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ENIC...

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May 17, 2018
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No...I firmly blame Poch for CL finals for not having the balls to back inform Moura over unfit Kane.
But My point is not a single finals in a year...My point is over a 13 year period, as a club we have failed.
Thats completely on club management, not on any single manager.

In those 13 years:
- 4 FA Cup Semi-Finals
- 2 League Cup Finals and one Semi-Final
- 1 Europa League Quarter Final
- 1 Champions League Final and 1 Quarter final

So 8 times in those 13 seasons we've been in the last 4 (last 8 in 10). The odds on not getting one trophy in that time are ridiculous.

The one and only thing I can truly attribute to the door of ENIC on that one is hiring managers who have no experience in winning things. That changed when they hired pretty much the most successful manager in football.

It's a paradox for people to complain about "boring football" and being impatient on one hand, lusting after people like Pochettino, and yet complain about not having trophies. We have to pick one. We can be the Pochettino/Redknapp club who look good not winning things, or we can suck up a bit of aesthetically challenged football for a bit and it's highly likely we will quell the trophy cabinet argument.

I mean, Poch basically said he wasn't prioritising trophies we could/should have won, too. On more than one occasion we've looked down our nose at the League Cup and Europa League.
 

rossdapep

Well-Known Member
Aug 25, 2011
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Yes the club invested heavily over the summer. But has anyone noticed a pattern when we spend big?

When we spend big on players we tend to end up in a period in which we have really poor form and the new players we forked out on are in and out of the team. So why is that? Why do we not find it easier as, say, Chelsea?

I think it's simply because our big investments are always made too late. The season before Bale left the club, we failed to bring in some players in crucial positions. So you end up signing a bunch of players who need to get up to speed immediately. Eriksen, Lamela, Chadli, Soldado - No bedding in period, we needed them to be firing from day one and what we got was a mess of a situation because these players needed stability around them to thrive. We didn't get that until Poch came and brought balance back by trimming the squad and making more subtle signings.

It's the same situation we have now. Three huge signings expected to make a difference but all made too late to bring them in slowly and give them chance to adapt. Imagine if we had have signed Ndombele with Dembele still at the club, or Lo Celso whilst Eriksen was still firing? The pressure wouldn't have been on them to make an immediate impact or be our saviour.

A successful team needs a core, and when parts of that core start to become inadequate or regress, you need to be proactive and replace long before that player is out of the door. Now Poch may have felt Winks or Sissoko could have replaced Dembele (I don't think he did) but the club should be more proactive about having players in place at all times.

I mean what big club doesn't have a back up striker, replace a DM or have adequate full back support? That doesn't happen because a club chooses not to, it happens because they don't plan for continuation and are not proactive when it comes to squad building.
 

nedley

John Duncan's Love Child
Jul 28, 2006
13,942
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When he arrived Mourinho said how happy he was with the squad he inherited, which to me indicated he knew there wasn't much transfer budget. Completely agree about the stadium but Covid has pulled the rug out from under those plans.
Towing the company line
 

Albertbarich

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Jul 4, 2020
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Club gets to the final "well done manager"
Club wins final "well done manager"
Club gets to semis/final and manager chucks the towel in "that's the club's fault"

No, what we have come to is some sort of martyrdom of Pochettino. Let's ignore the fact that he had pretty much the best squad we've ever had and won nothing. We'll blame everyone else for that.

We had the players to win trophies, just not the tactics or selections. Even Birmingham and Swansea have won cups in that time ffs.
So our ability to not win a final had nothing to do with a shortcoming on the managerial side? Are you absolving Pochettino and Redknapp of all blame?
20 years of no success, countless managers, seeing out most hated rivals win the league at our gaff, transfer market failure after transfer market failure and youre now digging out the two managers who did offer this investment company a modicum of success.

It is a team effort but one side of the team keeps getting sacked, one side begged for the rebuild we now all admit it needed 2 years ago almost , he was of course ignored, dragged a tired and stale squad to another top four finish ( before the two you just called out that was unheard of btw)and got us to a champions league final. That man now doesn't have a job, were in mid table all and the man who youre defending is still sitting there as the premier leagues highest paid chairman ( since when do people get rewarded for winning nothing), charging the highest ticket prices in europe .

