Ruud van Nistelrooy - New Manager - Official

[AKCJ]

58 minutes ago, Sol thewall Bamba said:

If we sack him we'd just get some other poor bastard with the same shit players who don't care. There's no point. 

Exactly. The plan has to be to get to the summer. Sell/release a good 10/12 players and rebuild.

[SafewayFox]

4 minutes ago, Graceroad said:

Hindsight is a wonderful thing BDR played 33 times in a very good Fulham side last season and scored 6 goals he was a good signing on paper that's just not worked out Ayrew is a useful squad player and has scored important goals agree Skipp was a poor signing

It isn’t hindsight when most on here stated in particular to Ayew and Skipp that they were poor signings considering our limited budget and unbalanced squad though.

 

Imagine that money was spent on two unproven PL players like Bilal who could actually impact our starting 11?

 

In the summer, we had a clear issue, an aging squad with minimal resale with PSR issues hanging over us…signing ALL three made zero business/logistical sense, that’s not hindsight.

[hejammy]

10 minutes ago, Graceroad said:

Hindsight is a wonderful thing BDR played 33 times in a very good Fulham side last season and scored 6 goals he was a good signing on paper that's just not worked out Ayrew is a useful squad player and has scored important goals agree Skipp was a poor signing

BDR you are right that he played 33 games and scored 6 goals (which isn't amazing by any stretch) but he was brought in to create goals surely. Last season for Fulham (a very good side as said by yourself) he only had 2 assists and 3 "big chances created" - now that is poor for a player who we have predominately purchased to create goals. 2 assists in 33 games! So guess what - 14 games played for us - 0 assist, 0 big chances created. Albeit he has scored the 1 goal. 

[CosbehFox]

24 minutes ago, Graceroad said:

Hindsight is a wonderful thing BDR played 33 times in a very good Fulham side last season and scored 6 goals he was a good signing on paper that's just not worked out Ayrew is a useful squad player and has scored important goals agree Skipp was a poor signing

Yep agreed but when you sign a player of that nature at 31, you know the drop off is going to happen at some point. That said he was worth a punt. 
 

Your point about Ayew is fine in isolation but he’s 33 and we spent £7million on him. 

Edited 16 January by CosbehFox

[FrankieADZ]

RVN came into a shit storm, behind the scenes and on the pitch

the bad appointment of Cooper in the first place didnt help, then the shit show behind the scenes where it looks like nothing has been fixed etc doesnt help either

 

think if we had RVN from the start of the season etc we might be in a better spot, and im sure we wouldnt have gone for some of the targets we did in the summer either

hes also not got mads,wilf,Ricky P and Fatawu, all 4 i think would be starting

im not sure if it would change alot,

[Graceroad]

8 minutes ago, SafewayFox said:

It isn’t hindsight when most on here stated in particular to Ayew and Skipp that they were poor signings considering our limited budget and unbalanced squad though.

 

Imagine that money was spent on two unproven PL players like Bilal who could actually impact our starting 11?

 

In the summer, we had a clear issue, an aging squad with minimal resale with PSR issues hanging over us…signing ALL three made zero business/logistical sense, that’s not hindsight.

I have agreed  that Skipp was a poor signing BDR on paper was a good signing over 150 PL games in a useful Fulham side  25 goals and not particularly  old at 31 it's just not worked out plus he was a free transfer Ayrew is fine as a squad player

[Graceroad]

6 minutes ago, hejammy said:

BDR you are right that he played 33 games and scored 6 goals (which isn't amazing by any stretch) but he was brought in to create goals surely. Last season for Fulham (a very good side as said by yourself) he only had 2 assists and 3 "big chances created" - now that is poor for a player who we have predominately purchased to create goals. 2 assists in 33 games! So guess what - 14 games played for us - 0 assist, 0 big chances created. Albeit he has scored the 1 goal. 

