[Editor]

Newcastle fully deserved the 3 points today. Utd were poor and have been for a few games now. We’ve coped terribly with the absences of Casemiro and Eriksen and there’s no excuse for that. Very much in the top 4 fight again now.

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😅 true Steve!

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Agree Mikus. The thing is, that chance may arise again in the summer but Potter would be somewhat damaged by the Chelsea experience by then so would probably be wise to wait for a job with less expectation where he can rebuild his reputation. De Zerbi won’t be at Brighton long, I feel. A return for Potter might nor be the worst idea.

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Agree Sean about Potter. He had a bit of a free ride for a few weeks as the press tend to go easy on the English managers at times I feel but they’ve quickly changed their tune with Potter and been going after him for a while now. The only person responsible for the circus around Spurs is Conte who brought it all on himself. Not only this most recent rant. He’s been coming out with some ridiculous from the first day he went there. People were saying it would end in tears because of the type of character Conte is and that’s proven to be the case.

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That Tuesday game is anyone’s guess. Could be a bore draw or could equally be 4-4 going by the defensive performances of both sides recently.

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Oh I’m not suggesting there’s a better one Lucky. I’m suggesting that there isn’t one full stop. No single metric can alone determine expectations for a coach. There are far too many moving parts. Let me give you an example. There’s every chance Chelsea end up with a higher wage bill than City by this summer. Imagine for a moment both City and Chelsea change managers this summer. Would we then expect the Chelsea manager to finish higher than the new City manager simply because of a higher wage bill?

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BTW, are you implying in your posts above that you think chelsea have done good business? You talk about another manager with a bloated squad and then contrast with Potter as though its different? Sounds the same to me, unless of course the new signings prove themselves to be of considerable quality and good value.

I’m merely suggesting that it would be flawed and unfair to solely judge Potter’s expectations on his wage bill alone as, unlike managers you’d be comparing him to, he’d have spent an unprecedented amount of money on transfers and (presumably) had a massive influence in those players being selected. Ie if he does have high earners there’s a good chance he’s had a hand in picking them, unlike managers you’re likely to compare him to.

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But ultimately if we go in to the season with a wage bill considerably lower than city and utd next season I won’t he expecting a title unless the players prove otherwise, if we go in to the season spending the same or more on wages the club is obliged to deliver on it.

But are you then suggesting Utd should expect a title challenge if the wages would be higher than Chelsea despite us knowing Utd’s ability is less than their wage bill suggests based on recent performances? Again, you can’t judge a manager solely based on good/poor decisions way before the manager joined. I think we’re in a round about way saying the same thing. That you can judge a club and their business decisions over a longer period of time using wage bill vs league performance. I just disagree that you can judge a coach based on a wage bill that they had little to do with amassing. I think in order to judge a manager on wage bill vs league performance, you’d have to include minimum length of tenure so as to ensure that manager can take the credit/blame for the wage bill. Even then, it’s tougher than ever to do that judgement simply because a manager isn’t in control of the club in the same way they were before. Managers are often given players these days by committees and expected to get them performing. There are simply far too many variables at play to judge a manager on that metric. A club, over a longer period, fine.

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I just don’t think you can only base anything on wages alone Lucky. Say Chelsea come in at similar wages to Spurs for arguments sake. Are we going to completely dismiss the fact that Potter would have had an unprecedented amount of spending in a single season and solely look at the wages his club pays? The fact he has been able to pretty much get an entire new squad is huge. It’s not in any way fair to compare that to someone who comes in with a bloated squad of players who may have tons of players who are not good enough ordont suit that manager’s style. If he happens to have a higher wage bill (because of stupid decision making before he joined) you can’t in any way suggest the expectations should be similar to someone like Potter. This is the thing, there isn’t a simple metric which isn’t flawed in some way. People tend to pick the metric that best suits their agenda. I myself am guilty of it.

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Because, if anything, Potter should be winning the quadruple next season if we’re going to talk about resources vs expectations. No manager in history has seen his club spend what Potter has in such a short space of time.

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But that being said, if Conte has failed with spurs, ten hag needs to win league with utd next season or come damn close otherwise we are not being fair and reasonable in how we talk about expectations.

I really don’t think it’s as simple as that Lucky. I don’t think anyone is saying Conte failed simply because he isn’t higher in the league. Conte failed because he:

1. Failed to improve the club’s playing style
2. Hasn’t improved Spurs’ position
3. Has come nowhere near winning any trophies
4. Has alienated the squad, evidenced by his recent rant

There are a multitude of reasons people are saying he’s failed. Had Conte got Spurs to where they are in the league playing lovely football and having a few cup runs and kept his mouth shut, I don’t think anyone would say he has failed vs expectations. Spurs could easily finish exactly where their resources suggest they should.

