Ruud van Nistelrooy - New Manager - Official

[Pliskin]

13 minutes ago, ceebeefox said:

I don’t see that, and we only have two that would attract offers. Transfer embargo I guess would mean the likes of Macateer playing again but he shone in the championship. PSR has done for us as a premier outfit ( obviously poor recruitment and pay structure by us) , that league is a best of the world league, the championship is miles apart. Sheff Utd were far worse than us last season and are up there, in fact two of the relegated teams last year are. We ain’t doing a Luton.

I don’t think some realise the shitty mess we’re in. EFL are going to go for us like a tramp chips. Points deductions, transfer embargo’s, going down with a massive wage bill (which will likely mean we commit further breaches)… Ruud 100% will walk, and we will be left manager-less, unable to bring players in, and on a points deduction and more concerning an incompetent board. 
 

Sheffield United aren’t operating on the same financial level that we are, not many are, we’ve recently budgeted for Europe, and that budget is still stinging us. One relegation could be handled, but a second in a short space would be catastrophic…. We’re a complete shambles off the pitch, and that simply is not conducive to running a successful club. If we go down, we are in a whole world of pain. 

[Lako42]

Just now, FrankieADZ said:

oh we know that, when we have the same plonkers who havent took any accountability for the shambles over the last 3/4 years

We let them carry on week after week

[Dahnsouff]

1 minute ago, Pliskin said:

I don’t think some realise the shitty mess we’re in. EFL are going to go for us like a tramp chips. Points deductions, transfer embargo’s, going down with a massive wage bill (which will likely mean we commit further breaches)… Ruud 100% will walk, and we will be left manager-less, unable to bring players in, and on a points deduction and more concerning an incompetent board. 
 

Sheffield United aren’t operating on the same financial level that we are, not many are, we’ve recently budgeted for Europe, and that budget is still stinging us. One relegation could be handled, but a second in a short space would be catastrophic…. We’re a complete shambles off the pitch, and that simply is not conducive to running a successful club. If we go down, we are in a whole world of pain. 

So we think should we go down, we will suffer from

• Points deduction
  • How much can it really be? 8-10 points?
• Loss of manager
• High wages for plenty of the lads
  • You would hope those signed in the last 2-3 years have decent sized relegation reduction clauses
  • Other we do not want would need to be pushed far harder than usually do
  • Some would go because they feel they are better than the Championship

That it?

[FrankieADZ]

10 minutes ago, Lako42 said:

We let them carry on week after week

well we dont, only so much we can do, as we dont own the club sadly

[Iwebema]

I can't believe there are still Cooper die hards. Insane.  He was awful, one of the worst we've ever had.

 

Outside of the board he is the main reason we are struggling, his "Premier league experience" signings have been awful.

 

RVN has had no pre season, picking up and injury riddled side after a really poor transfer window and has had newcastle, Liverpool, villa and man city. The only real game he's properly at fault for was Wolves, I guess being kind he didn't really understand the damage having Ward would do to everyone on that pitch. But still I think even he was shocked about how bad that performance was and I think it's fair to say we have seen a big improvement in performance levels since, we've just had some rotten fixtures which even playing well was very unlikely to produce points.

 

The risk with RVN was the lack of experience and I still think it's too early to be certain either way on how it will play out, and as I've mentioned before Top is rolling one hell of a risk letting RVN learn his trade in this kind of situation.

 

Whilst I know the FA cup isnt the most important thing, we have 3 home games in row. I think these next 3 or so weeks will be season defining.

 

Will we make some desperately needed signings and can RVN turn some positive signs into 6 points?

 

I think if we end January with 0 points and 0 positive signings then I think its probably done. 

[Pliskin]

1 minute ago, Dahnsouff said:

So we think should we go down, we will suffer from

• Points deduction
  • How much can it really be? 8-10 points?
• Loss of manager
• High wages for plenty of the lads
  • You would hope those signed in the last 2-3 years have decent sized relegation reduction clauses
  • Other we do not want would need to be pushed far harder than usually do
  • Some would go because they feel they are better than the Championship

That it?

They will definitely give us an Embargo too. And probably do what they did to Derby lift it with about two weeks until the season kicks off. 
 

Let’s not forget the EFL tried to see if the PL could do us for their breaches…. They will throw the maximum they can at us. I can genuinely see us on minus 10 points, with no manager and a hand full of players…. We’ve proven dreadful at shifting players on, in the past so do we think the board will change? 
 

