Enzo Maresca Thread

[Laylabelle 9,534]

1 minute ago, Milan said:

Losing the plot here. His HT talks must be something.

And whatever he is saying...can he not cause clearly it isn't working! 

[DH1988 1,346]

He may become the victim of telling the owners/directors he doesn't need signings etc the trouble is that we were second in the league at that point, everything was fine and over achieving. If he doesn't qualify for CL I think he goes.

[robsblubot 3,595]

I guess all that patience... the build for the future... 😆

There is absolutely NOTHING surprising about a new manager with a new system and a bunch of young players struggling a bit around jan -- some not nearly as good as suggested around here.

Edited January 14 by robsblubot

[Special Juan 28,087]

His substitutions and in game management is baffling

[robsblubot 3,595]

3 hours ago, Special Juan said:

His substitutions and in game management is baffling

So, the “decisions” of a young inexperienced manager match the decisions of his young inexperienced squad?

The surprising part here is that we seem surprised by the fact that the team is struggling now. We discussed this a lot before and after Maresca was hired.

[Blue Armour 4,436]

I wish he would go back to rotating his squad a bit more, esp. with the attackers., not necessarily the defense.

When he did that in the early part of the season, it felt like everyone was chipping in with goals and challenging for places.

On the flip side, he has chopped and changed the back line with every game, ever since Fofana got injured.

For a top side, you would rarely want to see your back 4 change drastically each game, unless there were superior defenders being brought into the lineup. 

 

Edited January 15 by Blue Armour

[Strike 7,474]

2 hours ago, Blue Armour said:

I wish he would go back to rotating his squad a bit more, esp. with the attackers., not necessarily the defense.

When he did that in the early part of the season, it felt like everyone was chipping in with goals and challenging for places.

On the flip side, he has chopped and changed the back line with every game, ever since Fofana got injured.

For a top side, you would rarely want to see your back 4 change drastically each game, unless there were superior defenders being brought into the lineup. 

 

 

Yep, this is a big issue. The lack of rotation in recent games.

It was always difficult to maintain the motivation of 25-30 players. Need to refresh the squad again. 

[NikkiCFC 8,285]

You can see him pointing out on Christie before second goal but amateur defending all over. I don't blame Josh at all for second goal. It's midfielders to blame. 

[Fernando 6,585]

People are really fickle. 

All the good work are throwing out after one month. 

For me he is still good and will get better next season. I was actually surprised at the beginning of the season because of the performance, since I expected us to be the team we are playing recently. 

That is the normal for this first season. But I seen good stuff that in next season we take a big step forward.

Summer should address better targets in our team then in January. And with continuity of a manager we can build the team better this summer. 

[Vesper 30,076]

10 hours ago, Fernando said:

People are really fickle. 

All the good work are throwing out after one month. 

For me he is still good and will get better next season. I was actually surprised at the beginning of the season because of the performance, since I expected us to be the team we are playing recently. 

That is the normal for this first season. But I seen good stuff that in next season we take a big step forward.

Summer should address better targets in our team then in January. And with continuity of a manager we can build the team better this summer. 

he needs to be more agressive and EARLIER with his subs

[robsblubot 3,595]

11 hours ago, NikkiCFC said:

You can see him pointing out on Christie before second goal but amateur defending all over. I don't blame Josh at all for second goal. It's midfielders to blame. 

He was very poor. My rating of Colwill went up because of Josh (and Cucu).
Went to the ground way too early which allowed for the high shot to go on goal; should've blocked all the way from that angle... there was no need to commit.
He was getting out-muscled by Semenyo -- good chance we'd have lost the game had he stayed IMO.

Start him again against good teams and things will get ugly.

[robsblubot 3,595]

18 hours ago, Blue Armour said:

I wish he would go back to rotating his squad a bit more, esp. with the attackers., not necessarily the defense.

When he did that in the early part of the season, it felt like everyone was chipping in with goals and challenging for places.

On the flip side, he has chopped and changed the back line with every game, ever since Fofana got injured.

For a top side, you would rarely want to see your back 4 change drastically each game, unless there were superior defenders being brought into the lineup. 

 

Yup that is disappointing indeed. We finally have quality players on the bench and we see the same ones starting every match. Even Cole looks like could use a rest.

12 hours ago, Fernando said:

People are really fickle. 

All the good work are throwing out after one month. 

For me he is still good and will get better next season. I was actually surprised at the beginning of the season because of the performance, since I expected us to be the team we are playing recently. 

That is the normal for this first season. But I seen good stuff that in next season we take a big step forward.

Summer should address better targets in our team then in January. And with continuity of a manager we can build the team better this summer. 

Yup. The plan is what it is. We've discussed that a lot before and after Maresca was signed. Folks who are surprised now were simply wrong before. You cannot dominate this league with a young side.

On Maresca, I think he's learning that physicality in the PL is a much bigger factor than in Championship. Teams like Bournemouth favor physical and aggressive players who are specially tough (esp for younger players).

So, I was perplexed by Josh starting ahead of Tosin yesterday (no Tosin fan here), but we simply did not play well enough yesterday.

 

Edited January 15 by robsblubot

[King Kante 1,643]

7 hours ago, robsblubot said:

Yup that is disappointing indeed. We finally have quality players on the bench and we see the same ones starting every match. Even Cole looks like could use a rest.

Yup. The plan is what it is. We've discussed that a lot before and after Maresca was signed. Folks who are surprised now were simply wrong before. You cannot dominate this league with a young side.

