9 hours ago, Diamondgeezer said:

For me this isn’t all about Frank and if he’s good enough yet to get us challenging for the title. He needs a better no.2. I’m not saying get rid of Jody because it made perfect sense for him to stay working with this group of young players, after all he got a lot of them to the fringes of the first team squad but Frank needs a Stevie Holland type figure. I’m not sure defending is Franks strong point but if he had the support of a real good experienced no.2 it would change everything. Look at the staff Jose had that follow him everywhere but he always had a solid no.2. Personally I think a better no.2 would be our best transfer of this window. Someone who knows how to organise and CL experience. 

That's what I"ve been thinking from the start. Not the defense angle of it, but generally who is the main assistent. I can't say Jody has not been doing a good job, and I have no knowledge about the dynamic between Frank and Jody, but in management one should have a no.2 who questions decisions and comes up with new ideas. That may be a friend, but in most cases it is not. And while it's a supporter's dream to have former players as staff members, an outsider's view may also bring something new. 

I like this idea. I don't think anything like that happens this summer but if we ship in goals like we did this season something needs to be done. Frank himself needs to realize that. It is his coaching team after all.

1 hour ago, Valerie said:

That's what I"ve been thinking from the start. Not the defense angle of it, but generally who is the main assistent. I can't say Jody has not been doing a good job, and I have no knowledge about the dynamic between Frank and Jody, but in management one should have a no.2 who questions decisions and comes up with new ideas. That may be a friend, but in most cases it is not. And while it's a supporter's dream to have former players as staff members, an outsider's view may also bring something new. 

This is the problem with taking on heroes into a new role at the club. What happens if it doesn't work out. Frank has bene a football legend for the club and whilst Jody never hit those heights in his playing time, as a coach in the youth set up he has been behind most of the success that we have had. What happens now if both of these guys or any one of these are not quite up to scratch. It can only end in tears.

Any Manager who achieves top 4 with Kepa in goal should be regarded as great, we basically played without a GK for most of the season, i really think if we had a competent GK we would have bettered our points and goals conceded return, he really has been the worst Keeper i have ever seen.

The board are the ones now responsible for getting Lamps a Keeper and a couple of new defenders as a reward for getting champions league football with 10 men

I can’t believe I have seen someone say on the previous page that Abraham is a downgrade on Morata. What are you smoking pal?

Morata scored 10 goals for Chelsea by Christmas in his first year, finished the season with 15 goals.

Abraham got 11 goals by Christmas, and he got 15 goals.

How is that a downgrade? Morata was an established striker and Abraham is still improving, yeah looks like a massive downgrade to me.

Any Manager who achieves top 4 with Kepa in goal should be regarded as great, we basically played without a GK for most of the season, i really think if we had a competent GK we would have bettered our points and goals conceded return, he really has been the worst Keeper i have ever seen.
The board are the ones now responsible for getting Lamps a Keeper and a couple of new defenders as a reward for getting champions league football with 10 men

Does that apply to last season also

Just looking at our season's stats

Goals scored 3rd, Away wins 3rd 

Need to tighten up defensively now 

 

22 hours ago, abramovich said:

Wasn't he in charge of the team that was midtable prior to restart? Whose fault was it that they were struggling? Given the money spent and the squad he had at his disposal, OGS was expected to finish in the top four so I'd say he did as well as expected but that's it.

Frank, on the other hand, clearly overachieved given all the issues he had to deal with. And since we're comparing managers, it makes no difference why we couldn't spend money and upgrade our team and United could, the fact of the matter is, Ole had that advantage while Frank had to make do with what he'd inherited from previous managers, not to mention Hazard's departure. 

Here's a scenario. Who's United's best player? Let's say it's Pogba. Imagine they sold him last summer and haven't signed anyone since then. No Maguire, no Wan-Bissaka, no Bruno. Would you think they'd have finished third as they did? I think it's highly unlikely. So I strongly disagree with the notion that transfers shouldn't be taken into account when you judge teams, it's hugely important and makes a big difference.

I never compared Solskjaer with Frank so I don't see why Frank is brought into the conversation in the first place.

The thing is we were only banned from signing players for the summer transfer window. We could have signed someone in the January transfer window but for some reason we didn't. We could have also signed Bruno

I just want to get something straight. I'm not judging the clubs or the teams. That's why I don't take money or transfers into account.