Our only hope is that we sell Mads and Bilal for serious money, and get all of the players lined up ready to sign when we can. 

[Dahnsouff]

1 minute ago, Pliskin said:

They will definitely give us an Embargo too. And probably do what they did to Derby lift it with about two weeks until the season kicks off. 
 

Let’s not forget the EFL tried to see if the PL could do us for their breaches…. They will throw the maximum they can at us. I can genuinely see us on minus 10 points, with no manager and a hand full of players…. We’ve proven dreadful at shifting players on, in the past so do we think the board will change? 
 

Our only hope is that we sell Mads and Bilal for serious money, and get all of the players lined up ready to sign when we can. 

Weirdly, not scared by a 10-12 point deduction, primarily because I do not think promotion is a sensible aim. Spending 2-3 years scrubbing the decks might be pertinent, and allow us to get our finances on a more solid and hopefully sustainable footing.

 

You never know, Top might decide the Championship is not for him either and bugger off.

[Lako42]

5 minutes ago, Iwebema said:

I can't believe there are still Cooper die hards. Insane.  He was awful, one of the worst we've ever had.

 

 

Same weirdo ****s that were wishing Jonny Evans a happy birthday on Facebook. 

[Number 6]

Need to sort his staff out too. Can't bring the guy in and not give him the platform to potentially succeed. Got his hands tied behind his back. Manager is the front man, but he needs the band.

Edited 4 January by Number 6

[Mickyblueeyes]

Honestly I’m probably going to die on my sword with the famous last words but RVN is the only thing about this club that gives me any confidence. There has been genuine progress in the last 3 games. You’ve got to remember, any manager has to work under a disastrous owner with who will lie cheat and steal - a DOF who will shaft him this window. But he has for some parts got some very poor players organised. Back him as we are improving. 

[Kitchandro]

My issue with Ruud is if you do the things he’s doing, you’re more likely to lose than win. 

 

Let’s say we bring in 2 full backs and a centre back, and they are the best business we’ve done in years. And let’s say Ruud manages to get them organised as a unit and they start making good decisions.

 

You’ve still got a big problem in that Rudd obviously doesn’t have faith in the team. His decision to go with Ayew over Buonanotte today says an awful lot. He can’t say he didn’t know Buonanotte was a better attacking threat or that we don’t play better with him in the team. He now knows that. I don’t care if Ayew contributed to the goal, the fact remains he’s slow, limited, and we play better with Buonanotte in the side. Let’s not convince ourselves we think Ayew is an asset or better than him. He’s a negative choice.

 

The manager is  saying that he doesn’t believe the team can beat the opposition. He believes we can ‘grind out a result’ but not be better than them. We’ve seen time and time again this causes two problems. One: the players lose confidence in possession because they feel that the manager doesn’t have faith in their ability. Two: we naturally get too territorially deep and invite pressure, statistically giving us more chance of conceding due to the areas the ball is in most regularly. So not only does the manager think our attack is worse than the opposition’s, we’re also getting near their goal less. Surely even under his own reasoning that makes conceding goals far more likely than scoring them? In this scenario we’ve accepted our position and struggle to get out of our half, and putting pressure on a leaky defence is only going to result in conceding goals. It’s just basic percentages, even with better players.

 

We’ve seen this so many times. This was a big reason we regressed under Rodgers, it’s the reason we didn’t progress under Puel despite good signings and it’s why a very talented side was bottom with 2 months of the season left under Pearson in 2015. In fact it happens to some extent every season bar the best season in our history.

 

We can all acknowledge the squad needs strengthening, but this is why I’m not convinced it will make any difference. At some point you have to back the team to win, Ruud has shown he’s not going to do that. He will look the facts in the face and decide Ayew the cart horse is the ‘safe’ and therefore better option. We will continue to throw many points away because of this thinking.

[JimJams]

No preseason, no signings, injuries to key players and some shit fixtures at the most congested time of year.  It was always going to be rough.  Anybody harking for Cooper needs to lay off the crack pipe.

Edited 4 January by JimJams
ooh moist

[shen]

2 minutes ago, Mickyblueeyes said:

Honestly I’m probably going to die on my sword with the famous last words but RVN is the only thing about this club that gives me any confidence. There has been genuine progress in the last 3 games. You’ve got to remember, any manager has to work under a disastrous owner with who will lie cheat and steal - a DOF who will shaft him this window. But he has for some parts got some very poor players organised. Back him as we are improving. 