On Maresca, I think he's learning that physicality in the PL is a much bigger factor than in Championship. Teams like Bournemouth favor physical and aggressive players who are specially tough (esp for younger players).

So, I was perplexed by Josh starting ahead of Tosin yesterday (no Tosin fan here), but we simply did not play well enough yesterday.

 

He clearly doesn't rate Tosin or Disaster. I think the way he has gone about using the CB's since Fofana and Badi got injured is to try them all. Tbf, we all knew Disaster was absolutely awful last season. Losing I never wanted owing to my Fulham mates reviews of him. 

As for Josh, I saw him starting after not playing in the cup. However, he should be be integrated slowly via the cups. His contract situation really fecked things up as he would've got a bit of Conference/Carabao mins if that hadn't dragged out. 

As for Enzo, he just really needs to make some subs earlier. Sancho faded out of the game from about 30-35 mins. I was slightly expecting him to not come out for the 2nd half but he made it to the. 81st. Noni disappeared in the second half - made it to the 81st as well. Cole was absolutely blowing out of his arse at about 60 mins. Lasts the entire game. 

I wouldn't mind if we still had crap/youth players arls back back but Felix, Neto, Nkunku are perfectly capable of 45-30 mins of football. In fact giving Neto and Felix 10 mins was absolutely ridiculous as it took them 5 mins to pick up the pace of the game. 

[Special Juan 28,087]

There is a theme, we start really well, Palmer and Sancho getting at people and dictating all sort of patter of play.....The goal comes and so does the drop off, foot off the gas and the whole side thinking the job is done. Then, come the second half everyone goes missing, game after game.

Palmer and Sancho are two of the biggest culprits

[Milan 17,955]

The last games that we did not win were carbon copy of the Brentford game. With the exception that we managed to score the second goal and made it 2-0. We conceded too but still won 2-1. 
If only we were able to score the second in the games after. We would be so safe now.

[Reddish-Blue 2,488]

1 minute ago, Milan said:

The last games that we did not win were carbon copy of the Brentford game. With the exception that we managed to score the second goal and made it 2-0. We conceded too but still won 2-1. 
If only we were able to score the second in the games after. We would be so safe now.

Exactly, the players don't go for the kill.   Watching the game vs Bournemouth, we let them get on top in that first 15-20 minutes of the 2nd half.  Their wingers must have been loving it, all that free space to run.

Rather than being reactive, we should go back to what worked earlier in the season, which was going for that 2nd goal to put real pressure on the opposition.  Teams know that we can't hold a lead at 1-0 and they bring their energy for the 2nd half. 

[OneMoSalah 8,883]

On 15/01/2025 at 11:37, Fernando said:

People are really fickle. 

All the good work are throwing out after one month. 

For me he is still good and will get better next season. I was actually surprised at the beginning of the season because of the performance, since I expected us to be the team we are playing recently. 

That is the normal for this first season. But I seen good stuff that in next season we take a big step forward.

Summer should address better targets in our team then in January. And with continuity of a manager we can build the team better this summer. 

Whilst the performances at the beginning of the season were better and more clinical in the final thir, I still think we were lucky that teams didn’t punish us at certain moments of games as we were still conceding some guilt edge chances. 

Now things have sort of evened out (not as clinical for sure) and we are being punished but this is a trend that Maresca should have noticed long before it happened. The club should have also been actively looking for a player who is a lot more experienced and with leadership qualities for the defence - this is killing us every week. Not to mention a GK & CF.  

Re game management and all that - the manager needs to be a bit quicker with his attacking subs for sure in games, if he does make a sub before 70th minute it is normally putting another midfielder in and changing Caicedo to RB or taking Caicedo back into MF and bringing in a RB. Has done that too many times for my liking. Like the other night, waiting to 81st minute to change attacking players when your 2-1 down is absolute ludicrous. The collapse after HT was also so clear (happened several times now), I don’t know what he is saying to the lads or what the lads are thinking - we cannot keep putting it down to inexperience of the players now some of these guys have been here for 3 seasons now, know the league, how games can go etc.

I think if things keep going as they’ve gone the last 5/6 games and the likes of Newcastle, City & Bournemouth keep picking up points, he may find himself in a more vulnerable position than he would want to be come the summer. As I said in thread previously, the club and leadership are adamant this is a CL level squad. Not being there come the summer after sitting comfortably in there for a while will be deemed a failure. The idiots up the stairs are also trigger happy, despite this notion or not wanting to be, this much is clear. 

Edited January 16 by OneMoSalah

[King Kante 1,643]

8 hours ago, Reddish-Blue said:

Exactly, the players don't go for the kill.   Watching the game vs Bournemouth, we let them get on top in that first 15-20 minutes of the 2nd half.  Their wingers must have been loving it, all that free space to run.

Rather than being reactive, we should go back to what worked earlier in the season, which was going for that 2nd goal to put real pressure on the opposition.  Teams know that we can't hold a lead at 1-0 and they bring their energy for the 2nd half. 

Problem is that he is running people into the ground. Palmer for instance, has needed to come off around the 60 min mark for the past 4 games. Yet he has played every minute. Sancho is a half a game player. Plays 75 mins plus every time he starts give or take. 

I just don't get why he doesn't make subs. Sure Felix is a downgrade on Palmer at 100% each. But Felix at 100% and Palmer at 60% is when you need to swap. Not never. 

Edited January 16 by King Kante