SUIYHA
Well-Known Member
- Jan 15, 2017
- 1,739
- 8,650
In his second or third game we played Norwich at home, who were clearly going to stick ten men behind the ball and play for the draw, and he started a 4-5-1 with Sandro and Livermore as two defensive midfielders hoofing long balls up to Defoe who was playing on his own up front and being marked by the entire Norwich team. From that moment on I had major doubts about him.
The one thing he did VERY well was get the best out of Bale. But otherwise he was atrocious. We've had some dreadful tacticians running our club at times and he was arguably the worst of all. He kept picking his "system" regardless of who was fit and available and whether they were suitable to play in it. We'd go 1-0 up and be dominating a game and then he'd sub off all our best attacking players for defensive ones and shut up shop, hand the momentum back to the opposition who would score and then he'd sit there gormlessly wondering why the defensive players couldn't get a goal back. Our players stopped making off the ball runs, they just stood there and passed it sideways across the pitch amongst each other before eventually someone got bored and tried a long shot from 30 yards. Bale aside, the rest of the players left over from the Redknapp era badly regressed under him. It wasn't his fault that he lost Modric, VdV and Bale, but it was his fault to get rid of Kranjcar and Huddlestone as well and to replace them all with slow players that couldn't play pass and move football instead of anyone with any real creative flair.
From all of the other managers that Levy has sacked, I felt a tinge of regret for all of them except Sherwood who was clearly only meant to be a temporary fix so I felt nothing, and Graham, even though I thought he should have seen off the cup semi-final first. I punched the air when I heard AVB had been sacked. Christian Gross has won a lot of trophies in tinpot leagues too, I wonder if anyone can argue why if he'd had AVB's squad whilst AVB had had to rely on Vega, Sinton, Wilson, Calderwood, Fox, Walker and co, they'd have faired any differently?
The one thing he did VERY well was get the best out of Bale. But otherwise he was atrocious. We've had some dreadful tacticians running our club at times and he was arguably the worst of all. He kept picking his "system" regardless of who was fit and available and whether they were suitable to play in it. We'd go 1-0 up and be dominating a game and then he'd sub off all our best attacking players for defensive ones and shut up shop, hand the momentum back to the opposition who would score and then he'd sit there gormlessly wondering why the defensive players couldn't get a goal back. Our players stopped making off the ball runs, they just stood there and passed it sideways across the pitch amongst each other before eventually someone got bored and tried a long shot from 30 yards. Bale aside, the rest of the players left over from the Redknapp era badly regressed under him. It wasn't his fault that he lost Modric, VdV and Bale, but it was his fault to get rid of Kranjcar and Huddlestone as well and to replace them all with slow players that couldn't play pass and move football instead of anyone with any real creative flair.
From all of the other managers that Levy has sacked, I felt a tinge of regret for all of them except Sherwood who was clearly only meant to be a temporary fix so I felt nothing, and Graham, even though I thought he should have seen off the cup semi-final first. I punched the air when I heard AVB had been sacked. Christian Gross has won a lot of trophies in tinpot leagues too, I wonder if anyone can argue why if he'd had AVB's squad whilst AVB had had to rely on Vega, Sinton, Wilson, Calderwood, Fox, Walker and co, they'd have faired any differently?
at the "achievement" of a 1/4 final EL loss
