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Welcome Ange: To Dare is to Didgeridoo

glorygloryeze said:
My point is we seem to be much more comfortable in these "building from the ground up" cycles and less so in the "OK we have a good team/squad we just need to go the extra mile to properly capitalise": that takes bravery AND money, well we know how that goes...
I worry we will find it much harder to get into that cycle we had at times with Poch until we do actually get over the line: why join us if you know when it gets to that point we always retreat into our shells (for whatever reason at the given time)? Those really ambitious and good will more likely pass imo, there are better options out there: even Real Madrid have stolen a march on scouting and buying young with great potential..

Wrt Kane, i think his heart started sinking with us as soon as he signed the contract and saw us actually go a whole year without buying any proper re-inforcements for a squad that had busted a gut to keep us top 4 even when we'd had to play at Wembley. I think a few bodies and minds went after that 2018 summer actually, not just Kane...he is as much to blame for anyone with the lack of trophies, he's also the main person who allowed that to be a string possibility though.: great strikers don't come cheap - and we had one of the best fall into our laps for free!
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Yeah, don't know how we measure your first paragraph really. Last time it happened was 2017 and we were in the middle of the financial pinch of building a stadium. I do genuinely believe that if we get to the Poch peak again, we can both sustain it and surpass it this time. We won't have a situation where we have burnt out certain players and have no way of re-energising or replacing them. We won't have the same problem with players getting past their sell-by dates and not having suitable replacements.

I guess we find out this time whether it is financial thing or a club mentality thing.
 
billyiddo said:
We've just spent the last GHod knows how long painfully trying to rid the squad of our ready made squad signings that didn't work out - obviously that's not to say buying more established players is inherently a bad move but the pitfalls are severely debilitating if you get things wrong.
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United have that issue constantly
Buying expensive failures
 
Muttley said:
Was looking at your comment about the latency between signing for the club and when we feel the real benefit of the signings.

I'm trying to figure out who hits those levels next, knowing that it's probably not Gray, Bergval, Moore. They feel like the ones after that.

All I could come up with was Phillips, Devine, Scarlett as they hit their earl twenties.
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Odobert if he counts.

Gray, Bergvall and Moore are perhaps ahead of Phillips, Devine and Donley at the moment, but that can change.

The good thing is that we have multiple players with the potential to step up. Hopefully some of them will.
 
braineclipse said:
Odobert if he counts.

Gray, Bergvall and Moore are perhaps ahead of Phillips, Devine and Donley at the moment, but that can change.

The good thing is that we have multiple players with the potential to step up. Hopefully some of them will.
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It's an interesting and probably correct perspective. We do tend to think that players that are with us are ahead. It was interesting how Lankshear suddenly became much better than Scarlett and Veliz because he was banging them in playing in PL2 and they were having tough loans. I always pondered how many goals Scarlett would have got in our U21s. Would he have also been the PL2 player of the season?

I guess what we do know is that Devine and Phillips have a value to a UEFA squad next season. I think Phillips is free-pick B-list as he's completed 2 seasons. Same as Donley. Alfie could be club trained if he's turning 21.

If I look at previous patterns, we normally see the club keep the 17/18 year olds with us. It's the 19-21 ages that tend to head out on loan. Not sure whether that changes now with the new regime.
 
Bishop said:
I deffo wouldn't downplay it and we are hardly in the position to poopoo any actual competition wins. I'm just not sure i'd take the CC, finish 8th and be happy with what we got this season.
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I would. I'd take that right now. It would be the best season we'd had for a decade and more.
 
braineclipse said:
A description from the extra inch podcast that's also been used here before is that Ange's system requires all the parts to be working to be good. Similarly to a lot of top coaches like Pep, Klopp and Conte.

To me a bit different to for example Mourinho (when good), Emery and other (also top coaches) who are more "no matter what happens we'll be in a situation to grind out a result" with their systems.

We have been assembling this squad for quite a while now as you say, we have spent quite a lot of money. But we have gone for a fairly long term squad building approach. If there were no further changes (hypothetically) this squad should be better in 3 years than it is now.

When injuries hit hard and the fixture list gets congested that will leave an Ange team with this squad building approach suffering. Probably more than say if we had Emery in charge for example.

I like that approach. I think that's our best way to build something that will be special. And wanting real success from our financial situation and the starting point pre Ange we have to build something special I think. I think the ceiling over time is higher with that approach.

