Manager Watch: Ange Postecoglou

[Hazelton]

I'm still on the fence, I'm happy for him to be given the season and I could also understand and accept it if we parted ways. The key thing for me is that I really don't believe any of the current pool of managers out there would do much better with what we have.

It goes without saying that this season has been very disappointing, but that has carried on from the summer transfer window. I said at the close of business that we hadn't done enough and that we had done a good job of trimming the fat but still hadn't improved the first eleven.

This time last season, we were 5th with 27 points and 8 wins, 3 draws and 3 defeats. Now we're 10th with 20 points and 6 wins, 2 draws and 6 defeats. Even the most pro-Ange fans would say that isn't good enough and certainly isn't an improvement.

Whatever happens, there needs to be change, whether that's the manager or the way he approaches things, the players, January additions etc. This isn't good enough and the only saving grace is that we're still in all four competitions and there have been a few glimpses of something special. The pressure is on Ange now for the first real time, if he's as big a winner and character as he acts then he'll make the necessary adjustments and get things back on track.

 

[Nerine]

Here’s another one @Tucker and I’ve gone through 4 pages out of 1,350. I reckon I could find some more if I could be arsed but I’ve spent 10 mins on this which is 10 mins to long.


“It’s frustrating. I get it, but we’re owed fuck all. Our squad is upper mid table and it’s playing out that way.

Ange in. Im not convinced anyone would do any better at this juncture because the club is largely a bit pointles”

I think you’re misrepresenting my post (again) tbh.
My issue is with Levy. Taking a macro view, no manager changes our situation. We’re not set up for success. The board don’t want to invest in footballing success. That’s manager agnostic. So chopping and changing is completely pointless.

 

[Frank Blank]

I'm still on the fence, I'm happy for him to be given the season and I could also understand and accept it if we parted ways. The key thing for me is that I really don't believe any of the current pool of managers out there would do much better with what we have.

It goes without saying that this season has been very disappointing, but that has carried on from the summer transfer window. I said at the close of business that we hadn't done enough and that we had done a good job of trimming the fat but still hadn't improved the first eleven.

This time last season, we were 5th with 27 points and 8 wins, 3 draws and 3 defeats. Now we're 10th with 20 points and 6 wins, 2 draws and 6 defeats. Even the most pro-Ange fans would say that isn't good enough and certainly isn't an improvement.

Whatever happens, there needs to be change, whether that's the manager or the way he approaches things, the players, January additions etc. This isn't good enough and the only saving grace is that we're still in all four competitions and there have been a few glimpses of something special. The pressure is on Ange now for the first real time, if he's as big a winner and character as he acts then he'll make the necessary adjustments and get things back on track.

Thing is, I think we have the players. The problem is Ange is tactically naive. Yes, we're entertaining, but that comes at the cost of not being consistent (i.e failing to adapt to those teams who adapt to us). It's not rocket science and obviously others will have already said this. In normal circumstances I'd pull the the plug after our inevitable upcoming defeat to the Chavs. Yet, as you rightly point out - there ain't a lot out there in terms of available managers. So basically, Ange gets a pass by default.

 

[goughie1966]

I'm not having these excuses about transfer windows, injuries or Levy - we have a far better squad costing substantially more than Ipswich, Palace, Fulham, Leicester, Brighton and Bournemouth. And the point has been proven by beating City and Villa comfortably. These players can do it if they put their minds to it. Much of the issue is player attitude and tactics. Of which the manager has to take his fair share of the blame too.

 

[Nerine]

I'm not having these excuses about transfer windows, injuries or Levy - we have a far better squad costing substantially more than Ipswich, Palace, Fulham and Bournemouth. And the point has been proven by beating City and Villa comfortably. These players can do it if they put their minds to it. Much of the issue is player attitude and tactics. Of which the manager has to take his fair share of the blame too.

An awful lot of individual errors (really basic ones) have been the root cause of a lot of the goals we’ve conceded this season.

So is it the tactics or the penny-pinched playing staff, given the stats seem to say we don’t actually concede too many chances generally…

 

[mil1lion]

I'm not having these excuses about transfer windows, injuries or Levy - we have a far better squad costing substantially more than Ipswich, Palace, Fulham, Leicester, Brighton and Bournemouth. And the point has been proven by beating City and Villa comfortably. These players can do it if they put their minds to it. Much of the issue is player attitude and tactics. Of which the manager has to take his fair share of the blame too.