He provided the assist for the Vardy goal v Brighton and 6 goals from 17 starts last season is impressive for an attacking midfielder plus he was a free transfer most throught it was a good signing at the time

[FLAN]

2 hours ago, Marshall Cockney Fox said:

Sorry I can't absolve the manager of responsibility. He took the gig and likely said at interview that he would use tactical nous and motivational skills to improve that (turd) defence. He hasn't and that's the measure I'm applying to my assessment.

 

Prior, Taggart, Walsh, Elliot, Marshall etc etc. Sometimes it's about how you set them up and motivate them. The whole is greater!!!!

Reading those names just brings into focus what a weak bunch we have now. Watching Vestegard refuse to even try and win headers or being brushed aside despite being a bloody giant is sickening 

[Graceroad]

9 minutes ago, CosbehFox said:

Yep agreed but when you sign a player of that nature at 31, you know the drop off is going to happen at some point. That said he was worth amount. 
 

Your point about Ayew is fine in isolation but he’s 33 and we spent £7million on him. 

31 isn't old in the modern game and regarding Ayrew thought it was 5M but either way you don't get much for that amount anymore we spent 11M on Danny Ward who played 2 matches for Liverpool

[5waller5]

6 hours ago, coolhandfox said:

What metric are you measuring improvement, or just how pleasing it is on the eye? 

 

Losing 6 on the bounce scoring 2, and conceding 16 goals is some setback including being beaten by to relegation rival 0-2, 0-3 at home. 

 

I saw Burnley have loads of great passages of play and go down with a whimper. 

 

We aren't spending that sort of money in this window, if we spend 25m plus I will be surprised.  

No metric, just my own view of the matches. Stats are really useful, but don’t tell you that 5 of the best players are injured for instance. Or that the manager is using the old manager’s back room team etc etc.

 

Yep, you saw an underfunded Burnley team play some good football and be relegated. You can also see their manager now topping the Bundesliga. They had a great manager.
 

I’m not suggesting we aren’t underfunded or our recruitment isn’t abysmal, I’m suggesting, just like Kompany that Ruud isn’t the problem.

 

I agree we aren’t going to spend that money - I said that most pundits think you need to spend £100m to bridge the gap when promoted… we didn’t, we’ve actually lost our best players

[Matt]

24 minutes ago, AKCJ said:

Exactly. The plan has to be to get to the summer. Sell/release a good 10/12 players and rebuild.

Yep, I mean that’s what I hoped pending our last relegation.

 

We’ve had a real unlikable bunch here and I was seeing the positives in relegation that meant they’d be gone. Saw it as an opportunity to strip things back, players were out of contract, players were obviously plotting and engineering moves throughout the relegation season.

 

We’ve still been left with quite a few though, unfortunately the one that’s aren’t that good though, I mean the ones that were deemed as good were no use to us because they never put a shift in during their last 12 to 24 months but the point remains.

 

This time there has to be a root and branch attitude to every single aspect of the club.

I’m not sure on who’s out of contract and who’s not but hopefully this happens naturally as contracts expire, it’s the only chance we have of shifting them.

 

Do I think it’ll happen? Do I have confidence? Not a chance as it stands. We all know how we love to extend a contract for surplus players.

 

Edited 16 January by Matt

[CosbehFox]

8 minutes ago, Graceroad said:

31 isn't old in the modern game and regarding Ayrew thought it was 5M but either way you don't get much for that amount anymore we spent 11M on Danny Ward who played 2 matches for Liverpool

He’s 34/35 by the time he leaves. But I have said, I don’t disagree on a free it’s worthy a punt. 
 

Yeah I don’t think that’s necessarily the best argument because that deal was obscene  - Brighton signed a 30/31 yr old Joel Veltman for £500k. 
 

 

[Daggers]

He’ll walk when the window closes. 
 

Then this happens:

 

[hejammy]

11 minutes ago, Graceroad said:

He provided the assist for the Vardy goal v Brighton and 6 goals from 17 starts last season is impressive for an attacking midfielder plus he was a free transfer most throught it was a good signing at the time

You may be right there, but no stat's website has him down for an assist - perhaps the thought process was that it was a shot? no idea?!?