The managers are responsible for training, tactics and in-game tactics, starting 11, bench and reserves, substitutions and results at the end of the season. That's what I rate and judge the managers on. If a manager manages to get his team into Top 4 by the end of a season, then he deserves a nomination imo. If a manager loses a Top 4 spot then he shouldn't get nominated. Ofc anyone can include a wild card, I'm fine with those.

Judging someone based on a made up scenario is something I won't be able to understand because it didn't happen. Simple as. If we nominate people based on hypotheticals and things that didn't happen then why bother giving out awards?

I think going forward we are a really underrated side, good possesion, but we do create chances and play well. Especially earlier in the season, it's just the defending aspects. How many times was it when we had about 70% possession and lost the game due to a counter attack or set piece? Far too many times. 

I hope we get the Havertz deal wrapped up still, but after that, go straight on the defence. 

2 hours ago, Brutos said:

4 hours ago, Juan Nil said:

Any Manager who achieves top 4 with Kepa in goal should be regarded as great, we basically played without a GK for most of the season, i really think if we had a competent GK we would have bettered our points and goals conceded return, he really has been the worst Keeper i have ever seen.
The board are the ones now responsible for getting Lamps a Keeper and a couple of new defenders as a reward for getting champions league football with 10 men

Does that apply to last season also

It does. Sarri has done his job, we finished top 3 and won Europa league as a bonus so by all means Sarri did his job properly. In the end of the day he chose to leave for Juventus and he needs to live with that decision, he wouldn't have been sacked by us. 

Sarri lost only 8 games in the PL in his first and only season, 12 in total after 63 games.

21 minutes ago, Gol15 said:

It does. Sarri has done his job, we finished top 3 and won Europa league as a bonus so by all means Sarri did his job properly. In the end of the day he chose to leave for Juventus and he needs to live with that decision, he wouldn't have been sacked by us. 

Sarri lost only 8 games in the PL in his first and only season, 12 in total after 63 games.

A big issue with Sarri was that his football was very boring, especially during the middle of the season. So that put a lot of fans against him, with Frank, despite us having many losses we've been entertaining going forward. 

39 minutes ago, Gol15 said:

It does. Sarri has done his job, we finished top 3 and won Europa league as a bonus so by all means Sarri did his job properly. In the end of the day he chose to leave for Juventus and he needs to live with that decision, he wouldn't have been sacked by us. 

Sarri lost only 8 games in the PL in his first and only season, 12 in total after 63 games.

The beauty of Sarri's brand of football, whilst watching it I could very easily nip to the loo then put a brew on and still not  have missed a great deal. We wouldn't have sacked him after achieving his goal but if the brand of football hadn't improved this season, he would have been shown the door.

19 hours ago, bisright1 said:

We signed pulisic because hazard was leaving. I don't see how that isn't true. We knew hazard was leaving and signed a player in January to join that summer. It was a gamble, but we didn't lose an attacker. We basically signed Abraham to replace morata. A downgrade maybe, but not really. Higuain wasn't a loss. 

Lampard sanctioned the sale of Luiz. If you think that had an effect on the team, then that's fully on lampard. We weren't forced to sell him to arsenal. I'm happy Luiz went, but it was a lampard decision that some (not me, but maybe you) would say backfired. I think our centre backs we have are good enough in comparison to last year and it is Kepa and the system that is at fault. 

I basically said in relation to Tottenham and Arsenal that many peoples prediction that we wouldn't come in top 4 was dependent on those teams doing much much better than they did. Our squad is 100% stronger than wolves and Leicester who ended up being out rivals for 4th and no Chelsea fan predicted we would finish below them. This is all to say, top 4 was an achievement but not a miracle. 

Sarri, Conte, Benitez, Jose mk3, I think they'd have all got that squad into the top 4 based on how poor the competition was this year. 

Frank's test wasn't this year. It's next. 

When you say replacement you obviously look at the output and caliber too and not just the position.. yes total number of attackers in the wide position were same.. but no pundit also expected pusilic to have the season he had.. 

as for the striker position We signed higuain to replace morata .. similar pedigree .. that’s replacement. When that didn’t work out we couldn’t do anything and lamps played the best alternative. Now finally hopefully with Werner we have signed a replacement.

