Next Manager

[SafewayFox]

9 hours ago, kingfox said:

The problem I found with Enzo and numerous other Championship managers, is the fact they are too one dimensional, they have to play a particular way and stick to it, as you say when more teams found us out last season, it was a very crap and frustrating watch at times. Such a particular style can be absolutely perfect for players, he got the best out of Hermansen, Vestergaard, Winks, Mavididi, Fatawu, but as you say, it can also alienate players, Kristiansen an example. 
 

But as I stated in my previous post, the Premier League has evolved this season, it feels like we haven’t caught up with the times and the stats back that up. Teams have been very effective with counter attacks and fast breaks, we haven’t. 
 

This is from the Championship last season…

 

Now look where the three teams in the relegation zone fall in the Premier League this season. 

 

A lot of things are to blame for us not doing well this season, but failing to get with the times seems to have played a massive role with how crap we’ve been this season. 
 

Shame I can’t find stats for the Championship to see if that league has evolved in a similar direction. 
 

But if this is the norm going forward, we need a manager who not only trusts youth, but can play effective football on transition with speed and counter attacking ability. 

Great post mate.

 

The question is, will Forest (lesser extent Fulham) get found out like we did?!

 

When you know a teams best attack is counter attacking, I don’t know why the opposition don’t cotton on sooner and just let them have the ball and drop 5 yards.

Edited 31 March by SafewayFox

[Pliskin]

3 hours ago, SafewayFox said:

Great post mate.

 

The question is, will Forest (lesser extent Fulham) get found out like we did?!

 

When you know a teams best attack is counter attacking, I don’t know why the opposition don’t cotton on sooner and just let them have the ball and drop 5 yards.

It’s easier said than done. As teams tried against us in the PL winning season, sometimes no matter how you set up, it can be unstoppable so to speak. 
 

At some point the opposition have to come out and attack, you watch Forest, they will just be patient and allow the opposition to have the ball, let them get a feel of the game, as soon as they appear to be on top, they spring a counter and score. It’s one of those scenarios where you know what is going to happen, but stopping it is difficult…. The only way to stop it, is take the game to them early and try and score a couple of quick goals and sit back, but then you run the risk of conceding yourself. 
 

Counter attacking football is king, but like possession based you need the right profiles to pull it off. 
 

I think we could probably play a more counter attacking based football, with more success than we are currently playing. But, we can’t defend for toffee, and that’s the crooks of counter attacking football.

[kingfox]

5 hours ago, SafewayFox said:

Great post mate.

 

The question is, will Forest (lesser extent Fulham) get found out like we did?!

 

When you know a teams best attack is counter attacking, I don’t know why the opposition don’t cotton on sooner and just let them have the ball and drop 5 yards.

It will be interesting to see if more counter attacks and fast breaks become the norm in the Premier League.

 

If so then you’ll see more clubs evolving, maybe the three promotion teams got caught out by this shift in change. 
 

We certainly did, because we failed to recruit the right type of wingers to make that style effective. 

[Langley]

5 hours ago, SafewayFox said:

Great post mate.

 

The question is, will Forest (lesser extent Fulham) get found out like we did?!

 

When you know a teams best attack is counter attacking, I don’t know why the opposition don’t cotton on sooner and just let them have the ball and drop 5 yards.

When, it pains me to say, forest get european football that's when they'll get found out. 

 

Thurs, sun, thus, sun, cup games, travel time. 

 

without a large squad one or two injuries to key plays they'll go down the table next year. 

[cityfanlee23]

Absolutely NOT happening, but Marco Rose was near the top of my list to replace Brendan during the summer before we went down and things were souring here. 
Just been sacked by Klopp at Lepzig. Poor season this year but leaves them only 2 points off Champions League football. 

If we are an aspiring premier league team, our hat should at least be in the ring even if it's laughed out of the room. 

[dooflip]

1 hour ago, cityfanlee23 said:

Absolutely NOT happening, but Marco Rose was near the top of my list to replace Brendan during the summer before we went down and things were souring here. 
Just been sacked by Klopp at Lepzig. Poor season this year but leaves them only 2 points off Champions League football. 

If we are an aspiring premier league team, our hat should at least be in the ring even if it's laughed out of the room. 

Marco Rose would certainly be one

of the more attractive names.

0 chance we get him though.