We don't have much of a choice.

RvN seems decent, level-headed and has the respect of the players. But he's not a miracle worker. He has to conjure up some confidence and points very, very soon or we won't recover.

We have to make one or two signings  before the Palace game otherwise what's the point?

[Mickyblueeyes]

Just now, shen said:

We don't have much of a choice.

RvN seems decent, level-headed and has the respect of the players. But he's not a miracle worker. He has to conjure up some confidence and points very, very soon or we won't recover.

We have to make one or two signings  before the Palace game otherwise what's the point?

The reality is we won’t make signings until the end of the window. As the summer window showed, we are in the pockets of agents and therefore will be used to shift players to other clubs before being given the odd one or two towards the end. It’s what the regime has made us and we have to live with it. 
 

Ruud has to get these he has got playing and hope they concentrate for 90. He has his work cut out. 

[UniFox21]

Last season we had set attacking moves, an actual strategy. All seemed to be undone within several months with Cooper. It makes sense that those wrongs are taking time to be fixed, but we're seeing patterns return

[Kitchandro]

1 hour ago, filbertway said:

Is it that alarming if you actually add context? It's only really the Wolves and possibly Newcastle game where we probably conceded more than you'd expect (obviously we all expected it when we have Ward in goal, but you know what I mean)

 

Now we've finished playing the top 6 I'd expect to see stats lean more favourably towards us.

Why are people skating over the Wolves game like it wasn’t an absolute fiasco which has made our relegation far more likely and reflected terribly on the manager?

 

If anything that match alone is enough to judge us on. This is like when people were saying draws against Everton, Leeds and Newcastle were ‘good results’ when they effectively relegated us. ‘Only really’ - no, it’s a massively significant match which the manager got horribly wrong. It counts.

[dillonpanthers87]

3 minutes ago, Kitchandro said:

My issue with Ruud is if you do the things he’s doing, you’re more likely to lose than win. 

 

Let’s say we bring in 2 full backs and a centre back, and they are the best business we’ve done in years. And let’s say Ruud manages to get them organised as a unit and they start making good decisions.

 

You’ve still got a big problem in that Rudd obviously doesn’t have faith in the team. His decision to go with Ayew over Buonanotte today says an awful lot. He can’t say he didn’t know Buonanotte was a better attacking threat or that we don’t play better with him in the team. He now knows that. I don’t care if Ayew contributed to the goal, the fact remains he’s slow, limited, and we play better with Buonanotte in the side. Let’s not convince ourselves we think Ayew is an asset or better than him. He’s a negative choice.

 

The manager is  saying that he doesn’t believe the team can beat the opposition. He believes we can ‘grind out a result’ but not be better than them. We’ve seen time and time again this causes two problems. One: the players lose confidence in possession because they feel that the manager doesn’t have faith in their ability. Two: we naturally get too territorially deep and invite pressure, statistically giving us more chance of conceding due to the areas the ball is in most regularly. So not only does the manager think our attack is worse than the opposition’s, we’re also getting near their goal less. Surely even under his own reasoning that makes conceding goals far more likely than scoring them? In this scenario we’ve accepted our position and struggle to get out of our half, and putting pressure on a leaky defence is only going to result in conceding goals. It’s just basic percentages, even with better players.

 

We’ve seen this so many times. This was a big reason we regressed under Rodgers, it’s the reason we didn’t progress under Puel despite good signings and it’s why a very talented side was bottom with 2 months of the season left under Pearson in 2015. In fact it happens to some extent every season bar the best season in our history.

 

We can all acknowledge the squad needs strengthening, but this is why I’m not convinced it will make any difference. At some point you have to back the team to win, Ruud has shown he’s not going to do that. He will look the facts in the face and decide Ayew the cart horse is the ‘safe’ and therefore better option. We will continue to throw many points away because of this thinking.

Totally agree. Today is the perfect example in my opinion of a game that was there for the taking, had we approached it differently - but we ended up playing for a point and getting nothing in the process. Ruud said in his post match "too little too late" and it was exactly that when we had a go at the end - but ignored the fact he didn't make any real attacking changes until I think 79 minutes.

 

He blamed individual errors for the goals - correct in that regard, but had those goals not been conceded, the nature of our play and 10 men behind the ball we'd have conceded on any other occasion anyway.

