Manager Watch: Ange Postecoglou

[Finchyid]

There is a lot of projecting going on in this thread and ignoring what the manager has said just because it doesn’t fit your agenda. I’m not surprised though.

Spot on but This has been happening for years! All of a sudden Dragusin is bad recruitment..forgetting the meltdown was had when he nearly went to Bayern.

We have to give him time, we have a great opportunity in the cups.

 

[Monkey boy]

He gets away with it because half of our fans (still) think that a new manager will fix everything. Its mental.

it’s ok to think that both Levy and Ange are failing, the two aren’t mutually exclusive.

IMO if you swapped Ange for Eddie Howe then we’d be a lot better off. EH has shown tactical intelligence to win games and recognises that you sometimes need to change your tactics to beat the opposition. This one and only one way of playing is going to get us nowhere, sure we may trounce a few teams here and there but it’s impossible to get the level of consistency required out of this bunch of players.

 

[RuskyM]

it’s ok to think that both Levy and Ange are failing, the two aren’t mutually exclusive.

IMO if you swapped Ange for Eddie Howe then we’d be a lot better off. EH has shown tactical intelligence to win games and recognises that you sometimes need to change your tactics to beat the opposition. This one and only one way of playing is going to get us nowhere, sure we may trounce a few teams here and there but it’s impossible to get the level of consistency required out of this bunch of players.

Thing is, had we at least gotten a point against Newcastle (as we should've at least) we'd be above them right now.

 

[keithtighe93]

Levy is the problem. But Ange is also not good enough for me.

We’ve failed to beat Leicester, Palace, and Ipswich - this is shocking, and it’s not Levy’s fault. Not to forget Brighton!

Of course he didn’t get the players he wanted, but he continues to persist with pushing our full backs ahead of Solanke, and defending with 2 players.

It’s idiotic and that’s not on Levy. Plenty of stuff is on DL, but not these tactics

 

[Jamturk]

Fine margins, we should have been 3rd and progressing in our cup competitions.

Looks like injuries are going to kill our season though like it does to other teams.

 

[Rout-Ledge]

Calm down

Fine margins, we should have been 3rd and progressing in our cup competitions.

Looks like injuries are going to kill our season though like it does to other teams.

We’ve had a pretty kind run of fixtures to hit the ground running this season. Arsenal and City are faltering massively. Liverpool and Chelsea have new managers. United have already sacked their manger. We are still in 10th place and have given two relegations candidates their first wins of the season.

We didn’t lay a glove on winless Palace. We blew a two goal lead to Brighton. 2-0 down to a winless Ipswich at home by half time. This isn’t fine margins, this is a royal fuckup.

 

[Mark_147]

Yet at the same time, we have conceded just one goal more than Arsenal in the league this season. We have conceded fewer goals than most teams in the league, in fact- 13 in 11 matches. Only Liverpool (6), Forest (10), Newcastle (11), Arsenal (12) and Man U (12) have conceded fewer. We also have the second-best goal difference in the league +10.

I'm not sure it's a commitment thing, but I'm not convinced it's predominantly a structural thing either. I think if we dropped deeper we might concede fewer goals, but as the stats show we're not conceding that many goals right now.

To me, it feels like we've made a lot of individual mistakes this season and given away some cheap goals. I think this partly comes down to having a core of experienced players who are fairly inconsistent—like Vicario, Bissouma, Bentancur, and more recently, Romero—alongside many young, inexperienced players. The balance seems a bit off to me, but it's what I expected after the summer's transfer window.

Last season after 11 games W 8, D 2, L 1, GF 23, GA 13. Exactly the same stats in terms of goal difference and it all went pear shaped from that point on.

 

[RuskyM]

Levy is the problem. But Ange is also not good enough for me.

We’ve failed to beat Leicester, Palace, and Ipswich - this is shocking, and it’s not Levy’s fault. Not to forget Brighton!

Of course he didn’t get the players he wanted, but he continues to persist with pushing our full backs ahead of Solanke, and defending with 2 players.

It’s idiotic and that’s not on Levy. Plenty of stuff is on DL, but not these tactics

Okay, but if we win those games we're 2nd. So the baseline can't be *that* bad. Or is the assumption that everyone else is going to get their shit together and we won't?

