Jose Mourinho

[JCRD]

Agreed. We had this discussion a few days ago. I kind of assumed that the stadium might be a precursor to sel!ing up but they've made themselves practically unbuyable (not sure that's actually a word).

He perhaps needs to leave room for further growth in order for others to see the potential for that growth to then buy the club.

I do fear Levy et al will go yeah now we want out and not going to spend any more on the team - which from their view would be i think the right thing to do to allow buyers.

 

[muppetman]

So much focus on history:
It's Poch's fault because he lost motivation/didn't trust youth/didn't buy the right players
It's Levy's fault because he didn't back Jol/Redknapp/AVB/Sherwood/Poch
It's the players fault because they are too old/shit/unmotivated

I'm bored of the blame game, it's a waste of energy - I'd like to focus on how we get out of this, so:

How do we improve?
Can we improve with the players we have - and if so should that be with Jose?
Do we try and rebuild - and if so should that be with Jose?
Do we go back to the model of young talent with a coach who can get more out of them - as per BVB
Do we spend, spend, spend and try to compete with Liverpool, ManU, ManC, Chelsea

 

[dere911]

I hope the morons who thought Mourinho would be good for us can kill themselves. Stupid twats

 

[Montalbano]

The stick this guy gets is unreal. We're lucky to have him as our manager. We've heard who the other candidates were. You'd rather have Eddie Howe or Carlo Ancelotti in? Lmao nice try. We don't live in a fantasy world where we can pick and choose any manager! Would Nagelsmann be a better choice? Yeah probably. But he wasn't an option. Messi and Ronaldo would make our team better too, but that doesn't mean we can have them. Get a grip.

He's done better with the team than Poch this season with half the team injured for the majority of the campaign. He's shown signs of fixing our broken defense. Now he needs to be backed this summer and reshape the squad with players that suit his system.

Look at Ole now at United. He'd been absolute shit for over a year, now he's the second coming.

Support the club, support the manager. Sacking Mourinho isn't going to change the fact our squad needed an overhaul.

 

[Metalhead]

Surely it's up to him when his last roll f the dice is. Presumably he can and will have as many as he wants until they sell up or he retires.

Of course. I wasn't expecting him to read my post and then sell up. What I said is that my fear is the possibility that he's run out of ideas and someone else said that it could be his last roll of the dice. The club is at such a high value that realistically no one is out there who would want to spend the money.

 

[fishhhandaricecake]

And as I’ve said above, that is not Mourinho’s fault. It’s an inability of those higher not to see an opportunity when it’s kicking them in the bollocks...

Oh I fully agree! But Jose is also not the guy for us.

 

[Metalhead]

I hope the morons who thought Mourinho would be good for us can kill themselves. Stupid twats

Unnecessary. Get a grip.

 

[S17PUR]

The fanbase has seemingly split into two camps: Team Jose and Team Poch. I think it's human nature to want to find somebody to point the finger at, and in football the manager is the easiest target because he's the most likely to be changed. Not the players, not the chairman.

The reality is is that there's so much wrong at the club that no manager alone can fix it. Not Poch, not Jose. Everything stems back to that 18-month period where we didn't make a signing. People have been particularly revisionist of the Poch era - some more positively, some more negatively - but we undoubtedly played dour football in his last 18 months.

The defeats at home to Newcastle and West Ham.
The loss away at Bournemouth.
Just about drawing at home to Sheffield United and Watford.
Just about avoiding defeat at Wembley to Arsenal.
Scraping last minute victories thanks to individual brilliance that masked poor performances (Watford, Newcastle at Wembley)

From everything we heard from ITKs and other sources, Poch was sick of the players and the players were sick of him; Poch has near enough confirmed the former in recent interviews. Poch's time had come, but what bothers me is that I can't shake the feeling that we never should have allowed it to come. Had we backed him, he would still be here. And even if he wasn't, the man in charge would be in a better position than he is now.

The squad - and club - is a mess. Jurgen Klopp would walk in and immediately tell you having only one recognised right-back at the club - who is fucking atrocious as it is - is a shambles. Antonio Conte would walk in and immediately tell you that having only one recognised left-back at the club (not including Sessegnon here) is a shambles. Pep Guardiola would walk in and tell you that having no back-up striker to Harry Kane (seriously, how the fuck have we allowed this to happen), no recognised holding midfielder, a winger who cannot trap a ball to save his life, two ageing centre backs who are long past it (and three more in Dier, Sanchez and Foyth that all have massive, massive doubts hanging over them from various corners of our fanbase and probably coaching staff) is an absolute fucking shambles - nothing short of it.

It simply isn't acceptable, but it's the reality we find ourselves in.

We've had two managers now - one the greatest we've had in the Premier League era, and another who won more trophies in one supposedly 'poor' season with Man United than we have in two decades (let alone his entire career) - tell us the same thing. The squad needs a rebuild. It needs five more years of work. They both can't be wrong - I simply do not buy it.

