Franco Baldini

[thfcsteff]

i think that it's WAY too early to be saying things like this mate. i think our squad had a lot of holes last summer and we've filled the majority of them - the signings overall haven't made the impact that we would have hoped but i think there are mitigating circumstances which can be used to explain away a huge part of that. how long do you personally think is a fair time to judge a new arrival? does a poor first season mean he's a failure or do you hold out hope of him improving in their second season? if the latter then it's only fair to allow the DoF the same time at a minimum before judging him on his recruitment policy. not strengthening LB is the only real problem i have with last summers transfer activity.

the way i see it the DoF is a long term role - and should be judged over a period of time a lot longer than one season.

i absolutely agree but there's no smoke without fire, and I have also heard that relations between Our Fearless Leader and Baldini have been strained for some time. Personally, I put it down to the fact that DL wants to have a DOF, wants to have someone else do transfers, but when it comes to it actually cannot help himself!!!! We shall see, but I fear another massive summer of transition!

 

[suffolkspur]

i absolutely agree but there's no smoke without fire, and I have also heard that relations between Our Fearless Leader and Baldini have been strained for some time. Personally, I put it down to the fact that DL wants to have a DOF, wants to have someone else do transfers, but when it comes to it actually cannot help himself!!!! We shall see, but I fear another massive summer of transition!

:ross: Does Levy actually get on with anyone? Rumours of fallings out with Redknapp, AVB and Baldini all people he has appointed?! Seriously there is no point in having a DOF if Levy won't allow him to do his job.

As far as Baldini is concerned i think this season has been disappointing but the whole club has been a mess. I am still hopeful on all the players he bought he can definitely perform at a higher level than we have seen but i do think we need to ensure we bring in an experienced coach with some level of success who will demand respect from the players and thus bring those performances out of them.

Truth be told i don't think their performances can be any worse next year. Can they? 8-[

 

[braineclipse]

i absolutely agree but there's no smoke without fire, and I have also heard that relations between Our Fearless Leader and Baldini have been strained for some time. Personally, I put it down to the fact that DL wants to have a DOF, wants to have someone else do transfers, but when it comes to it actually cannot help himself!!!! We shall see, but I fear another massive summer of transition!

Describing the tabloid media as an actual smoke machine might be a bit cliche, but it's still not far from the truth.

Which smoke exactly is it you're talking about?

Baldini should be feeling a certain amount of pressure, or strain, considering the performance so far from the 7 players we've signed under him.

(And four exclamation points in a row, four! Really, Steff? Really?)

 

[Yiddo]

Think it's a bit harsh blaming the guy for all the flops. I doubt he came in and told the manager these are the players he's getting. He may have suggested a few and both the manager and the Chairman all had a say and Baldini just helped with the negotiating. I think people are using him as a spacegoat.

 

[braineclipse]

Think it's a bit harsh blaming the guy for all the flops. I doubt he came in and told the manager these are the players he's getting. He may have suggested a few and both the manager and the Chairman all had a say and Baldini just helped with the negotiating. I think people are using him as a spacegoat.

If that was as a reply to my post I'm not blaming him exclusively, but someone in his role will have been heavily involved in the decision making at least. And he should be feeling the pressure as these players are underperforming.

 

[mudshark]

Personally, I've always felt Levy's putative love of the DoF system is no more nor less than the instinctive desire of the corporate animal that he is to have more bodies in line in between him and the balls-ups he presides over. Comolli, Baldini — just another pair of fall guys in the end. Money men like Levy are all the same. They can fail a hundred times, and it'll always be someone else's fault, but let them have a single success, and they are forever convinced they're a domain expert.

 

[metalgear]

so when there's a mismatch between the what the coach wants and what he gets, who is accountable?

 

[BrainOfLevy]

i absolutely agree but there's no smoke without fire, and I have also heard that relations between Our Fearless Leader and Baldini have been strained for some time. Personally, I put it down to the fact that DL wants to have a DOF, wants to have someone else do transfers, but when it comes to it actually cannot help himself!!!! We shall see, but I fear another massive summer of transition!

How is it possible they've been strained for some time?! He's only been here since the summer. That is mental.

 

[the fox in the box]

I think it would be good to remeber the core of our CL qualifing team under Harry...

a good percentage of those key players were thanks to Comollii... a man who at the time we all thought was useless....


a DoF is a job for the future... so lets judge his influence at the end of next season and how we start the 15-16 season yes?

 

[braineclipse]

I think it would be good to remeber the core of our CL qualifing team under Harry...

a good percentage of those key players were thanks to Comollii... a man who at the time we all thought was useless....


a DoF is a job for the future... so lets judge his influence at the end of next season and how we start the 15-16 season yes?

Absolutely!