[Craig]

Like Top and Rudkin would even know who he is  

[Sol thewall Bamba]

2 minutes ago, Craig said:

Like Top and Rudkin would even know who he is  

Doesn't live up the road or manage a club that's played us in the last 6 weeks so we've got no chance! 

[Smig123]

https://x.com/secondtierpod/status/1906713806786511344?t=nM79yTfszsxmNBAHDuX7Kg&s=19

[ClaphamFox]

10 minutes ago, Smig123 said:

https://x.com/secondtierpod/status/1906713806786511344?t=nM79yTfszsxmNBAHDuX7Kg&s=19

Sickening, isn't it? Plenty of us wanted him last summer and he would probably have been available for £4-5m. That was apparently too much for us, so we went for free agent Cooper instead - before dropping £20m a few weeks later on Oliver Skipp, who now can't even get in our 20-man matchday squad....

[winteriscoming]

12 minutes ago, ClaphamFox said:

Sickening, isn't it? Plenty of us wanted him last summer and he would probably have been available for £4-5m. That was apparently too much for us, so we went for free agent Cooper instead - before dropping £20m a few weeks later on Oliver Skipp, who now can't even get in our 20-man matchday squad....

You just know we’ll do the same with Rohl this summer. He’ll end up at Southampton and do really well. 

[Bablemikey]

On 31/03/2025 at 12:12, Langley said:

When, it pains me to say, forest get european football that's when they'll get found out. 

 

Thurs, sun, thus, sun, cup games, travel time. 

 

without a large squad one or two injuries to key plays they'll go down the table next year. 

Plus extra spend on "European quality" players, bigger wages to retain their own better players, and so on. It's a knife edge that needs to be balanced on, which is very difficult when there is no financial wiggle room. This is why the "have-nots" cannot compete on a consistent basis.

[Finnegan]

On 30/03/2025 at 21:08, kingfox said:

The problem I found with Enzo and numerous other Championship managers, is the fact they are too one dimensional, they have to play a particular way and stick to it, as you say when more teams found us out last season, it was a very crap and frustrating watch at times. Such a particular style can be absolutely perfect for players, he got the best out of Hermansen, Vestergaard, Winks, Mavididi, Fatawu, but as you say, it can also alienate players, Kristiansen an example. 
 

But as I stated in my previous post, the Premier League has evolved this season, it feels like we haven’t caught up with the times and the stats back that up. Teams have been very effective with counter attacks and fast breaks, we haven’t. 
 

This is from the Championship last season…

 

Now look where the three teams in the relegation zone fall in the Premier League this season. 

 

A lot of things are to blame for us not doing well this season, but failing to get with the times seems to have played a massive role with how crap we’ve been this season. 
 

Shame I can’t find stats for the Championship to see if that league has evolved in a similar direction. 
 

But if this is the norm going forward, we need a manager who not only trusts youth, but can play effective football on transition with speed and counter attacking ability. 

 

I feel that we are, and were, a victim of the growing gap between the Championship and the Premier League but not necessarily in the way people most commonly think. 

 

When we were relegated, we suddenly became Man City. We were relegated as recent Premier League and FA Cup winners who had been competing for Champions League spots and The Best of the Rest shortly before and had a wage bill to match. 

 

The entire Championship saw us coming and absolutely dropped their collective guts. Almost every club in the league went out and bought themselves an extra large new team bus to park on the pitch. 

 

I firmly believe that Enzoball was the most practical way to ensure we won the Championship in that context. Possession football is still the current (I hate I'm about to use this term) meta for winning a 30-40 game domestic title when you are by far the biggest club. It's why Pep has been so consistent for decades, it's why Klopp struggled to win as many titles and it's why Slot has come straight in to Liverpool and romped the league with the same squad. 

 

It's also why Leeds, who probably had a better squad than us last year, fell short of the mark because they just couldn't convert those draws in to wins because they lacked the same structured play that we had. 

 

The problem is, though, you have to earn the right to play that way. You need to be dominant, really, to play that way. As soon as we got promoted it no longer became the most intelligent and efficient way for us to play, as soon as we got promoted, all those players that were essential last year (Vestergaard, Faes, Winks, etc) became liabilities in the Premier League because what we really needed was a Morgan and a Huth, absolute battlers who are up for the fight. 

