12 minutes ago, Argo said:

Until last month I felt the total opposite.

I was 99% sure we were winning at Spurs after Sancho scored and I was still pretty confident vs Brighton every after going behind.

Yeah, shouldn't have said this season, should have said since December.

Spurs we always overcome, but in other games we had a bit of a swagger about us. That swagger is no more.

 

4 minutes ago, Nibs said:

That swagger is no more.

We are back to one game a week until March also so its inexcusable. 

1 hour ago, axman2526 said:

Poor man's Sarri with his tactics, poor man's Rafa with his subs.

He is not good enough, problem is the same people who hired him will hire his replacement.

And to echo what the Bolt said, Poch was a better manager for us, but he was still not good enough for the Chelsea we USED to be.

Poch also left because he wanted a bit more say in the transfers (apparently he wasn't keen to see Conor or Trev sold). So any new manager we hire will have to be willing to take whatever they get from the sporting directors and owners i.e. "a yes man". Important to bear that in mind as it will seriously limit who is willing to take the job in future.

1 hour ago, axman2526 said:

Poor man's Sarri with his tactics, poor man's Rafa with his subs.

He is not good enough, problem is the same people who hired him will hire his replacement.

And to echo what the Bolt said, Poch was a better manager for us, but he was still not good enough for the Chelsea we USED to be.

Poch also left because he wanted a bit more say in the transfers (apparently he wasn't keen to see Conor or Trev sold). So any new manager we hire will have to be willing to take whatever they get from the sporting directors and owners i.e. "a yes man". Important to bear that in mind as it will seriously limit who is willing to take the job in future.

41 minutes ago, forbzy said:

Poch also left because he wanted a bit more say in the transfers (apparently he wasn't keen to see Conor or Trev sold). So any new manager we hire will have to be willing to take whatever they get from the sporting directors and owners i.e. "a yes man". Important to bear that in mind as it will seriously limit who is willing to take the job in future.

We've made many mistakes but refusing to give Poch control in the market isn't one of them (his track record is there for all to see).

Also as much as Gallagher has his uses, he's already been relegated to a utility player at Atletico as he was under Tuchel for the small time they were together, Southgate, Potter and even Allardyce. Any manager wanting to build his entire system around his style of player is a massive red flag, not even the teams fighting the drop would (see his time at West Brom).

5 minutes ago, Argo said:

We've made many mistakes but refusing to give Poch control in the market isn't one of them (his track record is there for all to see).

Also as much as Gallagher has his uses, he's already been relegated to a utility player at Atletico as he was under Tuchel for the small time they were together, Southgate, Potter and even Allardyce. Any manager wanting to build his entire system around his style of player is a massive red flag, not even the teams fighting the drop would (see his time at West Brom).

I think you are wrong on Gallagher:

Conor Gallagher is at the centre of Atlético Madrid’s charge up La Liga | Atlético Madrid | The Guardian

Hiring Maresca is just like having Jackson as our main striker or Sanchez as our keeper.

Look what they have done when hiring managers since buying the club.

Sack TT, a CL WI new with vast experience in 2 other European leagues and the CL.

Replace him with Potter, no CL experience, some minor experience in small time European leagues and a few years in the PL.

Sack Potter, replace with Poch who has some CL experience and lots of PL experience but bottled a 1 horse title race.

Sack Poch and hire a manager with no PL or CL experience.

We ask too much of Maresca, as we do Jackson and Sanchez. None of them are good enough for this level yet we insist on they being in the positions they are in.

Why? Trust the Process.

22 minutes ago, forbzy said:

I think you are wrong on Gallagher:

Conor Gallagher is at the centre of Atlético Madrid’s charge up La Liga | Atlético Madrid | The Guardian

Yet since said charge up the league he's been an unused sub 3 times, a late sub once, played one half 3 times, an hour ish twice and the full 90 once.

Unless he's had an injury that requires his fitness being managed that sound pretty much like the textbook utility player to me.

My issue with hiring of coaches under this new ownership is that they won nothing. Potter never won a thing. Lampard was unnecessary interim, Poch won Ligue 1 and he finished the season fairly strong. Maresca has won the championship, which granted, is a decent trophy, but it's not a big trophy. Roman Abramovich would fire coaches, but bring in a highly successful coach each and every time he was looking to hire another one. If you want to win something big, you must hire a coach who has won big trophies. 

Edited January 15, 20251 yr by Sunspear_88

4 minutes ago, Sunspear_88 said:

My issue with hiring of coaches under this new ownership is that they won nothing. Potter never won a thing. Lampard was unnecessary interim, Poch won Ligue 1 and he finished the season fairly strong. Maresca has won the championship, which granted, is a decent trophy, but it's not a big trophy. Roman Abramovich would fire coaches, but bring in a highly successful coach each and every time he was looking to hire another one. If you want to win something big, you must hire a coach who has won big trophies. 

He appointed Sarri at the point he won nothing, Grant at the point he didn't even have all the coaching badges and Lampard after just scraping the play offs in the Champ. Could even say giving Di Matteo the interim job to an extent aswell.

Let's not act like he wasn't opposed to the odd gamble.

The worrying thing is how he seems to have gone off most of the squad players. Players 13-24 are barely getting a look in now and seem out of favour. He needs to utilise his squad and get the best out of them. 

1 hour ago, JM7 said:

The worrying thing is how he seems to have gone off most of the squad players. Players 13-24 are barely getting a look in now and seem out of favour. He needs to utilise his squad and get the best out of them. 