But part of his job is also to help identify and bring in players to sort out our short term problems. It's the part of the job Comolli failed miserably at for us and for Liverpool. As an aside this also includes making decent estimates on how quickly the new recruits can be expected to perform at the desired level.

For his first transfer window I think for this part of the job Baldini hasn't covered himself in glory. We came into the previous window with serious problems up front, needing an attacking replacement for Bale, weak at left back, with shortcomings in central midfield and at centre back. Most of those problems have not been sorted out.

However, I'm more than willing to give Baldini time. Recruitment is a collaboration between several people and we're still looking at a fairly small sample size for however many signings Baldini was the main man for.

 

[BrainOfLevy]

Absolutely!

But part of his job is also to help identify and bring in players to sort out our short term problems. It's the part of the job Comolli failed miserably at for us and for Liverpool. As an aside this also includes making decent estimates on how quickly the new recruits can be expected to perform at the desired level.

For his first transfer window I think for this part of the job Baldini hasn't covered himself in glory. We came into the previous window with serious problems up front, needing an attacking replacement for Bale, weak at left back, with shortcomings in central midfield and at centre back. Most of those problems have not been sorted out.

However, I'm more than willing to give Baldini time. Recruitment is a collaboration between several people and we're still looking at a fairly small sample size for however many signings Baldini was the main man for.

To be fair I think he has tried to address the problems. The squad on paper, in terms of pure talent, is very strong. In fact it's laughable we haven't done better with it this season when looking at it that way.

He - or the committee - just ended up signing far too many players that were not suited to this league, or at the very least need 6-12 months to settle in before they can show anything like what they are capable of. There needed to be more balance in those signings if we were still going to be serious contenders this year, which is clearly what the board expected considering how they judged AVB.

For instance, the signing of Lamela is fine, particularly when we have Townsend and Lennon picking up the slack and allowing him to settle in slowly for the season. But we also have Soldado, we also have Chadli, we also have Paulinho, Capoue, all players that never played in this country before and all needing certain amounts of time to acclimitise, and during that time we will inevitably drop points when that happens.

This summers signings may well work out well for us next season. That's how I always thought it would go to be honest. But that should have been understood by the club, rather than putting ridiculous expectations on these players and staff to achieve something we've barely ever achieved in our entire history. Crazy.

 

[Gutter Boy]

To be fair I think he has tried to address the problems. The squad on paper, in terms of pure talent, is very strong. In fact it's laughable we haven't done better with it this season when looking at it that way.

He - or the committee - just ended up signing far too many players that were not suited to this league, or at the very least need 6-12 months to settle in before they can show anything like what they are capable of. There needed to be more balance in those signings if we were still going to be serious contenders this year, which is clearly what the board expected considering how they judged AVB.

For instance, the signing of Lamela is fine, particularly when we have Townsend and Lennon picking up the slack and allowing him to settle in slowly for the season. But we also have Soldado, we also have Chadli, we also have Paulinho, Capoue, all players that never played in this country before and all needing certain amounts of time to acclimitise, and during that time we will inevitably drop points when that happens.

This summers signings may well work out well for us next season. That's how I always thought it would go to be honest. But that should have been understood by the club, rather than putting ridiculous expectations on these players and staff to achieve something we've barely ever achieved in our entire history. Crazy.

I think last window was the first one in a long time where we seemed to have a logical and strategic approach.

Our three key needs before the window were CM, LM and CF. We went out early and brought in three quality players for these positions - Paulinho, Chadli and Soldado. These weren't strictly first choice (Moutinho, Bernard and Villa opted to go elsewhere), but they were the right calibre of players. Ideally the window would have closed then, and these three would have played with Bale.

Next we decided to swap Caulker for Chirches. There has been speculation about the off-pitch reasons for Caulker's departure. But it also corrected our balance from three power CBs and one cultured one, to two of each. Similarly upgrading on Livermore with Capoue as Sandro's understudy was a decent move.

Then we got the news that Bale would be off 12-months earlier than planned - so we moved for both a short-term (Willian) and long-term (Lamela) replacement. Making the best of a bad situation.

The problems came a few days later - having to go for Eriksen in place of Willian. This left us a bit centre-heavy and left Chadli and Siggy as our options for the left-side. Late moves for Coentrao and Pato didn't come off, which still left this problem down our entire left side.

Now I still think that's a pretty decent window - an 8/10 job. If either Willian or Coentrao had come off (both failed due to external circumstance re Abramovich and Baines), AVB would still be in a job and we'd be sat comfortably in the CL places.

I'm very confident that van Gaal has almost all the ingredients (give him a LB) to turn the squad that Andre and Franco built into real contenders. The hard work of overhauling Redknapp's ageing squad dependent on 2-3 individuals is done. Now it just needs directing.

