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.
It must be hard as a coach to try and get tactics set to play a team, when they turn up and play a completely different style to what has gone on before.
Saying that, it is also dissapointing that a lot if the time Arne hasn’t been able to get an inprovement at half time which used to be evident.
For me we need 2 playing styles, one a possession style and a 2nd to counter the long ball and fight for the corresponding 2nd ball and we need players/leaders that can get us to adapt/change mid game.
Lastly we need more players like Szob and Macca, when at his best, who want it more than the opposition.
Hopefully, this extra time on the training pitch will be sufficient.
We are in a crisis already. A man who won the league last year is facing questions about his job security. That is a not statement about whether I think that is fair, just an acknowledgment if what is, and that is the scale of the issue Slot is facing. To that point, it is far more a demonstration of a crisis that avoid an opportunity ti give the players they time they need to gel so you can protect them against the additional pressure that would come from losing another game. Once you start putting PR in front of taking the actions necessary to address the specific problem you have identified you are spiraling. That is essentially how the US and UK responded to the first wave of Covid.
Ordinarily I would buy the time off explanation, but it is incongruous with the statements Slot has been making. Ordinarily I would buy the “the time on the training ground is valuable” argument, but it is another demonstration of how bad things are that we think the addition of one more training sessions is required before the players are able to start working on whatever the plan is in a live situation.
I am actually quite frustrated that my mind has blanked on the other examples I have raised in the past, but it was on the weekend I was raising concerns that Slot has got into the territory of making statements that are difficult to reconcile with what he’d recently said and what he is doing. His approach to this game was another example of that.
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With the unprecendented amount of money being poured into the team in one summer and possibly more in the winter window, I think getting a UCL spot comfortably in the league should be the barest of standards.
Is Slot in a midfield crisis? Not really.
Is Slot in a CB crisis? Maybe? Largely due to Leoni’s long term injury and Glasner pulling the plug on us. However, we haven’t explored fully the short and medium term usage of emergencies like Endo yet…
That is what I meant by noting a slight bit of difference.
Well no…We do have a set-piece coach. His name is Aaron Briggs who got his role shifted from first team individual development coach to Set-piece coach. How he got to be chief Set-piece coach is still a mystery…
Showing up and finding out that they are unexpectedly man marking your DM or something like that, then sure. But any high press side should be set up to deal with the sort of direct play we’re seeing this season because that is one of the expected outcomes you are trying to force them into. A high press side that cannot deal with that is a side that is only thinking about half the game. Its not much different than going out without a keeper and wondering why every shot on goal goes in.
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I think there are two issues with this.
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I think Slot knows that if he has his big guns on the bench, he’ll end up getting drawn into the game and using them, and he doesn’t really want to.
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As soon as you put them on the bench, that disrupts the training, as you have to gradient your players up to the match and then down the other side. If the justification for the selection (and I think it is) is that Slot wants his players spending the week working on the form, that is thrown in the bin if you put them on the bench for this.
If we are committing to the idea that the player are spending this week sorting their shit out, you might as well go all in. My only regret is that Slot had to be there.
Also remember we are quietly in the midst of a mini injury crisis with five first team players out injured, we can’t afford to lose anymore players to this tournament. Glasner made the decision to go all in with his first team last night. He is through to the next round, and can look forward to a quarter final away at Arsenal. On the down side, he lost Nketia to an injury. World I take the next round if it meant an injury to Szobozslai or Wirtz? Not on your life.
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Palace didn’t go all in from the start, Nketiah is their backup striker. They changed around half of their starting team and had other seniors coming off the bench.
I don’t think that’s what is happening.
I think Slot is looking at this situation and thinking that the best chance he has got to beat Villa (who have no game midweek lets not forget) is to jib this and give his first team a week to clear their heads and work on the problems.
On the job security, I think you have to separate noise and hysteria from the actual strategy FSG are trying to implement. Fortunately FSG have a long standing track record of not giving a flying fuck about what fans think when it comes to footballing decisions. They’ll act when their internal metrics and analysis suggest a change is needed, not because of fans kicking off.
I’ve been watching football long enough to know that you don’t pay that much attention to what a manager says when he has a microphone shoved under his nose.
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Regardless of where anyone comes down on the right way to treat this game, this piece is inarguably right. Once you’ve made the decision that you want to give the first team more productive time on the training ground to work through things rather than using the game to do it, then they have to skip the game entirely otherwise you are minimizing what you can do in that supposedly important additional training period.
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It didn’t look that weakened to me.
Exactly.