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Yeh thought City may have turned a bit of a corner recently, but they’re absolutely done this season.
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A good transfer team obviously helps, but I think a lot of a team’s fortunes still lie at the manager’s door. Klopp inherited a pretty poor team at Liverpool and still got them to two finals in his first part season, one being a European final. The following season we signed Matip & Karius both from the German Bundesliga and Klopp was surely influential over those transfers. Our most important first signing was Sadio Mane. Klopp said on this, “In Southampton he just dominated. It was great. Sadio wanted to work with me as much as I did with him so it was a win-win situation.” Again, it seems Klopp had some influence there, and even if he didn’t, Klopp had quickly made us an attractive proposition where good players wanted to come to us.
Once you get a top manager in place, they tend to demonstrate their ability pretty quickly, and things tend to fall into place thereafter, recruitment included. It galvanizes the whole club. Indeed many point to Chelsea’s good recruitment under Abramovich but the appointment of Mourinho is what I think helped start that whole process because that got them winning and put Chelsea on the map and made them a very attractive proposition.
By appointing Ten Hag, I just think it demonstrated the club’s lack of ambition from the start because if they just hoped he could set the club alight and help to bring in top players when he’d never worked in a top league with big expectations or demonstrated big success in Europe, then that was pretty naive to say the least.
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I suspect that’s partly why a few clubs bypassed on Amorim when they had a vacancy this summer Ed.
Here is the main problem at Utd as I see it and I’ll keep saying it until I’m blue in the face. Regardless of how poor the current squad is and regardless of the mismanagement of the club over the years, they are still one of the biggest clubs in the world and there are always going to be big expectations and any issues are going to be more magnified than they are anywhere else. They still bring in big revenues. I suspect when Amorim took charge of Sporting Lisbon there weren’t big expectations on him. This is a completely different level now and these public shots across the bow towards certain players for me should be kept in house. They are just creating more headlines for the media. That’s why Utd needed a big personality who has experience of managing a big global club so they can deal with these pressures and the media. And even motivate bigger egos at the club if necessary.
As for talk of Iraola, he went to a club with pretty modest expectations and he’s now massively exceeding them. Doesn’t mean he has the skills to now walk into a much bigger club with bigger expectations and all that that brings. Spurs would be a much better bet for him because of that. Big powerhouse clubs need big managers. It’s as simple as that. And before people point to Slot at Liverpool, the money the club has spent is no where near as big as their rivals have so the expectations were never quite the same. In that sense Liverpool are more like a Dortmund than a Bayern (hence Klopp was the perfect fit). Indeed Liverpool & Utd are analogous to Dortmund & Bayern – big clubs but in very different ways.
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Talking of analogies, I have wondered for a while if there is an analogy with Chelsea under Scolari and now under Maresca? Under Scolari they could look very good indeed and blew a lot of teams away. But in bigger matches vs better opposition they didn’t seem quite as impressive. Just feels quite similar to now.
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Great game in Paris.
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I think City could recover to 2nd place at some point. The new players could give them a real boost.
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Just a bit bizarre for Amorim to come out and state this team is maybe the worst in the history of the club. He clearly got a reaction out of them vs Liverpool & Arsenal. But now normal service is resumed. We obviously saw this yo-yo effect under Ten Hag. Granted the poor quality of the squad, I’ve always said the club needed a big personality at the club to manage it.
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Last ten games in the league, Spurs have won one, drawn three and lost seven and are 18th in the table over those ten games. Ange looks increasingly dejected in his post match interviews. Think this is only going one way. It’s a results business as they say. The Bournemouth or Fulham mangers would be good shouts for successors. But would they want to move from what they’re building? Ex Dortmund manager currently favourite I think. All would be an improvement on Ange imo.
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Lovely finish by Kulusevski. Wonderful player.
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Always thought Nunez was more effective as an impact player coming on later in a game.
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Ed, re your post above regarding environment and managers – this is why I think managers have to be aware of what they’re walking into. To just take a job at a big club because it’s a big club is potentially asking for trouble, though the pay off when sacked will help – maybe that’s a problem in itself. Nuno, a very good manager, was clearly the wrong fit for Spurs. But then so too were Mourinho & Conte. Ange is a lot more the right fit but I think he’s too far at the other end of the spectrum. A manager should be confident he is the right fit for the club in terms of playing style and really should be aware of any financial constraints in terms of spending on players. But then I would imagine a lot of managers just want the work and opportunities so they probably just take some jobs even if they don’t feel 100% about them. I think there’s a lot of idealistic thinking over some managerial appointments from both the club’s and manager’s points of view.
Regarding walking into broken environments – that’s why having charisma is so important so you can lift things and quickly get people on side.
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Surprised Elliot didn’t play a part. He’s a live wire. Too many players playing with the cigar out for me, though it was the first leg. No panic from me as I’d expect Slot to kick us back into groove. Some new arrivals would help do that too.
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We just couldn’t get a grip of the game in midfield yesterday. Utd were first to most things and second balls. They were also compact at the back. My criticism of Trent was more with his forward play – too many quick Hollywood passes that gave the ball away and put the pressure right back on to us. We looked to be taken off our guard and had maybe bought some of the hype about Utd being there for the taking. We also looked too gung-ho at times and not disciplined enough. Don’t know if because of our lead in the table we are just getting a bit complacent compared to the start of the season.
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Yes it was a poor day for us, and we are conceding far too many goals more recently. We just seem to be drifting into the gung-ho type of football we saw under Klopp last season. I still think we need more defensively minded midfielders. We give it away too easily at times in the middle except for Gravenberch.
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Trent should have been changed a long time ago.
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We seem to be getting worse defensively as the season goes on.
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Losing the midfield battle and Trent been awful.
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Game will go ahead
https://x.com/_pauljoyce/status/1875873609413197973
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I must admit, I did think whether keeping Van Nistelrooy on as manager for the rest of the season would have been a better bet. As CM says, he kept things simple and played to their strengths. I wasn’t necessarily against Amorim as I thought he had charisma and seemed to play positively with a clear identity. But you have to be flexible and pragmatic in the early days because you need to get results. OR you need to at least demonstrate quickly that the players are responding to you. I’m sorry but this idea a new manager can get away with a lot of poor/mixed results for a long time at a big club is for the birds. We saw how long Moyes got into his six year contract at Utd. You have to deliver or demonstrate something fairly quickly. That’s why you’re paid millions. There’s no wide berth given at a big club. There is only expectation, regardless of the situation you walk into.
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Granted Utd’s problems with the squad and the fact it’s still early days, I’d still have thought Amorim would have had more of an impact. They look even worse as Steveo says than the Ten Hag days. Has he just complicated things too much too soon?
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