 

[Gutter Boy]

To be fair I think he has tried to address the problems. The squad on paper, in terms of pure talent, is very strong. In fact it's laughable we haven't done better with it this season when looking at it that way.

He - or the committee - just ended up signing far too many players that were not suited to this league, or at the very least need 6-12 months to settle in before they can show anything like what they are capable of. There needed to be more balance in those signings if we were still going to be serious contenders this year, which is clearly what the board expected considering how they judged AVB.

For instance, the signing of Lamela is fine, particularly when we have Townsend and Lennon picking up the slack and allowing him to settle in slowly for the season. But we also have Soldado, we also have Chadli, we also have Paulinho, Capoue, all players that never played in this country before and all needing certain amounts of time to acclimitise, and during that time we will inevitably drop points when that happens.

This summers signings may well work out well for us next season. That's how I always thought it would go to be honest. But that should have been understood by the club, rather than putting ridiculous expectations on these players and staff to achieve something we've barely ever achieved in our entire history. Crazy.

Btw I do agree that the squad was assembled with next season in mind. But for a title tilt then. This season we probably should have (and would have with Willian or Coentrao) got 3rd; 4th at worse.

I do think LvG can still have a (ultimately unsuccessful this first time) title tilt next season with this squad (and a LB), but there's some psychological damage to repair now as well.

 

[BrainOfLevy]

Btw I do agree that the squad was assembled with next season in mind. But for a title tilt then. This season we probably should have (and would have with Willian or Coentrao) got 3rd; 4th at worse.

I do think LvG can still have a (ultimately unsuccessful this first time) title tilt next season with this squad (and a LB), but there's some psychological damage to repair now as well.

Agreed with everything you say - right up to our squad being full of team players that need LvG style leadership.

I will never understand why Levy didn't put his faith in AVB though. The squad clearly was being built with the future in mind, the club took a lot of risks in sacking Harry and bringing him in, and things seem to be working well in the first season. Never understand why faith was lost so quickly.

 

[braineclipse]

To be fair I think he has tried to address the problems. The squad on paper, in terms of pure talent, is very strong. In fact it's laughable we haven't done better with it this season when looking at it that way.

He - or the committee - just ended up signing far too many players that were not suited to this league, or at the very least need 6-12 months to settle in before they can show anything like what they are capable of. There needed to be more balance in those signings if we were still going to be serious contenders this year, which is clearly what the board expected considering how they judged AVB.

For instance, the signing of Lamela is fine, particularly when we have Townsend and Lennon picking up the slack and allowing him to settle in slowly for the season. But we also have Soldado, we also have Chadli, we also have Paulinho, Capoue, all players that never played in this country before and all needing certain amounts of time to acclimitise, and during that time we will inevitably drop points when that happens.

This summers signings may well work out well for us next season. That's how I always thought it would go to be honest. But that should have been understood by the club, rather than putting ridiculous expectations on these players and staff to achieve something we've barely ever achieved in our entire history. Crazy.

Oh, I agree. It wasn't like under Comolli when we had glaring weaknesses in our midfield that went unaddressed for what seemed like ages. It's just that so far, on short term solutions, he hasn't succeeded particularly well (or at all).

I also agree that we need to strike a balance between high potential, somewhat high risk players that will most likely need time and players that can come in and be likely to do a job immediately.

Agreed with everything you say - right up to our squad being full of team players that need LvG style leadership.

I will never understand why Levy didn't put his faith in AVB though. The squad clearly was being built with the future in mind, the club took a lot of risks in sacking Harry and bringing him in, and things seem to be working well in the first season. Never understand why faith was lost so quickly.

From where I'm sitting it makes sense.

The reported sacking took place over two days, separate meetings and discussions where progress wasn't found. It's not like Levy just looked at the Liverpool game, gave up on AVB and shipped him a text saying get out. The reported meetings with Levy, Baldini and AVB where suggestions were made and AVB reportedly continued to be stubborn. Those followed (again reported) conflicts between much of the backroom staff and AVB, including Baldini who AVB seemed to really want to work with. All together I think it just added up to AVB's position at the club becoming untenable and the best laid plans of men and mice had to be reshuffled once again.

Less a chronic loss of faith over time and more an acute situation that just couldn't be allowed to continue.

 

[BrainOfLevy]

Oh, I agree. It wasn't like under Comolli when we had glaring weaknesses in our midfield that went unaddressed for what seemed like ages. It's just that so far, on short term solutions, he hasn't succeeded particularly well (or at all).

I also agree that we need to strike a balance between high potential, somewhat high risk players that will most likely need time and players that can come in and be likely to do a job immediately.



From where I'm sitting it makes sense.

