On 23/11/2024 at 09:40, Scott Harris said:

I still think we are riding the momentum from the end of last season. We haven't really seen any improvement in areas that we needed the most improvement in.

I usually agree with you, but I think 12 games deep into the season is just too many games to give Poch all the credit. He definitely made things easier by bedding in many of the players from last season, like Jackson, Palmer, etc. However, I think Maresca deserves credit. Third place at this point of the season is definitely not something I expected coming into the season. Honestly, I thought we'd be 6th or 7th at this point.

When you take preseason and the opener against City into consideration, I'm not sure how much 'momentum' we are actually relying on. We all feared the worst after preseason. Maresca deserves a lot of praise for turning it around and we are only behind the two clubs who narrowly beat us. Took us 6 fewer games to reach 22 points in comparison to last season. 

To Poch's credit, Caicedo and Cucurella are riding off the momentum of Poch's latter season changes and both are probably a shoe in for team of the season at this rate. 

 

33 minutes ago, Sconnie Blue said:

When you take preseason and the opener against City into consideration, I'm not sure how much 'momentum' we are actually relying on. We all feared the worst after preseason. Maresca deserves a lot of praise for turning it around and we are only behind the two clubs who narrowly beat us. 

 

No secret I have doubts about Maresca, however I am looking forward to hopefully having those doubts eased considerably over the next 2 months.

No league cup as a distraction, easy European opponents the Conference group should handle, leaving the league.

 

A run of two top 4 contenders in Spurs and Villa, the rest middle table sides and bottom half/relegation fodder.

A chance to beat two top sides to add to Newcastle, and get a lot of points off the rest.

That's the building blocks to him making for us a side that can be in the CL regularly, beating those sides most of the time, learning from Palace and Forest.

Hopefully we have a really good run now.

Maresca has done well so far. His biggest achievement is managing to get any sense of the squad we have.

Every single player knows where he sits in the pecking order which is an achievement in itself.

He’s been very lucky in a sense that we are in the Conference League as it allows almost everyone to get minutes. This would have been difficult to do in the Europa or Champions League.

Still waiting to see his system click though but I’m prepared to wait as we are third without ever really setting the heather on fire.

B+ so far I’d say

12 hours ago, Frankie8Lampard said:

 Honestly, I thought we'd be 6th or 7th at this point.

Why? 

We were the 4th best team last season if we use xG with who is this Palmer guy? Can this Jackson guy score and  last the whole season? Mudyrk 1st attacker of the bench. 

 

 

 

22 hours ago, Deino said:

I think people are heaping expectations too soon. Lamps, Terry etc. were 24-26 when Jose took over and set us in our winning ways. After that we kept bringing in guys aged 27-30 until 2012 then Roman brought in 23yr olds that again reached maxed potential in 2016 but the new old guard reached it in 2020.

The cycle just began this season. The past 3 years for me is the dismantling and rebuilding process. This season is step 1 fellas. Lets just enjoy it

This is my view too. 

Owners leaving the team to mature with minimal distractions during the transfer windows will allow this team to learn together and reach that stage to challenge every year. They are all still relatively young.

Good analysis here. 

Maresca claims he has the fullback (Gusto/Cucurella) inverting as the CAM mainly because it helps in our build up when we have 2 holding midfielders. The fullback draws players as he moves into the pocket which creates more space. 

In theory, it makes sense given when Enzo was on the pitch it was him who played as that CAM next to the LW and Palmer next to the RW (Madueke).

 

Poor comment on Cole .. would have liked it if he called out the poor challenges he has been receiving.. he needs to recognize and defend his star man.. it’s not a coincidence that in atleast 2 of the last 3 matches a player should have been sent off for a challenge.

Jury's still out for me. He's doing well i must say but we are still a fine line between success and disaster. Every game is like a must win because the table is so close. We need a run of wins to build a buffer.

19 minutes ago, KonaKai Blue said:

Jury's still out for me. He's doing well i must say but we are still a fine line between success and disaster. Every game is like a must win because the table is so close. We need a run of wins to build a buffer.

Who’s available that would do a better job now?

Granted I was against him but he’s quietly shut up the media about chaos and 50 players blah blah blah and have us playing with an identity with the youngest squad in the league.

Definitely done a lot better than I expected.

It's not the easiest of jobs but he's managed to maintain our cutting edge. The team is lethal on the counter attack and attacking in general. 

The downsides have been our defensive transitioning as a team, I'm just hoping it clicks over time. Not particularly fussed on him keeping Nkunku out either but with us having so many players fit at the same time, someones bound to get screwed over aren't they. 

So far so good, I'll give credit where it's due as I was far from impressed when we initially appointed him. 

3 hours ago, El regreso said:

Who’s available that would do a better job now?

Granted I was against him but he’s quietly shut up the media about chaos and 50 players blah blah blah and have us playing with an identity with the youngest squad in the league.

Not saying there is anyone better. I don't know the answer. Doesn't mean I'm really happy with how things are going. I do believe we can be better. So far we have been stable.

4 hours ago, El regreso said:

Who’s available that would do a better job now?

 

On 23/11/2024 at 14:40, Scott Harris said:

I still think we are riding the momentum from the end of last season. 

Reminds me of the "Jose's Steam" discussion years ago., which lasted 3 years (both the discussion and the "steam"). 

1 hour ago, Liam said:

Reminds me of the "Jose's Steam" discussion years ago., which lasted 3 years (both the discussion and the "steam"). 

The embers of the JJLC will never die, I'm afraid. 