 

[midoshairband]

Yet at the same time, we have conceded just one goal more than Arsenal in the league this season. We have conceded fewer goals than most teams in the league, in fact- 13 in 11 matches. Only Liverpool (6), Forest (10), Newcastle (11), Arsenal (12) and Man U (12) have conceded fewer. We also have the second-best goal difference in the league +10.

I'm not sure it's a commitment thing, but I'm not convinced it's predominantly a structural thing either. I think if we dropped deeper we might concede fewer goals, but as the stats show we're not conceding that many goals right now.

To me, it feels like we've made a lot of individual mistakes this season and given away some cheap goals. I think this partly comes down to having a core of experienced players who are fairly inconsistent—like Vicario, Bissouma, Bentancur, and more recently, Romero—alongside many young, inexperienced players. The balance seems a bit off to me, but it's what I expected after the summer's transfer window.

yep, some great points there.

very valid on the personal mistake front to be fair. sometimes we feel a bit 'last-ditch' however a lot of the mistakes that come to mind are things like - not marking your man, unawareness of what's around, not challenging in the air/poor headers, half-hearted closing down/blocking, and making poor clearances. i wonder what causes that? lack of quality? not being switched on?

the real killer is the amount of times we lose the ball in attack when we really shouldn't, either through poor passes/crosses. That means we get turned around more often, and quicker, than we really should and puts us under pressure.

perhaps more in my mind is the chances we give up or the amount of times i feel like we're just about getting through a situation, as opposed to pure number of goals conceded.

 

[Disco]

Saw a stat today (and its probably been mentioned in here more than once but sorry cant read through all the posts) that in their first 50 PL games as manager both Klopp and Arteta won 26.

Ange is 25 after 49.

Haven't fact check that one though.

 

[Mr Pink]

Look Levy is the wider, bigger problem.

We all know who'll end up going first though. And it aint Levy.

 

[brasil_spur]

We’ve had a pretty kind run of fixtures to hit the ground running this season. Arsenal and City are faltering massively. Liverpool and Chelsea have new managers. United have already sacked their manger. We are still in 10th place and have given two relegations candidates their first wins of the season.

We didn’t lay a glove on winless Palace. We blew a two goal lead to Brighton. 2-0 down to a winless Ipswich at home by half time. This isn’t fine margins, this is a royal fuckup.

Well this is the thing that when it comes to the PL is very hard to actually say these days.

Kind fixtures don't necessarily look like kind fixtures of old anymore.

Playing a team like Ipswich, who on paper look shite this season, but actually have been holding their own with only two large score defeats against City and West Ham - makes it look like a kind fixture. But in reality they are a team that are very well set-up, looking desperately for a win, playing us on the back of a run of 3 mid-week games.

In short I don't think it's easy to look at a run of games anymore in the PL and call it "kind" without some pretty in-depth contextual analysis.

 

[Rout-Ledge]

Well this is the thing that when it comes to the PL is very hard to actually say these days.

Kind fixtures don't necessarily look like kind fixtures of old anymore.

Playing a team like Ipswich, who on paper look shite this season, but actually have been holding their own with only two large score defeats against City and West Ham - makes it look like a kind fixture. But in reality they are a team that are very well set-up, looking desperately for a win, playing us on the back of a run of 3 mid-week games.

In short I don't think it's easy to look at a run of games anymore in the PL and call it "kind" without some pretty in-depth contextual analysis.

That’s all fair enough, and I agree there are no easy fixtures. But we also lost at home to Arsenal, who really haven’t looked great this season. We’ve got to play City, Chelsea and Liverpool soon too, and if we lose those our position will be looking very dodgy indeed.

 

[brasil_spur]

Fine margins, we should have been 3rd and progressing in our cup competitions.

Looks like injuries are going to kill our season though like it does to other teams.

This is where our summer transfer activity is going to kick us.

Solanke - Great addition for this season.
Werner - decent squad option for this season if we have the space but we knew his limitations.
Gray - Great medium term addition and useful squad player for this season.
Odobert - Great medium term addition and potential useful squad player for this season.
Bergvall - Great medium-long term addition, too inexperienced at top level to impact this season.


And that's it. 5 players in, only one of which is going to make a proper impact to our matches this season. Yet we have added European football and we want to be competitive in the cups.