[Graceroad]

Just now, hejammy said:

You may be right there, but no stat's website has him down for an assist - perhaps the thought process was that it was a shot? no idea?!?

Don't understand how they judge it maybe because his pass to Vardy took a deflection  notice the goal against Villa wasn't counted as an asset for Vardy either

[Leicester_Loyal]

Will he stay if we go down?

 

Danny Rohl is a shout tbf. 
 

The problems are way bigger than the manager though as we all know. 

[Number 6]

1 hour ago, coolhandfox said:

How many goals have we scored in the time?

 

I'm not an RVN out by any stretch and hope he gets the reinforcement he needs, but he hasn't got a free pass. 

 

Losing 0-3 and 0-2 against relegation rivals at home isn't good enough.  

To be fair I think generally when a new manager comes in to a relegation battler they try and sure up the defence. It's very difficult to get that balance right when our defence is so weak and this is compounded with Mads out.

 

Goals haven't been flowing recently, but 4 of our 6 best attacking xG performances this season have been under Ruud (according to FBref), the other 2 of those 6 were against Southampton and Ipswich.

[The Doctor]

4 hours ago, Fox92 said:

At least we were picking up points and scoring goals.

would we continue to have? no. like genuinely, van nistelrooys 8 league games in charge, where do you think Cooper would have picked up points that he hasn't?

[Staffs Fox]

As much as I’m frustrated and frankly completely done with this season. This mess is not on RVN.

 

He hasn’t helped himself with some team selections and subs but **** me, what a squad he’s inherited! The problem we’re in lies squarely with the Board and Owners. We’ve sold big players for big money, been an established PL team with European football and yet we’re now feeding off scraps Ipswich wouldn’t even touch, scared to spend money refilling coffee machine at the training ground for fear of FFP! 
It’s a joke what has happened in the past 4 years, yet no one above appears to be being made accountable 

[Iwebema]

Unreal there are STILL cooper followers out there. It's actually beggars belief. He was absolutely awful, one of the worst we've ever had, just because RVN hasn't done well either doesn't mean we should of stuck with him, we would be no better off, still just as rubbish! Plus even if for some absolutely bonkers reason you thought he was doing well, the players hated him, so it couldn't continue anyway (the player power debate is a separate argument)

 

That a side they are both symptoms of the real problem, poor scouting, poor recruitment strategies (mis matching styles, age, profile), mis management of player contracts, chopping and changing managerial styles and philosophies. There is so much wrong with how we operate as a club it's scary to think how many more poor decisions we are away from being the next coventry/sunderland/derby/Leeds, because I don't think it's far off unless we see some serious changes.

[Pliskin]

I found it interesting that Ruud talked about systems, and mentioned not being able to play a back 5 for example. 
 

It makes me think that he wants to play a different system, but feels with the players available he can’t do that. You wonder with a profile like Woyo, he may be looking to move to a new system? 

[joachim1965]

It's not Ruuds fault, he has us more organised and playing better football, he is seriously struggling with the quality he has at his disposal,  unfortunately I don't see things improving any time soon.

[Sunbury Fox]

Cooper definitely had to go, even if Ruud goes on to lose the next 17 matches. The players and fans were simply not having Cooper and the team had no structure or clear patterns of play.

 

As for Ruud, I think we should persevere even if the results continue to be less than we would hope for. Looking at the run of 6 defeats, 3 were against clubs currently participating in the UCL, whilst the 4th was against a club likely to finish in the top 4 this season. The Wolves defeat was largely due to reasons we don't need to go back over, and as for last night we more than matched Palace on the whole. I was pretty hacked off straight after the game yesterday, but having slept on it I seriously don't think we are miles off it in terms of general play between the boxes and team structure. We lost last night because our finishing was a lot worse than theirs and there were individual errors by defenders. This stems not from the manager but from the fact that the defenders we currently have are not PL standard and our only PL standard striker is 38. Unless Ruud is given funds to bring in better players, not sure what else he can do. 

