Welcome Ange: To Dare is to Didgeridoo

[metalgear]

City's situation is a little different. Their squad is/was a little over the hill and they haven't refreshed and replenished it well. Somewhat like us in 17-19. Of course they have better players in the first place so the drop off wasn't as dramatic but that's the route cause. They thinned their squad but didn't really replace the players or at least what the players who left provided. They are refilling now but it's a little too little too late in terms of this season. So yes they've been affected by injuries but it's not the injuries as a root cause. It was letting Mahrez, Sterling, De Bruyne, Rodri, Jesus, Alvarez, Cancelo, Palmer, Gundogan etc leave or get old with no real replacements.

The results were better, but the results and performances weren't good before the injury crisis.

Gungdogan ...left at peak and returned old!

 

[thfcsteff]

And how about the other players? What about Davies. Culpable for 3 of the 4 goals. Looked every part of a Championship centre half for the entire game. Trust me, there was no confidence given by Ben for his young team mates around him. He was an absolute mess. Gets a pass every week though. Sonny doesn't get a pass from some, and rightly so. He was a mess as well. Our 2 most senior players.

I notice once more the ABA'ers are finding any reason other than the manager himself to root cause the defeat. Obviously, there can be multiple root causes and we know injuries and fatigue are a huge one. However, for the time that our midfield and forward trios were on the pitch we couldn't muster a single chance, and they certainly didn't work well defensively as a unit of 6. Slight concerns on Sarr as well. He's becoming a lone wolf rather than a team cog. It's not as if those 6 players aren't quality, at least on paper.

The big concern here is still consistency with Ange's system. He seemed to imply again that the game plan wasn't what we all saw with our own eyes. He seemed to imply that it was mis-execution from the players......AGAIN. How many more times are we just going to lay it all at the players doors rather than really asking the question why an Ange tactical system is so hard to be adopted by his players? What is it about this coach and his methods that is so hard to take on board? It's not as if he's just followed a Plan A path. It's not as if we didn't have 15 quality outfield players in that squad either. Our squad is the deepest it's ever been.

Nobody expected a result at Anfield. I was hoping for a different performance though. Seriously worried about Villa now. I had that one about 50:50. It's now swung to about 75:25 in their favour in my opinion. I'll be shocked if we get a result tomorrow.

Strangely enough though, I'm still expecting Ange to complete the season.

He has protected the players time and time and time again. Not sure where you're seeing otherwise? He always says the responsibility lies with him, and ultimately, that will mean that unless he pulls a Europa rabbit out of the hat, he's going walkies in late May.

Thursday was a lose-lose (unless we hadn't LOL) IMO. If we'd gone 'full AB' and got smashed 6-3 again, he'd have been pilloried for not being able to adapt and 'sit' on a lead/protect it. For whatever reason (and I think it was a combo of fatigue and just plain freezing) we went conservartive and ended up fudging ourselves

Agree with most of that except the bit about Davies where I think you’re being a little harsh.

Even Ange’s comments after the game about “the lesson is we shouldn’t deviate from what got us here to start with” reek of “I’ve tried what everyone else wanted and look how that turned out. I know best.”

There will always be an excuse for Ange. “Not enough football”, “too much football”, “unlucky with injuries”, “hasn’t been backed” and so on and so on.

If he got sacked tomorrow, he and his supporters would claim that he was hard done by and had to deal with unprecedented circumstances.

For me, the evidence has been there for over a year now (in fact, it’s been there since even earlier if you looked beyond the results in the first 10 games). He’s just not good enough for this level.

Being 14th in the league in February is pretty much as bad as anyone can do managing Tottenham.

Ahhhhhhh Deano...the luxury of youth oozes from that statement mi amigo ;-)