 

We could go back in time and play that game again with the same setup and I dont think we would win one in say 4 or 5 "replays". He keeps talking about us having reduced the chances on our goal - I think that's true, but we still don't look like winning a game. We need a few 'easier' games to assess.

 

He has a terrible squad at his disposal, a toxic club generally, so that has to be accounted for - but the jury is still very much out on him until then. I like the way he speaks - but also this calm approach, let's hope behind the scenes there is some more plain speaking going on.

[Skidmark]

My issue is with the owners. 

 

Naive and ego ruining the club appointing an unproven not defensive minded coach. 

[Marshall Cockney Fox]

My main issue with RVN is that he took over a team who haemorrhage goals. At least two a match on average. Yet we are still doing it. So a failure to improve / fix our no.1 issue would indicate he's pretty much failing 

[Philkeavo]

There is no plan and or strategy at our club. It’s just a series of knee jerk reactions. We vacillate from a possession based team to I don’t know what with an owner who is out of his depth relying on subpar executives. WTF!

[foxfan92]

53 minutes ago, Kitchandro said:

My issue with Ruud is if you do the things he’s doing, you’re more likely to lose than win. 

 

Let’s say we bring in 2 full backs and a centre back, and they are the best business we’ve done in years. And let’s say Ruud manages to get them organised as a unit and they start making good decisions.

 

You’ve still got a big problem in that Rudd obviously doesn’t have faith in the team. His decision to go with Ayew over Buonanotte today says an awful lot. He can’t say he didn’t know Buonanotte was a better attacking threat or that we don’t play better with him in the team. He now knows that. I don’t care if Ayew contributed to the goal, the fact remains he’s slow, limited, and we play better with Buonanotte in the side. Let’s not convince ourselves we think Ayew is an asset or better than him. He’s a negative choice.

 

The manager is  saying that he doesn’t believe the team can beat the opposition. He believes we can ‘grind out a result’ but not be better than them. We’ve seen time and time again this causes two problems. One: the players lose confidence in possession because they feel that the manager doesn’t have faith in their ability. Two: we naturally get too territorially deep and invite pressure, statistically giving us more chance of conceding due to the areas the ball is in most regularly. So not only does the manager think our attack is worse than the opposition’s, we’re also getting near their goal less. Surely even under his own reasoning that makes conceding goals far more likely than scoring them? In this scenario we’ve accepted our position and struggle to get out of our half, and putting pressure on a leaky defence is only going to result in conceding goals. It’s just basic percentages, even with better players.

 

We’ve seen this so many times. This was a big reason we regressed under Rodgers, it’s the reason we didn’t progress under Puel despite good signings and it’s why a very talented side was bottom with 2 months of the season left under Pearson in 2015. In fact it happens to some extent every season bar the best season in our history.

 

We can all acknowledge the squad needs strengthening, but this is why I’m not convinced it will make any difference. At some point you have to back the team to win, Ruud has shown he’s not going to do that. He will look the facts in the face and decide Ayew the cart horse is the ‘safe’ and therefore better option. We will continue to throw many points away because of this thinking.

I get your points here and agree with them, but I think Ruud is trying to make us hard to beat away and against the better teams and will go more attacking against those teams he feels we can beat and when at home against most teams. I've no evidence yet this will be the case, just how I view the bizarre decision to drop Buonanotte. 

 

Assume he feels Ayew may offer more defensively against these oppositions and I think we have looked more organised at the back generally under Ruud ... and we're clearly trying to counter attack (but then I'd definitely have Buonanotte in the side to do this, and don't think he's that much different from Ayew defensively.

 

Like I said I agree with you, just voicing why I think he's doing it. I can't understand the 5 minute from end cameo by Okoli either. Surely that's just a waste of a sub, when, if losing, we could be bringing on someone more attack minded.

[Filbert Fireworks]

2 hours ago, Iwebema said:

I can't believe there are still Cooper die hards. Insane.  He was awful, one of the worst we've ever had.

 

Outside of the board he is the main reason we are struggling, his "Premier league experience" signings have been awful.

 

RVN has had no pre season, picking up and injury riddled side after a really poor transfer window and has had newcastle, Liverpool, villa and man city. The only real game he's properly at fault for was Wolves, I guess being kind he didn't really understand the damage having Ward would do to everyone on that pitch. But still I think even he was shocked about how bad that performance was and I think it's fair to say we have seen a big improvement in performance levels since, we've just had some rotten fixtures which even playing well was very unlikely to produce points.

