cityfanlee23

Every single year, time and time again managers prove that with the right system, you can take a fairly average bunch (with a couple of stars) and turn them into a well-oiled machine that exceeds expectations. Millwall at the moment have signed a few very good players that could make the step up, but overall they have many players that are steady at this level, look at where they are and how they are performing, because Alex Neil is getting the best out of them, he is improving every player by 5%. Nigel Pearson 2014 - "If everyone improves by a couple of percent, it very quickly adds up. That is really what it's about" Good managers at this level like Alex Neil know how to do that, they adapt the system to make each player improve a few percent. Marti on the other hand, has so far proved he's only "pragmatic" within his own very narrow ideology, reminds me of Rachel Reeves, he's created a straight jacket for himself with his obsession with this style, and he's now essentially hampering the entire squad by trying to make players play a system they are not very good at. Most teams in this league would take Monga, Winks, Fatawu, Mavididi, James, Ricardo, & Vestergaard, then players like BDCR, Faes, Ayew, Soumare are the sorts of players that managers like Alex Neil would be able to work with and find a way to improve their contribution. Right now, Marti is doing the opposite, he's stifled the very poor attack we had and somehow made it regress with his rigid constraints. How can Fatawu produce magic when he's doubled up on every game and has nobody providing an over or underlap to create space? How can the strikers produce goals when the only time they receive the ball, they are 25 yards out with their back to goal and 4 players surrounding them because we took so long to transition from defence to attack that the opposition had ages to form a deep block. It's the same old, same old boring predictable football that the vast majority of possession-obsessed managers employ. Very few actually manage to make the system work fluidly, and the 10 year experiment of this system is now declining at the top of football and not growing imo. I'm monologuing. The point is, we should NEVER accept mediocrity from anyone. Many of us hold Top accountable for this mess; we hold the players accountable for this mess. Marti needs to be held accountable for now adding to this mess with his tedious brand of football. He's paid to get the most out of the squad, but he isn't doing that. In fact, his system is stifling the only talent we have. The reason I wanted Rohl so badly is that his system would have actually benefitted our best talent. I was led to believe Marti was a different brand of possession that was pragmatic; he isn't. I saw many QPR fans warning us about this.

I think we have plenty of players willing to put a shift in if the system works. Ricardo, Skipp, Okoli, Nelson, Fatawu, Mavididi, Thomas and Carranza are all players who are willing to put a shift in and try to get physical. We have seen Soumare press at times. I get your point though, I think it’s a mixture of players not fully being bought into the club and wanting to go that extra yard, and a system that doesn’t demand it. This is obviously speculation but I can’t imagine if Pearson walked in tomorrow that we wouldn’t atleast see them work harder.

If his health permits we need to be on the phone, if his health doesn't permit a full time management gig, maybe it would permit a big office upstairs with the letters "DOF" on the door.

Urs Fischer Adi Hutter (0.2% chance) Ralph Hassenhuttl Michael Carrick (meh) Carlos Carvalhal (would take but meh)

You could easily be right on that, either way, he's still actively choosing to play a way the players cannot play very well.

Yeah that's fair, appreciate you calling me out on that, what I meant by average is generally speaking on paper. You have some decent players that will absolutely play at the next level, but you've also got a lot of quite "average" players that Neil is getting the most out of, players like Jake Cooper, Steve benda, Casper De Noor, Ryan Leonard, Massimo Luongo, Tristan Crama. They are good championship players but they are playing above what me looking at you from a distance would expect, but they've played well for you as far as i can see, but even if you feel they haven't played as well as maybe I think they have, as a unit he has you excelling and everyone is working for eachother. We are the complete opposite, we have proven players like Mavididi, Monga, Fatawu, Winks, Ricardo, Vestergaard, Faes, Stolarzcyk, to some degree Ayew, Jordan James. All of these players are proven at this level and most proven at a higher level, yet the system we've adopted has them playing against their strengths for most of the match. You're absolutely flying just as I thought you would, big fan of Alex Neil (at this level) and I hope he can go on to finally prove the promise he had when he came to this league about 10 years ago.

That's a theory, but it's also rife with managers who adopt possession obsession, it happens under Martin, it happened under Enzo and has been happening with Chelsea. Sarri had the same issue, Brendan towards the end with us. But on the flip side, if they aren't capable why is Marti not understanding that and adapting to his players? Why is he not trying to bed in players like Nelson who are the long term future of this club and have the capacity to learn the system and instead persisting with players who won't be here next season? If the players are as bad as many think on here, why is he persisting with a system that is throwing away points every week?