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Lucky, here are those same Marca figures again from last year https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/liverpool-big-six-wages-salary-26397254

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Yeah Ed, they change transfer window to transfer window, what is consistent though is that for last decade relative to opposition utd have always been 1st or 2nd and well above the average and in great position to compete.

Definitely Lucky. In fairness, Utd have finished 2nd twice in the last 5 seasons. Granted, we’ve been nowhere near challenging but let’s not pretend we’ve been like Arsenal who finished 8th 2 years in a row. No Utd fan would argue Utd haven’t underachieved as a club in total. I think managers have often taken an unfair amount of slack as the faults have often come from a lack of vision at board level and too much short term thinking.

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Wage bills vs performance are a great indicator of a whole club’s ability to make right decisions as they can use a single metric (wage bill vs league position/points) over a longer period. They’re less effective at determining a coach’s ability. You can’t, for instance, suggest Ten Hag is underperforming by having Utd 3rd with (depending on source) the highest wage bill. That may make appealing headlines, but the reality is he took over the 6th best side in the league who also lost a whole midfield in the summer. I think the only time you can use wage bill vs performance ratio to judge a manager is when that manager has been where he is a long time and the whole squad is theirs. Similarly for Conte, I think it’s a flawed metric to use when the manager hasn’t been there long enough to take either the credit or the blame for that particular ratio over time.

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This from Marca has Utd 3rd. Have a hard time believing we’ve jumped up to 1st having offloaded Pogba, Ronaldo, Lingard, Mata, Matic, Cavani etc

https://www.marca.com/en/football/premier-league/2022/03/06/622504ab22601d94458b458e.html

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Wage bill tables are all over the place depending on the source. I have no idea why. Here’s one from Talksport

Premier League wage bills:
Chelsea – £212,090,000
Manchester United – £211,875,000
Manchester City – £182,640,000
Liverpool – £158,788,000
Tottenham – £110,438,000
Arsenal – £97,878,000
Aston Villa – £89,880,000
Everton – £80,707,000
West Ham – £80,060,000
Newcastle – £76,220,000
Leicester – £73,190,000
Crystal Palace – £67,624,000
Nottingham Forest – £67,460,000
Fulham – £56,668,000
Wolves – £52,702,000
Southampton – £51,496,000
Leeds United – £48,100,000
Bournemouth – £42,276,000
Brighton – £35,685,000
Brentford – £30,170,000

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Yeah I think a club like Spurs should be winning or almost winning cups reasonably regularly Lucky. You wouldn’t expect Spurs to win a league but there’s no reason they can’t be up there challenging from time to time. Conte spent a lot of money at Spurs and, whilst he can’t be expected to “succeed” straight away, there were very few, if any, signs of progress.

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As amusing as the mess at Spurs is, I just don’t buy this “no manager will succeed there” thing. I think Mikus has made some excellent points about managers who have gone there and simply been a bad fit, despite all the manager’s previous achievements. Again, as Mikus has pointed out many times, you can’t go half hearted into a Conte/Mourinho type of appointment. If they’re going to succeed, you simply have to let them do their job and don’t try to change them by expecting them to be more attacking/proactive or expecting them to bring through academy players when it’s not something they’re known for.

The fact they’re going from the vastly different Mourinho/Conte type managers to potentially Nagelsman/Poch suggests they either don’t have a long term vision for the club or they too easily deviate from it because they lose focus on the long term objectives in favour of short term gains.

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Good post Mikus re Spurs. Spurs are very much like Everton who have also had managers and players who have succeeded elsewhere before and/or after joining Everton. There’s something about the culture of both those clubs whereby there’s just an ingrained acceptance of mediocrity. The answer is seemingly not trying to change that culture overnight with established managers like Jose, Conte, Ancelotti etc. A culture change requires immense patience, a solid plan and the right people. All of which Arsenal seem to have got right.

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PPT, why the need to make it a club rivalry thing? It was a poor miss from Grealish. It would have been 3-0 had he put it away. Silly from Shaw too and Maguire was poor for the goal. I’ll make sure to add one criticism of each Utd player for every City player I criticise going forward 😄😉. I couldn’t care less about club rivalries when it comes to England playing. More than happy to cheer on City/Liverpool players or anyone else. Just want the best team out.

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