I find the endless defences of failure for enic odd. This is a football club. I dont see thousands of people congegrating at a normal comapnies head office cheering them on and singing in the overly priced merchandise. The stadium is nice, means nothing to fans beyond that, the training ground seems nice but not exactly going to cut it when chelsea fans are mugging you off about how many trophies they have won is it?

Were in this to support a team, not an investment company, not a property company. That team has underachieved for pretty much all of the last 20 years barring a few recently. Nobody is going to sing about our transfer net spend being 0, thats not what football is about. The manager gets all the glory because he is responsible for the team, not the investment bankers. It was the manager who coached Harry kane to be the best striker in the word at time, he turned Danny rose from an error prone full back Sunderland wanted to the best left wing back in the world, he did similar for Kyle walker. His contacts at Southampton helped get us two players that were dirt cheap by modern standards and make them two absolutely amazing players for us. I could go on but the chairman should just be writing the cheques. I dont know of any other club that has this section of its fanbase so predictable in burying the football people were all here for in defence of the investment company that has never invested in the playing side .

Id sort of get it if he was some sugar daddy but he is the total opposite. Hes has never shown sporting ambition, just property ambition. Sure a safe pair of hands but who want mediocrity when at times just the smallest of pushes could have produced greatness. He even puts bill nics quotes all over the place. Bill nic who only cared about dreaming to be the absolute best, not boasting about a micro brewery.
 

Albertbarich

Well-Known Member
Jul 4, 2020
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No...I firmly blame Poch for CL finals for not having the balls to back inform Moura over unfit Kane.
But My point is not on a final in a single year...My point is over a 13 year period, as a club we have failed.
Thats completely on club management, not on any single manager.
Aha imagine he had played moura in that final and not kane. You and everyone else in the world would have crucified him.
 
May 17, 2018
11,872
47,993
20 years of no success, countless managers, seeing out most hated rivals win the league at our gaff, transfer market failure after transfer market failure and youre now digging out the two managers who did offer this investment company a modicum of success.

Ramos offered the "success" that is being mooted.

There is a palpable irony in what you have typed that underlines how ridiculous the anti-ENIC sentiment is - the measures are contradictory. What is success here? Everything except trophies is on one side, trophies is on the other. Yes, both would be nice, but Ramos is what you get if you bang on about trophies and ignore all of the good stuff that has happened.

(note - I didn't "(dig) out the two managers who did offer this investment company a modicum of success" - I picked the ones who had cup opportunities and mucked them up. That's the context of the debate)
 

arunspurs

Well-Known Member
Aug 31, 2012
8,807
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In those 13 years:
- 4 FA Cup Semi-Finals
- 2 League Cup Finals and one Semi-Final
- 1 Europa League Quarter Final
- 1 Champions League Final and 1 Quarter final

So 8 times in those 13 seasons we've been in the last 4 (last 8 in 10). The odds on not getting one trophy in that time are ridiculous.

The one and only thing I can truly attribute to the door of ENIC on that one is hiring managers who have no experience in winning things. That changed when they hired pretty much the most successful manager in football.

It's a paradox for people to complain about "boring football" and being impatient on one hand, lusting after people like Pochettino, and yet complain about not having trophies. We have to pick one. We can be the Pochettino/Redknapp club who look good not winning things, or we can suck up a bit of aesthetically challenged football for a bit and it's highly likely we will quell the trophy cabinet argument.

I mean, Poch basically said he wasn't prioritising trophies we could/should have won, too. On more than one occasion we've looked down our nose at the League Cup and Europa League.


You can list all these QF & SF and Finals...
My point still stands... If you want to be called as a top4 or 6 club yet you win 1 league cup in 20 years or no cups in 13 years - then club is not a top 4 or 6 club.
This is not on Pochettino or Redknapp or on a single manager. For a 20 year abysmal record, collective responsibility is on club management. Trying to wriggle out of the responsibility is laughable and shows no accountability
 

Goobers

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Jul 29, 2011
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Aha imagine he had played moura in that final and not kane. You and everyone else in the world would have crucified him.