 

The most effective tactic for a newly promoted side will be to have a strong defence and a counter attacking game, sadly, to play like Forest currently are and like we were once famous for. 

 

But we're getting relegated again and we need to rebuild the squad again and ultimately the sensible thing to do here is to focus on possession again because we're still going to be a huge big fish in the Championship, people are still going to park the bus and we're still going to need to break that down. Then if we get promoted again we'll be ****ed once over. 

 

We're almost victims of our own success because we're too big to be able to approach the Championship as underdogs but we've made too big a mess of our squad to be able to approach the Premier League like an established side and play the way Top wants us to, a la Brighton. 

 

I don't think the blame rests with Enzo and I don't agree with trying to be tactically versatile, having a plan B, not committing to one philosophy or another, etc. 

 

This is Football Manager thinking, this is unrealistic fan thinking. Slot was asked earlier in the year before the Brentford game what made them so dangerous, he said that the length of service of Frank made them a problem to play against because Frank had been there long enough to coach in multiple styles of play. He said this takes a long time because when a coach first joins a club it takes a long time to drill and to perfect just the one system let alone two or three. 

 

Enzo said this repeatedly when he was here, he was always keen to emphasise it's a journey and that we were only just beginning and that we had to constantly improve. He was right, obviously his time here was cut short but he was still right. It's naive and foolish to think a coach is going to come in, be tactically flexible and teach a squad that needs a huge rebuild how to play multiple ways all at once. You need to pick a lane and get in it. 

 

If you want your coach to have a plan B you have to invest him over time and let it grow. It takes a lot more than one summer, football has become such a heavily systems orientated game it takes years for a squad to properly evolve it's relationship with the coach. 

 

[CrazyKopCorner]

It was anyone but Cooper but FM RVFN makes him look like prime Brian Clough 

[kingfox]

12 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

 

I feel that we are, and were, a victim of the growing gap between the Championship and the Premier League but not necessarily in the way people most commonly think. 

 

When we were relegated, we suddenly became Man City. We were relegated as recent Premier League and FA Cup winners who had been competing for Champions League spots and The Best of the Rest shortly before and had a wage bill to match. 

 

The entire Championship saw us coming and absolutely dropped their collective guts. Almost every club in the league went out and bought themselves an extra large new team bus to park on the pitch. 

 

I firmly believe that Enzoball was the most practical way to ensure we won the Championship in that context. Possession football is still the current (I hate I'm about to use this term) meta for winning a 30-40 game domestic title when you are by far the biggest club. It's why Pep has been so consistent for decades, it's why Klopp struggled to win as many titles and it's why Slot has come straight in to Liverpool and romped the league with the same squad. 

 

It's also why Leeds, who probably had a better squad than us last year, fell short of the mark because they just couldn't convert those draws in to wins because they lacked the same structured play that we had. 

 

The problem is, though, you have to earn the right to play that way. You need to be dominant, really, to play that way. As soon as we got promoted it no longer became the most intelligent and efficient way for us to play, as soon as we got promoted, all those players that were essential last year (Vestergaard, Faes, Winks, etc) became liabilities in the Premier League because what we really needed was a Morgan and a Huth, absolute battlers who are up for the fight. 

 

The most effective tactic for a newly promoted side will be to have a strong defence and a counter attacking game, sadly, to play like Forest currently are and like we were once famous for. 

 

But we're getting relegated again and we need to rebuild the squad again and ultimately the sensible thing to do here is to focus on possession again because we're still going to be a huge big fish in the Championship, people are still going to park the bus and we're still going to need to break that down. Then if we get promoted again we'll be ****ed once over. 

 

We're almost victims of our own success because we're too big to be able to approach the Championship as underdogs but we've made too big a mess of our squad to be able to approach the Premier League like an established side and play the way Top wants us to, a la Brighton. 

 

I don't think the blame rests with Enzo and I don't agree with trying to be tactically versatile, having a plan B, not committing to one philosophy or another, etc. 

 

This is Football Manager thinking, this is unrealistic fan thinking. Slot was asked earlier in the year before the Brentford game what made them so dangerous, he said that the length of service of Frank made them a problem to play against because Frank had been there long enough to coach in multiple styles of play. He said this takes a long time because when a coach first joins a club it takes a long time to drill and to perfect just the one system let alone two or three. 

