I didn’t say it .
We laugh at Man U & Chelsea sacking manager after manager, yet we wet the bed when we don’t get the results and yes I do agree that our performances have gone stale since Feb, but the same thing happened the previous season under Jurgen.
I would have hoped with the players we bought we would have seen better performances, but atm moment we are now seeing the effects injuries have on us.
I wonder whether the excessive travellingm with all the away games has had an impact, I know I hated trying to play even after an more than an hour in the car, but then again I never had the benefit of masseurs
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Ah I didn’t realise you had to be a 20 year veteran before you were allowed to comment.
What you find is first impressions last and my first impression of yourself is you are wrong and you will hound people who have a different opinion.
Great post and especially about how preseason would have been affected
The season we hadnt spent 400mil and just won the league.
Its a well and good those saying they didn’t expect us to win the league thats fair. But if they are trying to use this as a justification when we could possibly be out of contention by the middle of November are deluded.
The only counter to this is we won 4 games in preseason and first 5 games. This notion is cropping up now its gone to shit not from the start like you would expect.
You’ve made a great start to your time here.
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But that is also about games coming thick and fast and if players didn’t get a full preseason that can have an effect, as we are now seeing more injuries compared to last season
Don’t understand your point in reply to my post, it doesn’t make sense?
We missed maybe about 3 days. I think summer internationals is likely a bigger issue (specifically for Mac) for fitness issues than that missed time.
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‘Edwards and Hughes will have worked closely with Slot over the Summer signings, and if things aren’t working, they will presumably analyse the data and suggest to Slot what he needs to do to make things work.’
I asked this (to no-one inparticular) a couple of weeks ago because it’s genuinely puzzling to me. As in ; are tactics , formations and personnel still solely the reserve of the head coach or does the DOF get involved ?
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I was unsure, but some take longer to get over things.
When things like that happen to me getting back to the ‘coalface’ works better for me, less time to think and ponder, especially on the footy pitch.
It is supposed to be something they are aligned with and that started with the selection of Slot in the first place as someone already aligned with everyone else’s vision and the strengths of the team he was inheriting. Everything we know about the people involved would indicate that is how they approached the summer.
However, that is all based on assumptions of it working. But what does the manager do when things don’t go well? Those decisions might not be well aligned with what everyone planned on during the summer. At that point a previously well aligned team can start implementing “moscow rules” where everything that is done or said is so with a view to covering their own arse.
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What’s your intuition on the situation now then. Is it likely all being left to Slot to figure out or will he be being offered some ‘helpful advice’ ?
I was talking solely about the loss of training days on physical readiness, the thing that would subsequently contribute to injuries if it was cut short in pre-season.
If it works right it should be a pretty open and ongoing conversation. You’d expect conversations about what more is needed or why presumed existing solutions arent working/being utilized so the DoF can understand better the manager’s perspective of the problem. When it works well the DoF is like a part of the boot room - a confidant and sounding board, but not a line manager giving top down direction. Once it reaches that point you are already well down the path of someone being moved out.
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I’m trying to work out what some of these coaches are doing. That set piece analyst we employed in August seems to be on annual leave.
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Plenty of people seem furious at the fact we got beat to assume they thought we should be going out to win this. I have seen plenty of people saying the team selection was disrespectful to the competition, the travelling fans, the sport of football, the King (maybe not that one).
I think it’s a mistake to view last night’s game as part of this sequence of appalling form. It is a totally different side, made up of u21s and fringe players. The team selection is entirely within tolerance for a game at this stage of the competition. Even if we had been on fires in the league and this blip hadn’t happened, we are very likely to lose that game.
Treating this as a low stakes opportunity to work on rhythm is a good shout, but I think that comes down to a difference of approach between you and Slot. His analysis is that the first team need a week off to clear their heads and do their work on the training pitch. I agree, and if we’d have played a first team last night not only is that far more suggestive of a manager in crisis (given we don’t turn out the first team for games at this stage) but it also feels much more of a continuation of the poor form if the players responsible for that form are on the pitch, and I think that also means the mood would be far from the low stakes environment you are suggesting it would be.
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Regarding set pieces, I can’t find any stats but how many goals have we conceeded directly from a corner i.e first header, Dan Burn?
Therefore, it is the 2nd ball or 2nd phase that is the problem.
Which aren’t the easiest to solve as the first relies more on the individual being aware, the 2nd again puts the emphasis on the individual being aware of the danger.
Also, in the past we have been excellent on the transition on defensive corners and to solve the 2nd issue would have a direct effect on this transition.
Players individually have to step up and our transition has to take a step back as we have to stop conceeding from set pieces.
It’s probably difficult even for those inside to tell how devastating Jota’s loss was, as grieving isn’t a uniform process. It definitely had an impact, it definitely affected the preseason, and it’s surely responsible, at least partly, for what has been going on.
That said, there were warning signs well before the summer, and neither Slot, nor the players have handled this situation in a competent manner.
People got furious not because we got beat, but because he threw the game. What he did was disrespectful to the fans and the club itself. Fielding the usual young lineup with the heavy guns on the bench, would have been perfectly acceptable, and in the long run, it wouldn’t have made much of a difference. Also, it most certainly will be viewed as continuation of the current wretched form, especially if the next matches don’t go well.