Outside of the cup games I'd say this has been the case for players 13-24 most of the season. They were playing more regularly when we had midweek games in Europe. But the league games have mostly featured a core set of starters barring injuries.

I want Big Enz to come out ahead of the Wolves game and talk about how we are not in the race for top 4. Lol

I wasn’t a fan of Maresca becoming manager 

obviously happy to be proved wrong and we was 2nd in the league

after that the last 5 games and coincidentally after the mudryk situation

its all starting to go wrong , unhappy players .

at the game last night they looked tired in the second half

and the subs should come on earlier .

i hope im wrong but can see maresca losing the dressing room .

the result last night was what i expected , i thought Bournemouth would only need

a couple of chances.

I was so convinced a month ago.

Now, we're just a game or two from being 8th. With these owners, I'm not sure what the hell is going to happen.

I dont think the mid week Euro conference games are a good enough preparation for the squad players to step up for the league games. This probably is part of the reasons Maresca don't trust most of them. Unlike Poch who had very little to pick from, Maresca had a lot of options to pick ( for some positions), but never trusted some of the players ( whom probably not his choice anyway). Only need to look at KDH, a former key player who meant to be the teacher's favorite student, but havent proved to be good enough.

Could we swap Maresca for Eddie Howe?

 

Checking back on last season's PL results, we never had a winless streak of more than 3 games.

Currently, we're 5 games without a win now and only 4 points better off than we were at the same point last season.

38 minutes ago, Jezz said:

Checking back on last season's PL results, we never had a winless streak of more than 3 games.

Currently, we're 5 games without a win now and only 4 points better off than we were at the same point last season.

We're actually 6 points better off. Apologies.

12 hours ago, Argo said:

Also as much as Gallagher has his uses, he's already been relegated to a utility player at Atletico as he was under Tuchel for the small time they were together, Southgate, Potter and even Allardyce. Any manager wanting to build his entire system around his style of player is a massive red flag, not even the teams fighting the drop would (see his time at West Brom).

Which manager build their system around Gallagher? 

If you are talking last season then you are talking nonsense. Gallagher played as screening dm, box to box 8, 10 ,6 goes up as 10, 10 defend as RM, defensive lw.

If you want build around a player you don't move him around depending on your team need. You stick him in his best position and off you go. 

18 hours ago, Argo said:

Off the top of my head United, Milan, Bayern, Barca, Juve, Porto and Dortmund all had vacancies in the summer and not one of them decided to look in Poch's direction.

Didn't even get the "Chelsea" benefit of the doubt even AVB got, can someone trying to rewrite the Poch history explain that one?

Not sure that's the point is it, if i am reading you right. In fact if anything that endorses the comments being made, that as unwanted and poor as Poch was he still never had a record as poor as ours currently.  Similarly all of those clubs needing new managers appear to have got no worse.

What happens if we end up 8th. Yes the league is stronger this year, yes Poch got a decent run of results eventually to drag himself to 6th, but still 8th now would represent regression.

18 hours ago, Gol15 said:

Great man managment from Maresca, according to our new standard the 4 subs and James being one of them with the equalizer should make a strong passing grade.

Caicedo, good signing but clearly not a good RB.

 

I'd have him there over Gusto. 

Let's do my annual defend our manager post. 

Imo Maresca has done a good job. We expect to improve this season compare to last because the squad is simply better. The word raw was used a lot last season, this season that word is gone. The squad is no longer full of player playing role way above their level. 

And we are definitely better. As @Jezz said we are 6 pts better than last. We finished with 0.44xgd and we are currently on 0.55xgd. So result and performance wise, we have definitely improved. 

If we look at the team from tactical pov, unlike last year vanilla fluid tactic (player move around) , Maresca tactic is more varied but more rigid. 

There many times I thought Maresca tactic make a difference. You can tell it is hard for most teams to find a way to stop Maresca middle overload as a result some of the football that we have played this season is brilliant. 

This kind of thing matter but it matter if your player not doing crazy stuff. If your player make crazy decision on the ball, not tracking runner, lose the ball easily, none of this matter. Why do you think Maresca don't play Mudyrk, Veiga and Guiu more? 

This is a screenshot of Palmer's goal. The difference between this resulting as Palmer goal vs bournemouth having good chance is Jackson ability to hold of a player who is all over him plus two other players who are coming to crowd him. If you have Guiu here, he will lose the ball and look at the space behind Caicedo. It will be similar situation as semenyo goal. 

There are stuff that I don't like (Sterling treatment, felix/Nkunku not playing, subbbbb). But all in all, Maresca is fine 

 

Edited January 16, 20251 yr by Bob stark

On 14/01/2025 at 22:54, forbzy said:

I think that is because a number of the other players just aren't good enough or the club wants to sell them on. Pretty sure he has been told not to play Chilwell as they want to get his wages off the books.

Yep, seems its like this in every transfer window under this ownership which doesn’t exactly help Maresca. We need to settle on a squad ASAP

3 hours ago, Bob stark said:

Let's do my annual defend our manager post. 

 

 

 

Its a case of not looking around us and wishing for other teams success isnt it. 

I think while we've fallen off the pace, Newcastle have stepped on it. Compare their results with ours the past 8 games. The difference between us and them is they have beaten teams we've drawn with. 

Maresca hasnt done badly, we are probably exactly where we should be. But the collapse in results is going to become problematic for him if he cant change things around. Its always easier to maintain a pace than try and beat it and from a position where we can set our own pace, we've sh*t the bed.