 

Enzo said this repeatedly when he was here, he was always keen to emphasise it's a journey and that we were only just beginning and that we had to constantly improve. He was right, obviously his time here was cut short but he was still right. It's naive and foolish to think a coach is going to come in, be tactically flexible and teach a squad that needs a huge rebuild how to play multiple ways all at once. You need to pick a lane and get in it. 

 

If you want your coach to have a plan B you have to invest him over time and let it grow. It takes a lot more than one summer, football has become such a heavily systems orientated game it takes years for a squad to properly evolve it's relationship with the coach. 

 

Excellent post Finners 👍🏻
 

It’s exactly why I said in another post about the Championship method being frustrating. Being possession dominant like we were last season has been the key ingredient for success in the Championship. The top 10 in the Championship right now are pretty much all possession dominant sides. This graph from earlier in the season just shows how many promotion chasing clubs drift towards a more intricate style. 

 

But as seen in the Premier League this season, more teams are drifting towards fast & direct over slow & intricate. Liverpool have been an absolute menace on fast breaks, which is probably a big reason why they are top of the league. As you say, maybe the perfect ingredient for staying in the Premier League if this shift of play continues, is to follow the method that Nottingham Forest and a few others have started to show. 
 

This is why I personally feel that the style of Championship clubs might have to change. Being slow & intricate when it comes to a newly promoted side, as you say, recent history suggests it’s not the intelligent and effective way of playing. You’re just going to see teams constantly yo-yo between the divisions, because they are not getting on board with the current shift in times. 
 

Setting your team up to be a threat on counter attacks/fast breaks is probably the lane that teams need to get in. 
 

The only thing I don’t necessarily agree with is the need to be tactically flexible. So many managers have been caught out by being obsessed with one particular style, look at the guy in my display pic for example  
 

I read an interview with Liam Rosenior a few days ago, regarding how flexible he was in the way he approached both games against us last season. 
 

John Mousinho has done similar at Pompey this season, they were one of the most possession dominant teams in League 1 last season, early doors in the Championship, he realised that’s probably not the right way to go, now they’ve become a more direct team and he’s probably done enough to keep them in the Championship. 
 

If you are to attack the Championship by being possession heavy, you have to be flexible enough once you hit the Premier League or you’ll soon get found out. 

[stevostadium]

Doesn't matter whose in charge next season

We have 14 players on 1 years contract remaining, none of which will move as there wages are ridiculously high.

That's why RVN will be in charge next season as no compo to pay out. 

Rebuild starts 2026/27 season.

From the top to bottom.

*** and edited to add, 14 players out of contract, none of which who care

Edited 1 April by stevostadium

[Finnegan]

1 hour ago, kingfox said:

look at the guy in my display pic for example

 

I mean he's just not very good.

[kingfox]

11 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

 

I mean he's just not very good.

How dare you disrespect our manager for next season 

[whoareyaaa]

1 hour ago, stevostadium said:

Doesn't matter whose in charge next season

We have 14 players on 1 years contract remaining, none of which will move as there wages are ridiculously high.

That's why RVN will be in charge next season as no compo to pay out. 

Rebuild starts 2026/27 season.

From the top to bottom.

*** and edited to add, 14 players out of contract, none of which who care

Surely selling Hermansen will allow us to get rid of him and bring in a new manager. bit like when we didn't go for Coberan and bought Ayew for 8m

Edited 1 April by whoareyaaa

[brookfox]

23 hours ago, Craig said:

Like Top and Rudkin would even know who he is  

If Rudkin went out to get Marco Rose he’d come back with an inexpensive bottle of pink wine.

[Vindaloo FOX]

David Wagner anyone?

[Claudio Fannieri]

5 minutes ago, Vindaloo FOX said:

David Wagner anyone?

Is this a suggestion, your opinion or is this a bit of inside knowledge, haven’t we been linked/shown an interest previously? 

[SafewayFox]

The club is rotten at the top so getting rid of just Ruud isn’t the answer. However, from a footballing standpoint he needs to go.

 

He isn’t the answer and actually enjoyed Rob Tanner calling out how lightly he’s been let off the hook.

[sly1]

C,mon we go again

[teblin]

2 hours ago, Vindaloo FOX said:

David Wagner anyone?

No thanks, had a bit of strange management career really