The question(s), then, become:

- Who do we trust to rebuild the squad? Jose? If not, then who? Who would come, and when?
- Do we trust the ownership - who have performed nothing short of a miracle to bring us to the level we are at compared to when they took over - to do what they have yet to do and take us to the next level?

Again, I go back to that summer of no signings. I fear it's one we'll still be looking back on in two, three, maybe even four years time, cursing that we didn't bring in a few more players. Cursing that we didn't do what Liverpool did, at a time where we were so far ahead.

In the meantime, we're toing and froing over a manager who has inherited the same mess his predecessor could not fix alone, and has only had 8 months (3 of those with no football), 1 transfer window, and 0 pre-seasons to somehow fix this mess that he had no responsibility in creating.

The manager is the first one we go to blame because he's the easiest target. He isn't without fault, but if we continuously try and lay the blame squarely on his shoulders, we'll become a copy of Arsenal who were so desperate to get rid of their dinosaur manager who was supposedly past it; so sure that that one decision would change their fortunes.

I have no idea if Mourinho is the answer, and I do think we can be performing better than we are, but I don't see how sacking him will fix this mess. We have a huge problem, and it will take years to fix.

Personally - and I would love nothing more to be proven wrong here - I do not trust those above our manager to help fix it.

There is so much right with this post, and yet I still can't forgive the football that we're playing under Jose. That squad, even with all its issues, should be more than capable of beating the likes of Norwich and Bournemouth.

The players themselves aren't the ones deciding to sit deep and cede possession to these sides, whilst looking to counter.

Ndombele showed more invention from midfield in his first 5 minutes on the pitch than we've seen in our past few games. Why then have we not seen more of him? That's down to the manager.

The squad needs rebuilding, but as I've said on here before, I don't want Jose to be the one to rebuild it.

 

[Wig]

Christ, what a come down this is from the highs of watching us get to a champions league final and a couple of league title-challenging seasons. Sadly our form massively dipped a year ago, and even with a new manager on board it seems that it will take longer than we all hope to turn things around.

From what I watch it looks like we have a massive issue in the team mentality and confidence. That's not a quick fix. One example is I have never seen Son so timid - he has the pace and quality to take on defenders and then shoot from all angles and distances, but recently when on the ball he has paused and then looked for a backwards/sideways pass. Also, remember when Lamela had the audacity to score that rabona... why aren't the players backing themselves to shoot?

I don't think coaching this confidence back in is as simple as changing a manager to a Redknapp style "run about a bit and enjoy yourself". We're in a funk, and every passing game without a positive performance leads to more pressure and worsening confidence.

The squad needs freshening up - new faces and voices with confidence and the right mentality - and some time to hit their groove again. This season is a write off now so we have to look ahead... I can't wait for this season to be over and hope for a fresh start next season, but I'm inclined to give Jose at least one full season to get us at least facing the right direction again.

 

[Metalhead]

He perhaps needs to leave room for further growth in order for others to see the potential for that growth to then buy the club.

I do fear Levy et al will go yeah now we want out and not going to spend any more on the team - which from their view would be i think the right thing to do to allow buyers.

there is definitely room for growth but it's a stiff outlay compared to say, Newcastle.

 

[rossdapep]

if you go through the squad, who would actually get in the other teams currently in the top 5..? Kane, son, glc,lloris and a fit ndombele. The rest just are not good enough. I’m not a José fan but he has some tripe.

We have a habit of doing this.

How many of Phil Jones, Chris Smalling, Ashley Young, Darren Fletcher etc would have been considered top 4 players.

Well they won the PL title in 2013 and finished 7th the year after with people baffled as to how they did win it.

The truth is players playing with confidence, in a system that works will always appear to be a good team. We are low on confidence and are adjusting to a new system, probably a few players have had enough too.

If Timo Werner or Ziyech or whoever else came into this team right now we'd be wondering if we signed a dud because they'd play just as poorly as some of this lot.

 

[spids]

There are so many contributing factors to our demise. Lack of investment over the last 3 years. Failure to replace first team players as they left or went past their best (Walker, Dembele, Wanyama, Rose, Eriksen), having players who did not want to be here the last 18 months (Alderweireld, Eriksen, Rose). Playing Sissoko and Winks as a CM pairing has been disastrous since Jan 2019, and when our football started becoming more and more predictable going forwards. Couple this pairing still being in our engine room, with the fact JM appears to be telling the offensive players to stay in rigid positions across the pitch (presumably so we can get into defensive shape quickly), it means we are incredibly predictable. Today, even once we had worked Aurier into a crossing position we only really had Kane in the box (not that Aurier managed to get the ball into the middle of the box once!). There are zero diagonal runs. Zero positional interchange, zero overlaps or one twos. It is all so predictable. The likes or Moura, Son, Bergwijn suddenly look incredibly average. Kane looks slower and heavier. There is far too much onus on defensive shape and not enough on fluid attacking football. JM is clearly not the man for the job, but whoever gets it will not have any money to spend. So looks like Levy and Lewis are sitting on a £1B white elephant with £600M of debt for the foreseeable future. They need a progressive manager and serious investment in the team (£150M+ in addition to funds raised by offloading the chaff). We need a total overhaul. A new spine. A new project. A new everything. Very disillusioned.