Not to mention that it would have been the wrong thing to do. Moura is great if playing in a chaotic situation and a free role. If we'd asked him to play a false nine role then Mr VD et al would have easily been able to shackle him cos it isn't there are if he is asked to do a role.
People tseem to forget that Poch got his tactics spot on for the final. Our midfield of Winks and Sissoko managed to get beyond theirs so many times that we had about 10 four on fours or three on threes throughout the game. People also forget Alisson was man of the match.
 
May 17, 2018
11,872
47,993
You can list all these QF & SF and Finals...
My point still stands... If you want to be called as a top4 or 6 club yet you win 1 league cup in 20 years or no cups in 13 years - then club is not a top 4 or 6 club.

You know the "top 4" is the top 4 in the league, right? ?
 

arunspurs

Well-Known Member
Aug 31, 2012
8,807
35,543
Aha imagine he had played moura in that final and not kane. You and everyone else in the world would have crucified him.

I dont want to digress....but want to reply anyway.
Not playing Moura after that improbable semis win is a gut punch for any player. And we are not comparing quality of Moura vs Kane. It was about Momentum and question of is Kane fit after weeks of absence. 5 Years of Kane has told us that, he is ridiculously unfit/lacks sharpness when he comes back from injury. Had Poch taken the decision to play Moura, it would not have been controversial after Moura heroics. So Poch had the get out of jail card but didnt use it.

This also shows how we lacked in squad depth. In any top4 squad, club would have made sure it balanced it with proper mix of strikers. Manager covered clubs failure by making Son play out of position...But all this can help only till some extent. In big games like in semis & finals, these failure will come out like it did
 
May 17, 2018
11,872
47,993
Top4 is best 4. Want a dictionary ?
...in the league. Top 4 finish. As it happens, I would like you to find it in the dictionary. :D

Out of interest, in the strange dictionary of text talk, were do you have to finish in the league top be "top 4" if you win the league cup?
 

Albertbarich

Well-Known Member
Jul 4, 2020
5,082
19,484
Ramos offered the "success" that is being mooted.

There is a palpable irony in what you have typed that underlines how ridiculous the anti-ENIC sentiment is - the measures are contradictory. What is success here? Everything except trophies is on one side, trophies is on the other. Yes, both would be nice, but Ramos is what you get if you bang on about trophies and ignore all of the good stuff that has happened.

(note - I didn't "(dig) out the two managers who did offer this investment company a modicum of success" - I picked the ones who had cup opportunities and mucked them up. That's the context of the debate)

Trophies are wh
Ramos offered the "success" that is being mooted.

There is a palpable irony in what you have typed that underlines how ridiculous the anti-ENIC sentiment is - the measures are contradictory. What is success here? Everything except trophies is on one side, trophies is on the other. Yes, both would be nice, but Ramos is what you get if you bang on about trophies and ignore all of the good stuff that has happened.

(note - I didn't "(dig) out the two managers who did offer this investment company a modicum of success" - I picked the ones who had cup opportunities and mucked them up. That's the context of the debate)

Success is more than one league cup in twenty years?

Even if you don't want to talk about trophies you could talk about the lack of investment at crucial times, or the fact that Pochettino our most successful manager in decades took over from tim sherwood. If you want to talk about someone not doing their job, whoever appointed tim poxy sherwood should be fired on the spot. Before poch we were playing nacer Chadl as a defensive midfider.

Poch and he is the important one bere because he turned this club into a force did it on 0 net spend , no backing at all. Sure he got brought a Bentley but he didn't get a back up striker or a moussa dembele replacement sadly. He got ignored when begging for a rebuild whilst taking us to top four playing zero home games that season . And as I said he now doesnt have a job. Daniel levy who before poch and redknapp could only dream of champions league by watching the scum is still there , still being overpaid and still being defended.