As for Sarri .. spare me that.. we were down in 6th losing against palace with Sarri .. needing an RLC and Ross saving act to bring us closer to the top 5. The reason Sarri got into top 4 was because like this season Utd and Arsensl bottled it not some amazing management but with a much better and healthier squad.

https://www.google.co.in/amp/s/syndication.bleacherreport.com/amp/2831438-premier-league-table-2019-standings-week-35-fixtures-after-week-34-results.amp.html

As for conte he basically threw his toys out of the pram .. sold chalobah for bakayako.. presided over rubbish signings.. his second season was a train wreck.. how do you know that Conte wasn’t incharge this year?

Edited August 10, 20205 yr by Jangz

4 hours ago, dansubrosa said:

I can’t believe I have seen someone say on the previous page that Abraham is a downgrade on Morata. What are you smoking pal?

Morata scored 10 goals for Chelsea by Christmas in his first year, finished the season with 15 goals.

Abraham got 11 goals by Christmas, and he got 15 goals.

How is that a downgrade? Morata was an established striker and Abraham is still improving, yeah looks like a massive downgrade to me.

I think you are responding to my post.. no one is saying Tammy is a downgrade on hindsight.. just that when we signed Morata we thought we had bought an established European level number 9.. but with the ban we never really replaced him with someone of that caliber. Tammy getting the shirt was more of a result of the ban.. the fact that he has delivered is all on him and a great effort by the lad. I fact I voted him my POTS.

3 hours ago, Gol15 said:

It does. Sarri has done his job, we finished top 3 and won Europa league as a bonus so by all means Sarri did his job properly. In the end of the day he chose to leave for Juventus and he needs to live with that decision, he wouldn't have been sacked by us. 

Sarri lost only 8 games in the PL in his first and only season, 12 in total after 63 games.

I think we'd have sacked him. We certainly didn't try and keep him because the fans were not on side. 

2 hours ago, Slojo said:

A big issue with Sarri was that his football was very boring, especially during the middle of the season. So that put a lot of fans against him, with Frank, despite us having many losses we've been entertaining going forward. 

 

2 hours ago, charierre said:

The beauty of Sarri's brand of football, whilst watching it I could very easily nip to the loo then put a brew on and still not  have missed a great deal. We wouldn't have sacked him after achieving his goal but if the brand of football hadn't improved this season, he would have been shown the door.

 

3 minutes ago, bisright1 said:

I think we'd have sacked him. We certainly didn't try and keep him because the fans were not on side. 

Something has to be wrong with Sarri when our fans and Juventus fans alike didn't like his tactics.

15 minutes ago, Gol15 said:

 

 

Something has to be wrong with Sarri when our fans and Juventus fans alike didn't like his tactics.

I loved his tactics. 

Just now, bisright1 said:

I loved his tactics. 

He reached the desired result with our team but I think I saw somewhere that even some players weren't happy with him, not sure if from Juventus or our squad or both.

It's sad how after he lost to Lyon he said that the players didn't follow his tactics and that it's a lack of respect to ask if he will be sacked, only for him to actually get sacked the very next day.

He was always ready to blame the players but never open to blame his tactic. I always gave him the credit for proving with us that his tactics can work but I personally never really understood the high level of confidence that he had about his tactics, I don't believe that his systematic approach is that epic and flawless since people are not simply robots...

IMO it's not normal to treat Hazard or Dybala like they are just like any other player in the squad, he simply insisted that we take minimal amount of touches and no risk passes, no wonder that Kovacic that is our best ball carrier couldn't show it last season, at the same time he insisted that Kante must improve in the final third, a player's strenghts didn't matter for him, everyone must fit in his tactics and that's it.

9 hours ago, WhiteWall said:

This is the problem with taking on heroes into a new role at the club. What happens if it doesn't work out. Frank has bene a football legend for the club and whilst Jody never hit those heights in his playing time, as a coach in the youth set up he has been behind most of the success that we have had. What happens now if both of these guys or any one of these are not quite up to scratch. It can only end in tears.