There is a lot of hyperbole mixed in with both sides of the argument here, but the vast majority of fans do no expect us to be clear at the top of the table. We just expect us to beat a lot of what's infront of us over 90 minutes with the odd hiccup here and there. I made a thread previously you can go back look at it, I claimed Milwall were my dark horse this season. Why did I put Milwall down as a surprise challenger? Alex Neil. He knows how to get teams working for him, he knows how to make average players click as a unit, something Marti absolutely cannot do. We have better players than most teams in this division when they are on form, the issue is, the system we have adopted is making it much easier for players to not hit any form. How is Mavididi expected to hit form if he has to turn around and pass it backwards every time he gets the ball? if every time he gets to the by-line there is nobody bombing into the box to receive the cross. How can Winks hit form when every pass he makes is 5 yards and sideways, how can Fatawu hit better form if every single match he gets doubled up on and the manager is explicitly instructing players NOT to offer an overlap more often than not (he has to be instructing it at this point) How can any of our strikers hit form, when the entire system is designed around needlessly passing it around sideways, giving the opposition 20+ passes to reposition themselves into a deep block, so that every time the striker gets the ball, they have their back to goal 25 yards out with no options. Good managers like Alex Neil, or even for us, Nigel Pearson know how to get the most out of each player despite them maybe not being the best on paper, Marti cannot do that, he doesn't know how it seems. Hassenhuttl kept Southamtpon above water for far longer than they deserved. He didn't do a perfect job and he made many mistakes, but he's a huge upgrade on what we've seen so far. If we want to go all out Urs Fischer would be an instant upgrade. Go and watch how Rangers perform tomorrow under Rohl. The intensity, pressing and attacking will be far superior to anything Russel Martin put up.

Yep, I can completely see that point, and to be honest, knowing the board we will get rid of Marti and bring in Martin and things will go from bad to worse. If for example though Hassenhuttl said he would join, i'd probably take that gamble personally, but I have a very high bias against possession obsessive football personally.

Agree with all of these points, however, generally speaking the manager is in a position to somewhat offset a few of these problems on the pitch, by not playing negative, sideways, slow, predictable football whilst constantly picking favourites and seemingly happy to let the future of the club rot on the bench or not even in the squad (not that the youth are the overnight fix, but if we are doomed to mid table mediocrity under Cifuentes, atleast do it with Nelson/Aluko/Page getting regular minutes) None of the 5 points you made can be fixed overnight, the problems I mentioned which play a huge role in whether we pickup 0,1 or 3 points on a match day can be fixed overnight. If Cifuentes tomorrow decided to throw his system out of the window and adopt an attacking system along the lines of German Gegenpressing, or an attacking hybrid like Iraolas Bournemouth, we would be fighting for automatics imo. The system we are currently using is actively working against our best talents. The reason I wanted Rohl in, is because his system is aggressive and utilises wingers and a heavy overlap from multiple angles to create space for them, under Rohl, Mavididi, Fatawu and Monga would be unlocked. Under Cifuentes they are in chains, either having to pass backwards, or having to beat 3 players to get a shot away because they have zero support other than backwards or sideways. Again, completely agree with everything you've said, but none of them are an excuse for Cifuentes playing this awful brand of football that puts constraints on our best attacking talent. He promised attacking football, he promised youth, he promised always pushing for another goal even if we are winning comfortably, he promised players playing on merit. He's delivered none of that.

Professional football players unable to beat the first man on a corner is one of life’s great mysteries, crazily enough it isn’t just us, it seems these days 75% of teams have the same issue.

All we can do is hope that given the window we had, we have enough money to make a move if we continue to underdeliver.

This. Pretty much every single time the striker gets the ball to his feet, it’s when we’ve dithered with the ball for 15-20+ passes, the opposition have had 3 working days to form a deep block, then we pass the ball into the strikers feet, 25 yards out, back to goal, with 6 players behind them. And then fans scapegoat them all game. Our strikers have been poor everyone can see that, but they get given absolutely dogwater service, Vardy would be on maybe 1-2 goals max in this system because he would have finished Carranzas 1 on 1 from a few games ago, but beyond that, we just never play through balls in and allow the striker to sit on the last defender, all Marti wants us to do is pass to Fatawu and hope he creates magic, and if he can’t, the last resort is the pass it into a striker and expect him to beat 5 defenders. More often than not it ends up being like the Carranza situation a couple of games ago where he got the ball to his feet with 3 players around him and barely any passing options on apart from backwards, so he took a risk and try to push the ball into space to open himself up for a shot, lost the ball and we conceded on the break. People hammered Carranza for that, whilst completely ignoring the fact that as a striker he shouldn’t be forced into that situation in the first place. The system is the root cause of our attacking issue, NOT the strikers. Don’t get me wrong, even if we fixed the system they will probably still struggle to deliver 15+ goals, but they will struggle to get 5+ under Cifuentes ball.