So by that theory Bournemouth beat us, Arsenal and City so should be capable beating others. It just doesn't work that way. There are various reasons why we lost those games and same for why we won some as well. It's never as simple as we beat City so should beat Ipswich. The reason why the players aren't good enough is for that very reason, they lack consistency. Top players perform in most games home or away, after international break or after a week game, with several injuries etc. These inconsistent performances are proof that the players aren't good enough. In fact maybe the issue is they think they're better than they are and think they just need to show up in smaller games. I think the plan from Ange is to build that mentality into younger players instead. That's probably because the ones we've signed in their peak years have largely been the ones lacking it. Can you actually coach that into the younger players when they have the Maddisons and Bissoumas around them though. That's my concern.

 

[Doctor Dinkey]

I'm not having these excuses about transfer windows, injuries or Levy - we have a far better squad than Ipswich, Palace, Fulham, Leicester, Brighton and Bournemouth.

Do you really think our squad is better than Brighton's? I'm not sure I do. They made pretty light work of us in that second half.

 

[purplemonkey]

Those who want him out will probably be up in arms over the replacement. I imagine it’d be Frank or Iraola as the front runners with Potter as the fallback option, but the majority of fans who are disenchanted will be quick to voice accusations of a lack of ambition from the club, so the new manager steps into a toxic environment from day one. The truth is there aren’t many options out there and I don’t see the landscape drastically changing this summer, so it makes more sense for the board to stick with Ange unless/until we crash out of the cups I think.

 

[Cambridge Spur]

Do you really think our squad is better than Brighton's? I'm not sure I do. They made pretty light work of us in that second half.

Come on, our squad is definitely better than Brighton’s.

 

[evo23]

Tactically Inept and being found out at the highest level.

love his approach but we will never be successful if he
cannot adapt tactically to the opposition. We are
not and never will be prime Barcelona or Madrid and cannot expect to blow teams away every week.

We have to learn to suffer and stay in games and win ugly. Unfortunately it seems he has no interest in this. He has no interest in the set pieces that are costing us game after game.

He either changes his outlook, drops his ego when it comes to his philosophy and accepts he needs to learn from his experience of the premier league on the last 18 months and make a change - or he will be sacked.

Despite your experience and age, you are not the finished article when it comes to management Ange. You can learn, change and adapt.This is not the Scottish league anymore.

 

[Albertbarich]

Come on, our squad is definitely better than Brighton’s.

I’m not so sure.

they have two good keepers, plenty of defensive cover, I’d take their wide men over ours, is our central midfield much better and they have very good striker options.

I don’t think there is much in it.

 

[Cambridge Spur]

I’m not so sure.

they have two good keepers, plenty of defensive cover, I’d take their wide men over ours, is our central midfield much better and they have very good striker options.

I don’t think there is much in it.

As much as people think we overrate our players, we also have a tendency to underrate our players when things are going wrong.

 

[mattstev2000]

Absolute nonsense. I agree the last couple of weeks outside of the City game have been reliant on fairly average squad players who look knackered, but you’re allowing your agenda here to cover up the fact that we’ve played some excellent stuff this season.

Up until last GW, fairly sure we’d also scored the most goals and that only Liverpool, Chelsea had conceded fewer. The poor form we’re in plus last season’s end is blinding a few.

It's not absolute nonsense and I don't have any more of an agenda than you do regarding Ange.

It's a different opinion to yours and that's all any of this is, opinions.

The quality of the defending has more often than not been poor, the quality of the attacking sporadic but certainly no more 'glorious' than some of the matches Conte gave us during his first season.

I think he still will (and probably should) get the rest of the season, but I think there would have to be a pretty big turn around in performance and consistency for him to be given more than that (and rightly so).

If we finish where we are now then that will be our worst league performance since the 2007 season. 17 years ago. That won't be because he's not been backed or has had bad injuries it will simply be because he's not good enough. Hopefully it won't happen that way but we're 14 matches in and so far the only thing consistent about us is our inconsistency.

 

[mil1lion]

Last season we didn't play in Europe so we had 1 game a week. Our form against all the top teams was terrible. We had a bad run of injuries but when they came back it didn't change. We finished 5th. We improved the first team with just 1 player and we now play twice a week. We have another bad run of injuries, possibly even worse than lasts season. What are peoples expectations exactly?

 

[mattstev2000]

Last season we didn't play in Europe so we had 1 game a week. Our form against all the top teams was terrible. We had a bad run of injuries but when they came back it didn't change. We finished 5th. We improved the first team with just 1 player and we now play twice a week. We have another bad run of injuries, possibly even worse than lasts season. What are peoples expectations exactly?