We're 10th.
 

arunspurs

Well-Known Member
Aug 31, 2012
8,807
35,543
...in the league. Top 4 finish. As it happens, I would like you to find it in the dictionary. :D

Out of interest, in the strange dictionary of text talk, were do you have to finish in the league top be "top 4" if you win the league cup?

Seems you dont want to discuss the content but go on idiotic tangent...
Lets get back on track, shall we ?

You keep arguing about a single managerial tenure,I have been saying see the whole picture - see the 2 decades...Anyway, I made my point.
I cant see ENIC selling off. I really hope Daniel Levy appoints a properDoF and gets out of negotiations and footballing decisions. Thats the only way, we are going to see some sort of progress.
 

rossdapep

Well-Known Member
Aug 25, 2011
21,907
78,647
You can list all these QF & SF and Finals...
My point still stands... If you want to be called as a top4 or 6 club yet you win 1 league cup in 20 years or no cups in 13 years - then club is not a top 4 or 6 club.
This is not on Pochettino or Redknapp or on a single manager. For a 20 year abysmal record, collective responsibility is on club management. Trying to wriggle out of the responsibility is laughable and shows no accountability
I think you're right. Whilst Poch certainly made mistakes, Harry was too short sighted and everyone inbetween was not the right fit, the club have not done enough to tip the possibility of success in our favour. Too many times we've been on the brink but put the brakes on or taken or eye off the most important aspect of allowing for continuation.

Look at Simone at Atletico, he is always refreshing the team and is always given the funds from big sales, getting the players he wants. Atletico don't piss around either. Why? Because they want to win and they believe in Simone. They understand Simone will get some signing a wrong and will have bad peiods but the way the club's recruitment is set up allows for mistakes. The way our clubs recruitment strategy is set up means the head coach is handicapped and we are not set up for mistakes.
 

John48

Well-Known Member
Aug 31, 2015
2,249
3,143
Yes the club invested heavily over the summer. But has anyone noticed a pattern when we spend big?

When we spend big on players we tend to end up in a period in which we have really poor form and the new players we forked out on are in and out of the team. So why is that? Why do we not find it easier as, say, Chelsea?

I think it's simply because our big investments are always made too late. The season before Bale left the club, we failed to bring in some players in crucial positions. So you end up signing a bunch of players who need to get up to speed immediately. Eriksen, Lamela, Chadli, Soldado - No bedding in period, we needed them to be firing from day one and what we got was a mess of a situation because these players needed stability around them to thrive. We didn't get that until Poch came and brought balance back by trimming the squad and making more subtle signings.

It's the same situation we have now. Three huge signings expected to make a difference but all made too late to bring them in slowly and give them chance to adapt. Imagine if we had have signed Ndombele with Dembele still at the club, or Lo Celso whilst Eriksen was still firing? The pressure wouldn't have been on them to make an immediate impact or be our saviour.

A successful team needs a core, and when parts of that core start to become inadequate or regress, you need to be proactive and replace long before that player is out of the door. Now Poch may have felt Winks or Sissoko could have replaced Dembele (I don't think he did) but the club should be more proactive about having players in place at all times.

I mean what big club doesn't have a back up striker, replace a DM or have adequate full back support? That doesn't happen because a club chooses not to, it happens because they don't plan for continuation and are not proactive when it comes to squad building.

We may have brought big, but did we the players the manager wanted?

One player I believe Poch wanted was Fernandes & he got N'Dombele & whilst he shown in glimpses of being a decent player the affect Fernandes had on MU suggests him & Lo Celso would have pretty good for us.
 

rossdapep

Well-Known Member
Aug 25, 2011
21,907
78,647
We may have brought big, but did we the players the manager wanted?

One player I believe Poch wanted was Fernandes & he got N'Dombele & whilst he shown in glimpses of being a decent player the affect Fernandes had on MU suggests him & Lo Celso would have pretty good for us.
I think it's widely acknowledged that Ndombele was Poch's number one pick. It's the player he really wanted. I think Lo Celso too with Fernandes as a back up option.
 