 

You can see that Ruud has the backing of the players and the fans, and the football is good to watch on the whole, putting the results aside. I hope he stays even if we go down (which seems likely) - let's try to build some stability, continue to embed a clear style of playing, and allow Ruud to reshape the squad in line with his vision.  Continually swapping managers leads to squads that are unbalanced and made up of a hotch potch of players. 

Edited 16 January by Sunbury Fox

[Fox92]

49 minutes ago, The Doctor said:

would we continue to have? no. like genuinely, van nistelrooys 8 league games in charge, where do you think Cooper would have picked up points that he hasn't?

Nobody knows, it's all guessing, which is why it's a stupid debate that keeps going on.

 

But if people want to debate and compare managers then at least make the arguments fair. For example people defend Van Nistelrooy's defeats with the club's we've played yet under Cooper we only lost to teams in the top 10 anyway, aside from Man Utd (Fulham, Villa, Arsenal, Forest, Man Utd, Chelsea, Brentford). Cooper did not drop points against relegation rivals and we picked up points against Palace, Everton, Southampton and Ipswich. But under Van Nistelrooy we've played Wolves and Palace at home and lost both games without scoring. 

 

Also people defend Van Nistelrooy with "it's individual mistakes" but we were conceding due to individual mistakes under Cooper too. I lose track of the amount of points we lost under him due to player mistakes (Fulham, Palace, Arsenal and Ipswich all spring to mind).

 

I think our general play, and keeping the ball, is better under Van Nistelrooy but we're still conceding at least 2 a game. Nothing has changed. I see arguments of "he has made us more organised" - where? We're conceding at a ridiculous rate.

 

At the end of the day this squad was never good enough. I said prior to the season that 17th would have been a good season for us. These people who thought a better manager than Cooper would have us mid table were mad. It's a rubbish squad and all stems from above the manager.

Edited 16 January by Fox92

[Sunbury Fox]

13 minutes ago, Fox92 said:

Nobody knows, it's all guessing, which is why it's a stupid debate that keeps going on.

 

But if people want to debate and compare managers then at least make the arguments fair. For example people defend Van Nistelrooy's defeats with the club's we've played yet under Cooper we only lost to teams in the top 10 anyway, aside from Man Utd (Fulham, Villa, Arsenal, Forest, Man Utd, Chelsea, Brentford). Cooper did not drop points against relegation rivals and we picked up points against Palace, Everton, Southampton and Ipswich. But under Van Nistelrooy we've played Wolves and Palace at home and lost both games without scoring. 

 

Also people defend Van Nistelrooy with "it's individual mistakes" but we were conceding due to individual mistakes under Cooper too. I lose track of the amount of points we lost under him due to player mistakes (Fulham, Palace, Arsenal and Ipswich all spring to mind).

 

I think our general play, and keeping the ball, is better under Van Nistelrooy but we're still conceding at least 2 a game. Nothing has changed. I see arguments of "he has made us more organised" - where? We're conceding at a ridiculous rate.

 

At the end of the day this squad was never good enough. I said prior to the season that 17th would have been a good season for us. These people who thought a better manager than Cooper would have us mid table were mad. It's a rubbish squad and all stems from above the manager.

The bit in bold is surely the result of better management and coaching, though ie something which is in the control of the manager and hence something Ruud should be credited for? Getting general play and structure right was the necessary first step - and as a result we are conceding far fewer shots on our goal, and we are making more high quality chances in games. The key thing now is, can we get better players in key positions to help improve our performance in both boxes? This is unlikely, sadly, given the financial constraints. But let's hope that Ruud can find some cheap gems. 

 

Agree with you that the squad has never been good enough to finish above 17th, especially given the continued absences of Mads, Ricardo, Ndidi and Fatawu.

 

Edited 16 January by Sunbury Fox