Big issue is, it's slim pickings out there right now, the managers that would genuinely improve us likely won't come, we needed to pull the trigger early on RVN. Right now, Urs Fischer would be a massive scalp imo, probably won't come. Ralph Hassenhuttl imo would play better football than we currently are witnessing despite the rot in the playerbase, I didn't really want Dyche, but right now i'd take him over watching sideways ball any longer. Apart from that, it would need to be another gamble.

This is the part I just cannot grasp, how can people defend the manager and say it doesn’t matter who’s in charge whilst we have Top and Rudkin? We all know the rot starts in the board room, but for gods sake, how does that excuse having a single attacking plan the entire game. Even Enzo had multiple options, when Fatawu got the ball, either Ndidi overlapped the central channel, or Ricardo/Justin overlapped the wide channel. This created space for Vardy and Fatawu. Under Marti we do nothing, we pass it to Fatawu and his options become: A) Beat 3 players and rifle it top corner B) Cross it into nobody because our strikers seemingly have the explicit instruction to not run into to box for a cross C) Pass it backwards and do the inevitable horse shoe from Fatawu to Mavididi. I’ve watched opponent central midfielders literally WALKING from left to right because of how slow we do our little horse shoe between the wings at times, at the most they have to do a little jog, I can’t remember the last time we pinged a pass from Fatawu into Vestergard or Winks who immediately pinged it into Mavididi. This manager is just as pedestrian as Enzo, without the over/underlaps. MC is by no means the core problem, but he is having no problems creating issues for himself on match day, and ultimately he is a problem that can be addressed at any moment, if he wants fans on board fully he needs to start playing to his own principles and stop picking favourites.

To think, we were potentially a week away from getting Rohl, who is now going to instantly turn Rangers around before inevitably moving to a prem job, somewhere we won’t be.

Not going to lie, I much preferred Ruuds vision of football to the one we are seeing now.

He inherited rubbish, and continues to play said rubbish whilst we have players capable of playing a leading role in our rebirth in our youth ranks. Nobody’s expecting a silk purse from a sows ear, we expect the basics like not picking the same inconsistent rot every week, not attacking in the exact same way every single time we get the ball, and actually pressing. Largely boring football, very predictable system, barely sniff for ‘the future’ He got absolutely everything right when he arrived here, he’s made so many basic mistakes since.

Brendan Rodgers is an elite coach, so many players have said it and he often improves players initially, but he's a honking club manager, the issue is, he's a coach who demands management level responsibility, and it's the same old story, he comes into a club and immediately improves them with tactical and coaching tweaks, players thrive, but as the transfer windows pass, as staff leave and need replacing, his complete lack of ability to actually manage the club and find adequate talent shine through, and all of the good coaching work he does eventually gets overshadowed by him making bad coaching staff and player signing decisions trying to fit square pegs in round holes, and at that point when the heat gets turned up, his ego takes over and he blames everyone but himself whilst refusing to change. BR simply cannot succeed long term unless the club he's at is well run and refuse to hand him extra power, the moment they do, the club declines.

Missed out massively.

Honestly I didn’t even read what I was typing, don’t bother 🤣

He did hold it too long, but he tried to push the ball into space to open up for a shot because we love taking 25 passes to get the ball outside the box only for the defenders to drop into a deep block to defend it. Carranza hasn’t done anything in blue yet, but he’s barely given the ball in a position he can actually do anything. Hes had 1 clear cut chance for us (which he fluffed), the rest of the games, we take so long to do anything in transition that by the time he gets the ball to his feet his 25 yards out, back to goal with 3 defenders behind him.

Carranza is this weeks scape goat for the system not producing clear cut chances.

His ceiling is absolutely massive and he’s producing goals in a system that imo currently makes it harder for him, if he had a midfielder running into the central channel or a full back consistently overlapping him as Ricardo/Justin/Ndidi did under Enzo he would have far more space to operate in and be dangerous. Right now he’s doubled up on with no consistent overlaps leading to him being forced to go for the same cut in and shoot every time. If we can give the team a bit more attacking freedom Abdul will go from strength the strength.

Big improvement today, I enjoyed watching a fair bit of that game and we were comfortably the better team. Hopefully Marti can find a solution that gives the striker more space centrally as they are still often compacted into spaces where they get the ball and have basically no options or are surrounded by players, they tend to play as a False 9 at the moment with their back to goal. We need to figure out the central area because at present we still rely too much on magic from a wide player cutting in. 3rd and improving.