The reported sacking took place over two days, separate meetings and discussions where progress wasn't found. It's not like Levy just looked at the Liverpool game, gave up on AVB and shipped him a text saying get out. The reported meetings with Levy, Baldini and AVB where suggestions were made and AVB reportedly continued to be stubborn. Those followed (again reported) conflicts between much of the backroom staff and AVB, including Baldini who AVB seemed to really want to work with. All together I think it just added up to AVB's position at the club becoming untenable and the best laid plans of men and mice had to be reshuffled once again.

Less a chronic loss of faith over time and more an acute situation that just couldn't be allowed to continue.

I'm totally on board with how the sacking of AVB happened and I still blame the club for it. AVB didn't want to be here any more and as such in those meetings, rather than fight for his job he decided it wasn't worth the hassle. What I think we should have done as a club, is never have made him feel like he wasn't respected. As it was I think he felt that, and knew that it wasn't going to work out in our set up. I don't want to turn this into an AVB discussion but I think once the sale of Bale went through we should have looked upon it as frustrating, and probably going to knock our progress back a season, and judged the manager accordingly. As it was, we thought signing 7 foreigners could paper those cracks and still achieve our targets, when you could tell from the first 8 games there were going to be inconsistencies to iron out and it wouldn't all be plain sailing.

I think Baldini did a good job if he is to be judged over 3 years say. He's done a bad job if we needed to compete strongly this season. Ultimately though I think it's Levy doing the bad job by setting unrealistic expectations based on the resources available to the staff.

 

[billyiddo]

I think Baldini did a good job if he is to be judged over 3 years say. He's done a bad job if we needed to compete strongly this season. Ultimately though I think it's Levy doing the bad job by setting unrealistic expectations based on the resources available to the staff.

agree with that - i think Soldado, being the age he is, was expected to hit the ground running more than any, had he done that and got say 10-15 goals by the Christmas period then the pressure would have been eased and the rest of the new signings may have been afforded more patience with their bedding in process.

 

[thfcsteff]

Describing the tabloid media as an actual smoke machine might be a bit cliche, but it's still not far from the truth.

Which smoke exactly is it you're talking about?

Baldini should be feeling a certain amount of pressure, or strain, considering the performance so far from the 7 players we've signed under him.

(And four exclamation points in a row, four! Really, Steff? Really?)

Trust me, excessive alliteration and gross overuse of punctuation have been huge historic happy hallmarks of my career!!!!!!!! :lol:

 

[Bedfordspurs]

I think last window was the first one in a long time where we seemed to have a logical and strategic approach.

Our three key needs before the window were CM, LM and CF. We went out early and brought in three quality players for these positions - Paulinho, Chadli and Soldado. These weren't strictly first choice (Moutinho, Bernard and Villa opted to go elsewhere), but they were the right calibre of players. Ideally the window would have closed then, and these three would have played with Bale.

Next we decided to swap Caulker for Chirches. There has been speculation about the off-pitch reasons for Caulker's departure. But it also corrected our balance from three power CBs and one cultured one, to two of each. Similarly upgrading on Livermore with Capoue as Sandro's understudy was a decent move.

Then we got the news that Bale would be off 12-months earlier than planned - so we moved for both a short-term (Willian) and long-term (Lamela) replacement. Making the best of a bad situation.

The problems came a few days later - having to go for Eriksen in place of Willian. This left us a bit centre-heavy and left Chadli and Siggy as our options for the left-side. Late moves for Coentrao and Pato didn't come off, which still left this problem down our entire left side.

Now I still think that's a pretty decent window - an 8/10 job. If either Willian or Coentrao had come off (both failed due to external circumstance re Abramovich and Baines), AVB would still be in a job and we'd be sat comfortably in the CL places.

I'm very confident that van Gaal has almost all the ingredients (give him a LB) to turn the squad that Andre and Franco built into real contenders. The hard work of overhauling Redknapp's ageing squad dependent on 2-3 individuals is done. Now it just needs directing.

I can't believe I'm agreeing you with you but I am

However I think the left sided problem is now worse than ever IMO as we simply don't have one and it leaves Rose exposed all the time. Norwichs goal came from him going toward and ultimately a poor loss of the ball from Bentelab but if rose didn't go forward we would have no one of that side of the pitch at all

Eriksen is a great player but he does not stay anywhere near to the left and again it creates so much room for the opposition to come into

We desperately need a left winger who can actually play there and let's face it Chadli and Siggy are both pretty average at best and are nearly always on the periphery of the game. If we can sort that plus get the best out of Soldado then for me the saudade looks a whole lot better and I still think this is tye best squad I've ever seen in a spurs side.... It's just hasn't gelled like it can and IMO will

 

[Cochise]

Eriksen didn't play against Norwich though??