It's certainly true that a good player is automatically a good coach or manager. But your fear of what hapoens if it doesn't work out applies to all managers, former player or not. You just never know. I was hugely optimistic when we signed Scolari, an experienced manager. Talk about ending in tears... 

1 hour ago, Deino said:

I never compared Solskjaer with Frank so I don't see why Frank is brought into the conversation in the first place.

The thing is we were only banned from signing players for the summer transfer window. We could have signed someone in the January transfer window but for some reason we didn't. We could have also signed Bruno

I just want to get something straight. I'm not judging the clubs or the teams. That's why I don't take money or transfers into account.

The managers are responsible for training, tactics and in-game tactics, starting 11, bench and reserves, substitutions and results at the end of the season. That's what I rate and judge the managers on. If a manager manages to get his team into Top 4 by the end of a season, then he deserves a nomination imo. If a manager loses a Top 4 spot then he shouldn't get nominated. Ofc anyone can include a wild card, I'm fine with those.

Judging someone based on a made up scenario is something I won't be able to understand because it didn't happen. Simple as. If we nominate people based on hypotheticals and things that didn't happen then why bother giving out awards?

"To judge footballing teams based on the amount of transfers is something I don't agree with. It's not like we chose not to buy anyone but that we couldn't because of our own mistake."

Well, this is your quote and correct me if I'm wrong but it's about Chelsea, so it's related to Frank, no? The whole thing started with you mentioning OGS should be in with a shout for the manager of the year and I disagreed and explained why. 

One summer window can make a whole lot of difference, especially for a new manager inheriting a squad that had suffered from poor transfer business for several years prior and had just lost its best and most influential player. We didn't sign anyone in January for the same reason most transfer deals don't happen in the middle of the season, the players we wanted weren't available. Bruno wasn't one of them, he was always going to United, they were chasing him for a long time and only managed to secure him in January, admittedly the timing proved to be great for them because he hit the ground running and helped them massively, but that's nothing to do with us.

I must say, I find your logic odd. You judge managers based on where their teams finish in the table but don't take money or transfers into account. How's that possible? Surely Solskjaer's spending a fortune on fixing United's backline helped them finish in the top four while Lampard couldn't do the same to rectify our own defensive issues? All that stuff about training, tactics etc is definitely important but what about injuries? Injuries to key players can completely derail a team's season. Arguably that's what happened to Rogers at Leicester where he had to finish the season without his best creative player (Maddison) and 3/4 of his backline missing. You don't think it played a part in them missing out on a top four spot when the race was so close everything was decided in the last round of matches? Really?

I used a made up scenario to explain my point. In my opinion, picking one manager over another solely due to the fact that team A made it into the top 4 while team B didn't, while dismissing all the factors connected to these jobs isn't correct.

1 hour ago, Valerie said:

It's certainly true that a good player is not automatically a good coach or manager. But your fear of what hapoens if it doesn't work out applies to all managers, former player or not. You just never know. I was hugely optimistic when we signed Scolari, an experienced manager. Talk about ending in tears... 

How the omission of one word can change the meaning of a sentence.... I forgot the bold "not"  in my original post 

9 hours ago, Brutos said:

11 hours ago, Juan Nil said:

Any Manager who achieves top 4 with Kepa in goal should be regarded as great, we basically played without a GK for most of the season, i really think if we had a competent GK we would have bettered our points and goals conceded return, he really has been the worst Keeper i have ever seen.
The board are the ones now responsible for getting Lamps a Keeper and a couple of new defenders as a reward for getting champions league football with 10 men

Does that apply to last season also

Fair point. We sacked a guy for achieving more last season 

Just now, WhiteWall said:

Fair point. We sacked a guy for achieving more last season 

No, we didn't. It was Sarri who asked to leave because a) the biggest club in his home country offered him a job and he didn't want to miss out on something he'd been working towards for the last 30 years, and b) he wanted to be close to his ailing father.

3 hours ago, Valerie said:

It's certainly true that a good player is automatically a good coach or manager. But your fear of what hapoens if it doesn't work out applies to all managers, former player or not. You just never know. I was hugely optimistic when we signed Scolari, an experienced manager. Talk about ending in tears... 

That ended with lovely old Uncle Guus and an FA Cup, tears of joy maybe?

God when you look back we have had mix of managers,some good some bad,but we never had a dull moment with them lol.