 

The risk with RVN was the lack of experience and I still think it's too early to be certain either way on how it will play out, and as I've mentioned before Top is rolling one hell of a risk letting RVN learn his trade in this kind of situation.

 

Whilst I know the FA cup isnt the most important thing, we have 3 home games in row. I think these next 3 or so weeks will be season defining.

 

Will we make some desperately needed signings and can RVN turn some positive signs into 6 points?

 

I think if we end January with 0 points and 0 positive signings then I think its probably done. 

So which game does it turn around then? When is the next winnable fixture? We've just named 1/4 of the league as tough fixtures. 

 

It was like this the year we went down. But we played well, but the stats say. 

 

Cooper didn't get his 1st choice signings did he as nobody wanted to come then he gets slated. 

Bilal has been a good find. Ayew has won us points. Facundo one of our best players who RVN dropped. 

 

We've lost 5 in a row now adrift. What more do people need to see. 

 

[jayfox26]

2 hours ago, Pliskin said:

I don’t think some realise the shitty mess we’re in. EFL are going to go for us like a tramp chips. Points deductions, transfer embargo’s, going down with a massive wage bill (which will likely mean we commit further breaches)… Ruud 100% will walk, and we will be left manager-less, unable to bring players in, and on a points deduction and more concerning an incompetent board. 
 

Sheffield United aren’t operating on the same financial level that we are, not many are, we’ve recently budgeted for Europe, and that budget is still stinging us. One relegation could be handled, but a second in a short space would be catastrophic…. We’re a complete shambles off the pitch, and that simply is not conducive to running a successful club. If we go down, we are in a whole world of pain. 

100%. We go down this season then we'll not be seeing premier league football for a long time. Wouldn't surprise me if we end up in league 1 and whilst that may seem ott, once the reality of what you've said kicks in, transfer embargos, points deductions, no players, no manager, the same useless board, then it's not beyond the realms of possibility that we go to league 1.

[deep blue]

1 hour ago, Kitchandro said:

My issue with Ruud is if you do the things he’s doing, you’re more likely to lose than win. 

 

Let’s say we bring in 2 full backs and a centre back, and they are the best business we’ve done in years. And let’s say Ruud manages to get them organised as a unit and they start making good decisions.

 

You’ve still got a big problem in that Rudd obviously doesn’t have faith in the team. His decision to go with Ayew over Buonanotte today says an awful lot. He can’t say he didn’t know Buonanotte was a better attacking threat or that we don’t play better with him in the team. He now knows that. I don’t care if Ayew contributed to the goal, the fact remains he’s slow, limited, and we play better with Buonanotte in the side. Let’s not convince ourselves we think Ayew is an asset or better than him. He’s a negative choice.

 

The manager is  saying that he doesn’t believe the team can beat the opposition. He believes we can ‘grind out a result’ but not be better than them. We’ve seen time and time again this causes two problems. One: the players lose confidence in possession because they feel that the manager doesn’t have faith in their ability. Two: we naturally get too territorially deep and invite pressure, statistically giving us more chance of conceding due to the areas the ball is in most regularly. So not only does the manager think our attack is worse than the opposition’s, we’re also getting near their goal less. Surely even under his own reasoning that makes conceding goals far more likely than scoring them? In this scenario we’ve accepted our position and struggle to get out of our half, and putting pressure on a leaky defence is only going to result in conceding goals. It’s just basic percentages, even with better players.

 

We’ve seen this so many times. This was a big reason we regressed under Rodgers, it’s the reason we didn’t progress under Puel despite good signings and it’s why a very talented side was bottom with 2 months of the season left under Pearson in 2015. In fact it happens to some extent every season bar the best season in our history.

 

We can all acknowledge the squad needs strengthening, but this is why I’m not convinced it will make any difference. At some point you have to back the team to win, Ruud has shown he’s not going to do that. He will look the facts in the face and decide Ayew the cart horse is the ‘safe’ and therefore better option. We will continue to throw many points away because of this thinking.

Great post!

 

[Bptiger]

Our defence goes well for a period then they fall appear , but another major problem is our ability to score , we are not creating anything , wingers get the ball and instead of going forward we go backwards , vardy has less than 10 touch’s a game , not good enough to win games