May 17, 2018
11,872
47,993
Even if you don't want to talk about trophies you could talk about the lack of investment at crucial times, or the fact that Pochettino our most successful manager in decades took over from tim sherwood. If you want to talk about someone not doing their job, whoever appointed tim poxy sherwood should be fired on the spot. Before poch we were playing nacer Chadl as a defensive midfider.

For all of his faults, Tim Sherwood actually had a good win ratio and is the rubble under the foundations of what came next. The man was a bit of a tit, but he did a good job for what was expected of him at that time - which was to try and rescue the season until Pochettino came in. A very strange/clutchy attempt at repainting history there, including the weirdly incorrect bit about Chadli...
Feel free to back up the claims with some sort of evidence, but it won't exist. The closest was the one game Sherwood used Lennon as a sort of strange DM role (possibly at Chelsea, if my memory serves me correctly).

Poch and he is the important one bere because he turned this club into a force did it on 0 net spend , no backing at all. Sure he got brought a Bentley but he didn't get a back up striker or a moussa dembele replacement sadly.

This is a descending into a farce of fiction now. Pochettino's net spend was around £120m. He consistently had back-up strikers, but you might be confused about that fact because he simply ignored them - that's also ignore the fact that instead of Llorente/Janssen he used Son, who generally excelled in Kane's absence, but still Son isn't counted for some anti-confirmation-bias reason. Who knows. It gets confusing with Pochettino because he had a strange habit of refusing to play a player in a position if that was the only position he could play in.

As I say, revisionism and fantasy are often (if not always) the entire basis of these 'debates', and it's extremely tiring to have to deconstruct this each time it comes up. I'm not particularly sure why I'm even bothering now, as it's no doubt in-one-ear-and-out-the-other in an internet reading type metaphor.

I'm very much someone who works solely off facts and logic, and what often makes me appear to be "pro ENIC" is the fact that these "boo Levy" arguments are rarely based on anything tangible in terms of facts or pragmatism.
 

Metalhead

But that's a debate for another thread.....
Nov 24, 2013
25,352
38,295
Towing the company line
He’s in a bit of a no-win situation there:

“We have a good squad and there is no need for many transfers“ - toeing the company line.

“This squad isn’t good enough and needs reinforcement” - here we go, typical Mourinho moaning about the budget.
 

Metalhead

But that's a debate for another thread.....
Nov 24, 2013
25,352
38,295
For all of his faults, Tim Sherwood actually had a good win ratio and is the rubble under the foundations of what came next. The man was a bit of a tit, but he did a good job for what was expected of him at that time - which was to try and rescue the season until Pochettino came in. A very strange/clutchy attempt at repainting history there, including the weirdly incorrect bit about Chadli...
Feel free to back up the claims with some sort of evidence, but it won't exist. The closest was the one game Sherwood used Lennon as a sort of strange DM role (possibly at Chelsea, if my memory serves me correctly).



This is a descending into a farce of fiction now. Pochettino's net spend was around £120m. He consistently had back-up strikers, but you might be confused about that fact because he simply ignored them - that's also ignore the fact that instead of Llorente/Janssen he used Son, who generally excelled in Kane's absence, but still Son isn't counted for some anti-confirmation-bias reason. Who knows. It gets confusing with Pochettino because he had a strange habit of refusing to play a player in a position if that was the only position he could play in.

As I say, revisionism and fantasy are often (if not always) the entire basis of these 'debates', and it's extremely tiring to have to deconstruct this each time it comes up. I'm not particularly sure why I'm even bothering now, as it's no doubt in-one-ear-and-out-the-other in an internet reading type metaphor.

I'm very much someone who works solely off facts and evidence, and what often makes me appear to be "pro ENIC" is the fact that these "boo Levy" arguments are rarely based on anything tangible in terms of facts or pragmatism.
It is true that Son was very good at times in Kane’s absence and I can remember on at least one occasion where Kane coming back in seemed to disrupt the team. Thing is though that not picking Kane if he is fit is pretty much sacrilegious.
 
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