We missed the chance to sign an impact winger. We missed the chance to sign a left sided defender. We pretty much all knew this at the time and what we're seeing right now is the result of this.

Instead of "Levy out" - I personally want to see "Levy get your fucking cheque book out" signs.

We need a couple of top class players to be able to become competitive on all fronts during a season. Fingers crossed that by some miracle we can solve this in January.

 

[thebenjamin]

Look Levy is the wider, bigger problem.

We all know who'll up going first though. And it aint Levy.

Yeah I'm buzzing to have Ryan Mason until the end of the season while we spend 6 months trying to prise Eddie Howe out of Newcastle who says yes on the proviso he can bring Isak with him. And then when he gets here we announce a music and entertainment partnership with crooner Chris Isaac. #welcomeEddie

 

[brasil_spur]

That’s all fair enough, and I agree there are no easy fixtures. But we also lost at home to Arsenal, who really haven’t looked great this season. We’ve got to play City, Chelsea and Liverpool soon too, and if we lose those our position will be looking very dodgy indeed.

Agree, but I think we have as much chance against Chelsea and Liverpool as they'll be wanting to play more open and attacking football, as we do against teams that come at us with a plan of countering our style of football. City we've already beaten, but of course I expect the league game to be harder.

Arsenal - don't be fooled, this season they are playing like a semi-elite version of a relegation battling team - dark arts and a very defensive setup. It's why their season is unravelling - because playing like this can be effective at getting results a lot of the time, but it's never going to get you competing at the top.

 

[WiganSpur]

Levy is the problem. But Ange is also not good enough for me.

We’ve failed to beat Leicester, Palace, and Ipswich - this is shocking, and it’s not Levy’s fault. Not to forget Brighton!

Of course he didn’t get the players he wanted, but he continues to persist with pushing our full backs ahead of Solanke, and defending with 2 players.

It’s idiotic and that’s not on Levy. Plenty of stuff is on DL, but not these tactics

I always believed the argument that Levy was always the reason a manager could never get any further than close, and not a valid enough reason to beat the likes of Ipswich etc.

However I think it’s a bit more nuanced than that. It just seems to consistently seep through to fans, staff and players in subtle and non obvious ways that makes underperformance like this more possible. It just feels like there’s a lack of hope and belief in the long term, no matter who the manager is. If the manager starts to lose hope or gets increasingly ticked off then that’s a massive problem.

Somehow, if the financial constraints were genuine and not self imposed by Levy, then things would be a lot different. There would be an acceptance rather than frustration, and i think it would make it more likely for a manager to squeeze more juice out of the oranges. No coincidence that Pochettino managed this when we were still playing at White Hart Lane, and not when we moved to the new ground.

 

[WiganSpur]

Yeah I'm buzzing to have Ryan Mason until the end of the season while we spend 6 months trying to prise Eddie Howe out of Newcastle who says yes on the proviso he can bring Isak with him. And then when he gets here we announce a music and entertainment partnership with crooner Chris Isaac. #welcomeEddie

In a weird way as much of a disastrous decision it would be, I might actually take Ange being sacked mid season for Ryan Mason because the knives would well and truly be out for Levy. Not something he could quash easily at all. No big name managers he could bring in to shut it up. No sticking plaster players he could bring in for a temporary manager. Might speed up the takeover.

 

[keithtighe93]

Okay, but if we win those games we're 2nd. So the baseline can't be *that* bad. Or is the assumption that everyone else is going to get their shit together and we won't?

But we didn't win them, and it's a consistent pattern. We didn't show up in them either

 

[mil1lion]

I watch how that lot down the road bust their asses to get back into shape and defend, and it's poles apart. they really defend as a team. you can argue it's at the expense of some attacking flair, but the commitment from every single player to turn and get back when they're broken on, is something else.

doesn't feel to me like we have that commitment (vdV apart).

I think there is something in this as well because they do bust a gut pressing forward so they do work hard there. I think with Ange he is coaching so much about attacking mentality the players don't have the same approach to get back and defend. They're just thinking about how can press forward again. It's kind of the opposite to what happened under Jose and Conte where the players instincts were to drop off and we got too deep. For example with the Ipswich 2nd goal I wonder if he's having a go at players for not finishing their chance or if he's having a go at not chasing back to defend the counter (if not both).