That's how players like Gray, Bergvall, Spence, Moore, Odobert etc will learn to play well in this system. That's how players like Udogie, Johnson, Dragusin and Sarr can take further steps playing this system. Not abandoning it when things get tough, but sticking to it, learning and developing to become key players for us.
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Bedfordspurs said:
Your joking
I have heard fans and even moderately reputable pods say if he doesnt win the next few games he should be sacked by Monday
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That’s the reality of football now. It’s why I’m sceptical of talk of a project which lasts a number of years. If we’re to finish, say, 8th this year and not win a cup I would not be surprised at all to see Ange shown the door.
Muttley said:
I get it. We have a recent history of managers losing the changing room. Even Hugo alluded in his book to Jose losing a big section of his squad whilst in charge. Massive implications that Nuno and Conte did as well.

I don't see one hint of that yet with Ange. In fact, I believe we have a growing culture of belief and even if those bad results come, I don't think it is the same scenario.

We had toxic managers and we had toxic players previously. Let's hope that is not the case this time around.
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I don’t think he has lost the dressing room, but I’m not convinced he has total buy-in from a fair number of players.
 
Mikey10 said:
I don’t think he has lost the dressing room, but I’m not convinced he has total buy-in from a fair number of players.
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But the key there is that there are only about 3/4 players I would be bothered about leaving should he wield his power.

The issue I have with us, and I think it goes a long way to why we have not done more over the year is that some players are not doing enough, sulk and they see off another manager, all the while we get short changed as fans.

I would be happy for that balance to change over time and some of them get fcuked off
 
Muttley said:
It's an interesting and probably correct perspective. We do tend to think that players that are with us are ahead. It was interesting how Lankshear suddenly became much better than Scarlett and Veliz because he was banging them in playing in PL2 and they were having tough loans. I always pondered how many goals Scarlett would have got in our U21s. Would he have also been the PL2 player of the season?

I guess what we do know is that Devine and Phillips have a value to a UEFA squad next season. I think Phillips is free-pick B-list as he's completed 2 seasons. Same as Donley. Alfie could be club trained if he's turning 21.

If I look at previous patterns, we normally see the club keep the 17/18 year olds with us. It's the 19-21 ages that tend to head out on loan. Not sure whether that changes now with the new regime.
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I'm mostly basing my opinion (that is frequently wrong) here on those players already playing at a higher level (EL, not PL, but still). And Odobert and Gray having a season of PL and Championship football already. And Moore looking like a football GHod for 20 minutes in one game.

For sure it can change. And loans may come. Some on loan now may come back stronger than what their loan performances may indicate.
 
Mikey10 said:
That’s the reality of football now. It’s why I’m sceptical of talk of a project which lasts a number of years. If we’re to finish, say, 8th this year and not win a cup I would not be surprised at all to see Ange shown the door.

I don’t think he has lost the dressing room, but I’m not convinced he has total buy-in from a fair number of players.
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The "project" has to continue if Ange is shown the door.

I like and rate Ange a lot. I'm quite positive about him. But I'm more positive about the somewhat longer term "project" going on.
 
braineclipse said:
The "project" has to continue if Ange is shown the door.

I like and rate Ange a lot. I'm quite positive about him. But I'm more positive about the somewhat longer term "project" going on.
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I’d love to share your optimism. It doesn’t feel that a huge amount has changed to me since the stadium move when it comes to how we operate, nor since Ange arrived tbh.
 
Mikey10 said:
I don’t think he has lost the dressing room, but I’m not convinced he has total buy-in from a fair number of players.
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If I played as a number 6 in an Ange side, I'm not sure he'd get my buy-in. Saying that, kids that age don't tend to overthink this stuff like we do. They just get on with it.
 
braineclipse said:
I'm mostly basing my opinion (that is frequently wrong) here on those players already playing at a higher level (EL, not PL, but still). And Odobert and Gray having a season of PL and Championship football already. And Moore looking like a football GHod for 20 minutes in one game.

For sure it can change. And loans may come. Some on loan now may come back stronger than what their loan performances may indicate.
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Yeah, so gutted I've missed so much football this season. Ditto again tonight. I'm back in the house band at an open mic and will be lucky to see any of it. Got my priorities all wrong !!!

I haven't even seen Odobert yet, and don't even recall that 20 mins of Moore but have seen other glimpses of him over the last year. I did feel that Devine was one of our better players in pre-season though. He played with the maturity of a 28 year old in some games I saw. Reminded me when I first saw Winks in pre-season.
 
Mikey10 said:
I’d love to share your optimism. It doesn’t feel that a huge amount has changed to me since the stadium move when it comes to how we operate, nor since Ange arrived tbh.
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To me a pretty clear change when Paratici came in. Started buying highly talented young players for the future (again), Sarr and Udogie.

The difference in spending power since pre stadium move is imo rather large. We're back to the pre Pochettino and early days Pochettino approach essentially, but with more spending power to do it with.
 
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