 

[fishhhandaricecake]

So much focus on history:
It's Poch's fault because he lost motivation/didn't trust youth/didn't buy the right players
It's Levy's fault because he didn't back Jol/Redknapp/AVB/Sherwood/Poch
It's the players fault because they are too old/shit/unmotivated

I'm bored of the blame game, it's a waste of energy - I'd like to focus on how we get out of this, so:

How do we improve?
Can we improve with the players we have - and if so should that be with Jose?
Do we try and rebuild - and if so should that be with Jose?
Do we go back to the model of young talent with a coach who can get more out of them - as per BVB
Do we spend, spend, spend and try to compete with Liverpool, ManU, ManC, Chelsea

The reason we focus on history is because it’s like fucking Groundhog Day mate. Until Levy goes we won’t be successful simple as that.

how do we improve? Get rid of levy, get a new scouting system, a new DofF, a new young talented positive manager, completely overhaul this stale mid table squad with some actual quality players who fit the new mangers style.

none of that will happen.

sorry mate but we are fucked.

 

[Metalhead]

Off the field fantastic stuff ..on field...Wigan, Swansea, Portsmouth, Birmingham, Middlesboro and Blackburn have won as much as us since ENIC has took over.

For a so called big six club that is feckin embarrassing.

I suppose that the problem is that were we're prioritising competitions that were we're not regularly in a realistic position to win.

 

[fishhhandaricecake]

We have a habit of doing this.

How many of Phil Jones, Chris Smalling, Ashley Young, Darren Fletcher etc would have been considered top 4 players.

Well they won the PL title in 2013 and finished 7th the year after with people baffled as to how they did win it.

The truth is players playing with confidence, in a system that works will always appear to be a good team. We are low on confidence and are adjusting to a new system, probably a few players have had enough too.

If Timo Werner or Ziyech or whoever else came into this team right now we'd be wondering if we signed a dud because they'd play just as poorly as some of this lot.

Agree. But the system is shit and boring and we don’t sign good players.

 

[Lifelong]

Oh I fully agree! But Jose is also not the guy for us.

You may well be right...but the way the club is run, and I’m talking the playing side, arguably the most important....who the fuck is...

 

[muppetman]

The reason we focus on history is because it’s like fucking Groundhog Day mate. Until Levy goes we won’t be successful simple as that.

how do we improve? Get rid of levy, get a new scouting system, a new DofF, a new young talented positive manager, completely overhaul this stale mid table squad with some actual quality players who fit the new mangers style.

none of that will happen.

sorry mate but we are fucked.

But Levy and Lewis are going nowhere, so we need a manager with the will and the success to push through some changes - whch Poch did for a bit. Do you think Jose will do this?

 

[fishhhandaricecake]

There are so many contributing factors to our demise. Lack of investment over the last 3 years. Failure to replace first team players as they left or went past their best (Walker, Dembele, Wanyama, Rose, Eriksen), having players who did not want to be here the last 18 months (Alderweireld, Eriksen, Rose). Playing Sissoko and Winks as a CM pairing has been disastrous since Jan 2019, and when our football started becoming more and more predictable going forwards. Couple this pairing still being in our engine room, with the fact JM appears to be telling the offensive players to stay in rigid positions across the pitch (presumably so we can get into defensive shape quickly), it means we are incredibly predictable. Today, even once we had worked Aurier into a crossing position we only really had Kane in the box (not that Aurier managed to get the ball into the middle of the box once!). There are zero diagonal runs. Zero positional interchange, zero overlaps or one twos. It is all so predictable. The likes or Moura, Son, Bergwijn suddenly look incredibly average. Kane looks slower and heavier. There is far too much onus on defensive shape and not enough on fluid attacking football. JM is clearly not the man for the job, but whoever gets it will not have any money to spend. So looks like Levy and Lewis are sitting on a £1B white elephant with £600M of debt for the foreseeable future. They need a progressive manager and serious investment in the team (£150M+ in addition to funds raised by offloading the chaff). We need a total overhaul. A new spine. A new project. A new everything. Very disillusioned.

Couldn’t have put it any better. Just sticky this close the thread all log off and come back in 5 years and see where we are at and hopefully ENIC will be gone.

 

[Dov67]

Agreed. We had this discussion a few days ago. I kind of assumed that the stadium might be a precursor to sel!ing up but they've made themselves practically unbuyable (not sure that's actually a word).

he wanted £80m for Eriksen with a year on his contract.

can you imagine what he would demand to buy the club outright? A consortium of Russian Oligarchs, Oil Sheilkhs and Jeff Bezos would struggle to meet the asking price.

 

[Montalbano]

Agree. But the system is shit and boring and we don’t sign good players.

We also have been not conceding silly goals. If we didn't have fullbacks who are incapable of taking on their man, the system would probably be working.