I think Maresca is doing a good job but his real challenge awaits in this mid-season period. He did really well during a difficult run but it's often a lot harder to have sustained success against teams you're 'supposed' to beat. He also potentially has real man-management issues ahead coming into a transfer window. His continued isolation of Chilwell and underuse of Nkunku are also problematic. 

We will have a better idea if he is the coach to take use forward come March/April this year. I still stand by my prediction though.

27 minutes ago, SydneyChelsea said:

The embers of the JJLC will never die, I'm afraid. 

I think Maresca is doing a good job but his real challenge awaits in this mid-season period. He did really well during a difficult run but it's often a lot harder to have sustained success against teams you're 'supposed' to beat. He also potentially has real man-management issues ahead coming into a transfer window. His continued isolation of Chilwell and underuse of Nkunku are also problematic. 

We will have a better idea if he is the coach to take use forward come March/April this year. I still stand by my prediction though.

We will be fine as long as we can avoid injury to our key player. 

The margin is very tight though, we are 1 point off city (2nd) but we are also  only 3 point ahead of villa (8th)

 

On 24/11/2024 at 21:53, timetowaste said:

Given the age of the squad I think Maresca is doing a very good job. Off the top of my head he's improved Colwill, Caicedo, Madueke, Jackson, Mudryk and cucurella since he's arrived. One of my biggest gripes with Poch was that it felt like none of our players got any better under him but under Maresca it feels like pretty much every player we have is on an upward trajectory.

Does any of our player improve compare to the start of this season/end of last season ? 

If they are already playing well at the start of the season then you are actually praising poch not maresca

Edited November 26, 20241 yr by Bob stark

Im surprised to see so many think hes not doing much, considering the amount of people who though he had no chance at the start of the season due to the "shambolic squad" he had.

Imagine if he had a capable goalkeeper. Also, it took Pep over £400 million to sort out his defence and yet without Rodri they look weak. 
 

i see progression and a clear pattern of play under Maresca, that makes me optimistic.
 

He needs to give more chances to Nkunku and Felix though. Madueke needs rest too.

He's doing a good job and has surprised me too. Don't get this pochettino momentum thing at all - to me we play very differently to the way we did last season. 

It's hard to compare them because pochettino had a harder job with the injuries and having all of these players new to the club after a disastrous season. But if we were to look purely at the football, I'd say it's night and day. IMO you could probably name 3 of our worst 5 performances in the last 20 years from last season. Even our run of good form at the end didn't pass the eye test to me. Absolutely destroyed at arsenal, a farcical draw against 10 men at Sheffield United. Yeah we edged out some better results but it was all off the cuff from a team pressing incredibly aggressively and at the same time quite ineffectively. 

I've definitely got a few quibbles or queries about some of marescas decisions (most identified by others), but stepping back, we look convincingly like a good (but not great) team with a clear and working style of play. That is definitely progress given how far backwards the ownership has taken us. 

4 hours ago, dkw said:

Im surprised to see so many think hes not doing much, considering the amount of people who though he had no chance at the start of the season due to the "shambolic squad" he had.

Can't forget those reports that came from "sources inside the club" that revealed no manager wanted to come in and work with this disaster of a squad. 

No reports about 40 players in the first team. 

No reports about Boehly/Egbahli civil war. 

No reports about FFP or PSR. 

 

These journalists are begging for us to lose at this rate. 

12 hours ago, SydneyChelsea said:

I still stand by my prediction though.

What, winning the league? 😂

2 hours ago, g3.7 said:

we look convincingly like a good (but not great) team with a clear and working style of play. That is definitely progress given how far backwards the ownership has taken us. 

This for me is the biggest difference, it was nearly impossible trying to figure out what Poch was trying to do at times, especially defensively.  There was no pattern of play at all, just mostly off the cuff stuff. 

2 hours ago, dkw said:

This for me is the biggest difference, it was nearly impossible trying to figure out what Poch was trying to do at times, especially defensively.  There was no pattern of play at all, just mostly off the cuff stuff. 

Exactly. If it wasn't for Palmer, Poch would have probably got sacked at some point in the season. We're still a work in progress but Maresca knows what his best team is, has a clear plan and it has worked so far. No reason to complain really...

17 hours ago, wizardous said:

Exactly. If it wasn't for Palmer, Poch would have probably got sacked at some point in the season. We're still a work in progress but Maresca knows what his best team is, has a clear plan and it has worked so far. No reason to complain really...

I think that's a very lazy argument, you could make the same case now for Maresca with Palmer.

Poch should also get credit for utilising Palmer to the best of his ability. 

2 hours ago, Victor90 said:

I think that's a very lazy argument, you could make the same case now for Maresca with Palmer.

Poch should also get credit for utilising Palmer to the best of his ability. 

I agree. It can also be pointed out that Maresca has had a pretty much fully fit squad all season so far, Pochettino, Potter and even Tuchel never had that. Even now I feel we are too reliant on Palmer. In the big games this season, he hasn't been at his best, and we haven't won any of them.

I also haven't been convinced by the majority of our performances this season. We haven't had a single game yet where we controlled it without issues. Leicester should have been that game, but a few of the usual defensive lapses held us back again and we gave a stupid penalty away late on. I don't feel like we control games well, there are always issues where we get caught out and I feel like this team doesn't react to situations well. We can score, and be dominant, but we rarely show any ruthlessness. Even the games we have scored a decent amount of goals in, like against Brighton and Wolves, there were moments where it could easily have swung the opposite way and we would have been the ones getting a hammering.

It feels like we are winning games through brute force more than anything.

I'm happy with the position we are in currently, but I am not comfortable enough to say things are fine. It feels like we're on a tight rope.