Better than 11th in the league and considerably better performances against the might of Ipswich, Bournemouth, Crystal Palace, Fulham, Brighton and Leicester?

Both of those should be comfortably within the bounds of the squad we have and the number of games we play.

 

[gavspur]

Basically:
Should he be doing better with the players he has? Yes.
Is the squad good enough? For the top 8-5, yes, above that, no.
Do things need to be adapted/worked on? Yes
Has he been given the correct tools to compete? No.

So, really, I see it as 50/50 split between his own problems, and problems others have dealt him. We all know Levy, so it would seem pretty easy to guess how this ends up. And it’s not Levy giving up his position. I do think that another manager, I don’t know who, could steady the ship a bit. So could Ange tho, if he adjusted.

 

[newbie]

Our wingers are so

I'm not having these excuses about transfer windows, injuries or Levy - we have a far better squad costing substantially more than Ipswich, Palace, Fulham, Leicester, Brighton and Bournemouth. And the point has been proven by beating City and Villa comfortably. These players can do it if they put their minds to it. Much of the issue is player attitude and tactics. Of which the manager has to take his fair share of the blame too.

Have you seen how bad our wide players are atm it’s killing us Ange even eluded to it

 

[Ghost Hardware]

Another cracker from the most knowledgeable poster on the board!

To pass your interview to replace Lange, you have 70m and 150k per week in wages in total available to spend next month.

What do you do with it, mate?

Spend all or some of it, keep some in the kitty because your target/s more achievable in the summer?

Thanks bud. It’s a really interesting question. I think you’re probably very close with your estimate re budget for the upcoming window. There is a good chance the targets we might ideally want won’t be available in Jan but I think it’s imperative we upgrade our attack in some way.

I don’t think saving our shrapnel is an option. 1 or 2 signings might not save Ange but 0 certainly won’t. We also need to add to the squad at every opportunity.

Hypothetically speaking if 70 mil was the maximum we would be willing to spend then the question would be, do you drop the whole fee on one player or spread the money to bolster 2 or 3 positions.

As I’ve said several times before I think a technical attacker of some form and a rotation LB are the bare minimum. But on the flip side if you could buy a player like Marmoush instead, even if it means blowing your load on just one player, then would his impact maybe be worth it.

In a fantasy world if we could add over the next two windows Marmoush, Baena and a winger such as Gittens, Conceição, Semenyo etc then I think our attack would have significantly improved on a technical and creative level. But that would require a large spend so probably unrealistic still from a profile POV I think aiming for something similar by the start of next season would give us good positional balance and improve our attacking baseline significantly.

Not just that. Fullback cover is massive. Udogie and Porro haven't played well this season in many games and there is not enough rotation for them. They are also expending a hell of a lot of energy playing like they do. They need cover and competition.

As you say, finding the right player at DM is very very hard. Bentancur has been immense at DM many times this year, and I think his suspension is a large part of the current problem. I don't actually see too many better options than him in that position out there but maybe those with exceptional world football knowledge will know of some (@Ghost Hardware?). Bissouma is also decent backup, but if we can find someone with an accurate long pass it will completely change the way we play and can play as a team, and cause real problems for those that press us. Also in the CB positions.

Wingers - pace is a must, but technical ability, dribbling and finishing ability massive. Imagine how many goals Werner would have if he could finish. He'd be on 10+ surely, and that's without even playing that many games.

Re DM, I don’t think there are any new names that have materialised in the last few months that haven’t already been mentioned in the Scouting Thread. I think realistically you would be looking at Varela, Ricci, Cardoso (although I have concerns) and Baleba (although he will be well beyond our reach financially). There others as well but essentially there isn’t an obvious pick playing at a high level but I do think we can still improve the position.

 

[Snarfalicious]

Last season we didn't play in Europe so we had 1 game a week. Our form against all the top teams was terrible. We had a bad run of injuries but when they came back it didn't change. We finished 5th. We improved the first team with just 1 player and we now play twice a week. We have another bad run of injuries, possibly even worse than lasts season. What are peoples expectations exactly?

I think it’s simply play inferior players that we know cannot meet his style of play in order to rotate the squad to avoid injury and burnout but still be competitive across all competitions all while playing an attractive style of football that leans more towards attacking while being solid defensively at the same time. That’s all we ask.

 

[Hercules]

If he doesn’t change quick he will die on his own sword.