players of McAllister mould, personally.

Every time someone looks at our bench, at our squad, and at our starting XI and points out that that's not good enough is accused of "defending" the much hated manager. It's tiring and leads to making the the same mistakes over and over again. 1. Poch is not doing a good job -- horse beaten to death already IMO 2. The next B-list manager won't do much different with this squad and the options available to him--can it be improved enough? I personally think the #2 above is BY FAR the biggest issue and one with no easy solution. Some interesting stats about the game (so much for Liverpool "kids" eh): https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/13081405/carabao-cup-final-five-stats-from-liverpools-win-over-Chelsea-which-you-might-have-missed

It's that and the simple fact most of the players in the squad are not at their peak -- too young. When folks talk about a footballer's peak at around age 26 (depends on position) that evidently includes a good balance across the board, with better stamina and resistance. So, who's the next B-list manager we will go after? 🤔

No argument there. I'm still looking for anyone who wrote that Poch is a great manager and one who will lead us back to silverware. Said no-one ever. Compared to Potter and Lamps I think folks said that at least he managed big clubs other than us eh. Regarding the play for pens bit, not sure I buy that. Towards the end? yes, same as against City, but again that's what pretty much all managers do esp if they had Mudryk and Madueke as the only attacking options left on the bench. Tactically he lowered the lines, similar to what he did against City which makes sense to me, moving Enzo back to CM and even letting Gallagher move up a bit given he's more intense (more mobility to do b2b w/ lower lines). I thought the middle did well to contain their better players and also provided good escapes via Jackson (who plays better on the left than st) on the left and Palmer on the right. We did not keep possession very well because frankly we don't have great passers in the middle of the park. Enzo can hit a long ball, and that's about it. Caicedo is super intense and defends well, but isn't very good going forward or passing ball. So, the next manager will come and do very similar things tactically because he won't have drastically different options unless we improve the squad, and from what I hear, we might be restrained for a while in that area: long contracts and ffp. So, I'm not even sure we can attract better managers at this time--we might be stuck with the B list for a while.

I can understand the frustration with him, but let's sign a LB before sending him anywhere first? 😅 Otherwise we will end up with Cuccu and will then have the manager move Colwill back to LB.

Any manager that puts this roster toe to toe against a far superior side away from home esp in the final moments of the match should be fired same day. Next manager will do exactly the same thing once we face them next season, unless we manage to improve this roster tenfold in the summer, which probably won't happen. For me, it is literally the job of any manager to find a way for the roster he has to be competitive. Jose used to be the master of this and his teams were accused of "parking the bus". In the end I think the main disagreement here is about the quality of the players (the few who have quality lack experience), and the number of available options. Some may think they can play "as equals" against much better sides, which I have a hard time with.

I know folks are tired about the "young squad" bit but it does affect a number of different things, resistance and stamina are certainly among them. https://macro-football.com/other/aging/#:~:text=Ultimately%2C as I have shown,and 29 years of age. Can find quite a bit more on the subject via searches.

Mostly agree. Not sure what Caicedo is tbh and esp not sure we need what he does that bad esp if we improve in the coming years. He's a decent passer for ex, but at this level "decent" isn't quite what we look for for the center of the park. Against Liverpool Caicedo defended well, but that quick transition Kante was a master of was nowhere to be found in our midfield (def not in Caicedo's game). I'm actually curious as to how much insight Poch had into building the squad, or at least the final moves in the transfer market. Or perhaps he's just a yes-man and said everything was fine all the way?

yes and a quite common tale in football. A manager does one good job, some would say he bottled, but I look at the rosters here https://www.skysports.com/football/tottenham-hotspur-vs-liverpool/teams/407101 specifically Spurs roster and have to say it was quite the accomplishment getting there (CL final) to begin with, which was likely the reason he got the offer he got afterwards. So, while it's understandable he received opportunities after the CL final, and after his spell at Spurs, this might be his last shot at a top club (at least for a while) even if it's debatable whether we are a top club at the moment -- only in spending it seems.

Agreed on the C liverpool team bit, but like I stated (and other have too) we DID create chances and more than once even before the C team was on the pitch. Their C team was only really on the pitch in the final moments of the match, when everybody was tired. Although I think Madueke and Mudryk are really far from good enough, I understand the manager when he employs them for their pace and fresher legs... and that's what he had on the bench. 🤷‍♂️ Regarding the WC... I think that term is tossed around way too easily, but truly WC players are typically the ones who can win these kind of matches for you. I think Virgil is in that category and I simply don't see any player in our roster capable of doing that at this time. Diaz was a handful to deal with today for example; that's also a player we don't have and I'm not even talking about quality (perhaps Palmer will get there soon), but characteristics with that short dribbling and quick changes of direction.