Quote:
Originally Posted by Damien
I said the appointment didn't make sense at the time, and it makes even less sense now.
Why fire a manager who did so well last season for one who got a much bigger club 17th? Why go from someone known for attacking football in a team that was well-drilled defensively and liked to hit teams on the counter?
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The idea makes sense, but there's too much which hasn't happened under Ange. The players don't look like they know what they're supposed to be doing, the fans aren't happy with it, and the results aren't happening.
Unsurprising since he's had about 50 minutes out of our best centre back, our right back was injured before he came, our new left back is also now injured, and we have a player with muscular edema on loan whose minutes were being managed by his old club, who has basically also played 45 mins and is now injured. None of this is Ange's fault, nor is the fact he had no preseason and has to get the players working in a new style (and more importantly, probably can't coach them in the old system anyway).
Nuno wasn't sacked for results, it was for his behaviour behind the scenes towards Edu particularly, and in the media interviews. If Marinakis was going to sack him for performances he would have done that after the West Ham game rather than wait about a week to do it. He moaned about new signings and then didn't play any of the ones he got apart from one but that was because we only have one winger from last season.
The countering had been found out. No clean sheets since April 1st, including the run in last season, where we dropped from 3rd to 7th. We should be in the conference league but got pushed up because Palace didn't check their emails. In the FA Cup Exeter showed everyone how to play against Forest by putting all the players behind the play and giving them the ball and asking them to break it down. We could only play on counters when teams were stretched and had sent too much forwards so they stopped doing that.
As for Spurs last season, they had a lot of injuries including a lot of defenders out at once, and played a lot of matches to go with it including winning the Europa League. So not sure how much can be read into that. The season before they came 5th under the same manager, what is more successful?
Either way, he doesn't have any more time to get results now given our next few matches he isn't going to pull a win out of the hat. Probably no-one will so it's about time for a new manager to get used to the squad before it's too late. Ange will probably get the Newcastle match but then if EM is serious about achieving something this season we need a replacement in the break. Dyche would be a good shout...