Martí Cifuentes

[urban.spaceman]

52 minutes ago, Silva Fox said:

I've been told we can't afford photos so he's been asked to sketch a quick self-portrait!

[dmayne7]

Bit of a strained connection but my brother is mates with the QPR Academy Director. Apparently he was raving about how good Cifuentes was a couple of months ago so hopefully that bodes well.

 

Same guy also knew Shakey a bit and gave an interesting insight into our title win.

[DJ Barry Hammond]

8 minutes ago, dmayne7 said:

Bit of a strained connection but my brother is mates with the QPR Academy Director. Apparently he was raving about how good Cifuentes was a couple of months ago so hopefully that bodes well.

 

Same guy also knew Shakey a bit and gave an interesting insight into our title win.

You can’t just leave that bit hanging there - not as if that’s sacred information now!

[Kitchandro]

1 hour ago, Sly said:

@Finneganyou’ve taken my response out of context! I think if you have the players to use within a system, you utilise them to the best of the ability you have. 
 

It’s modern football 101 isn’t it? If you have the ball, the opponent can’t score. I don’t mind that personally. The droves hate it and want it old skool, long to a target man at pace! 
 

Many coaches adopt a similar philosophy as in a nutshell, to a degree you’re playing the odds. Let’s not pretend they play this way as it’s super exciting to watch. It decreases the chances of conceding, increases ball retention, gets the football into the areas that statistically generate the most chances and therefore overall improve your chance of winning a came of football. It’s like a game of chess. 
 

P.s, watched it the other day. 

Do you actually think this? I ask because it’s a constant narrative parroted by the media and message boards that’s completely false. It’s what they call a ‘straw man’.

 

People want to see the ball passed quickly, not hoofed. It’s very difficult to score without moving the ball quickly and impossible to win without scoring. It’s entertaining to see the game played at pace. The masses want entertainment and goals.

 

Keeping possession does not decrease the chances of conceding and it does not get the ball in areas that statistically generate the most chances. You’ve seen enough of Leicester to know that passing it around the back for 5 seasons is not the area where you create goal scoring chances. Most goals are scored within 3 passes, statistically - making the obsession with possession football not backed up by the most important and directly relevant data. That statistic also indirectly suggests something we also know from watching football, that pressing high and winning the ball in the opposition’s half leads to a lot of goals. So, keeping possession at the back, against high pressing teams, gives you a larger risk of conceding than scoring, unless you are far superior to them both individually and as a unit.

 

Speaking of false narratives and overused phrases, there’s this constant black-and-white argument that the long ball game is pragmatic and possession football is beautiful and some managers don’t strike the right balance. Long balls aren’t pragmatic unless there’s a specific plan that goes with it, and possession football is the most dull, ugly thing on earth if not done at a fast tempo.

 

I’ve said before, better players make better teams, better players win more games and better teams will invariably have more possession. The latter is not fundamentally a bad thing. But moving the ball slowly is a flaw. Inviting teams onto you, assuming they are going to both press and be bad at pressing, is not the most likely way to score or win games. Getting promoted last time was down to having the best players and the same ideas got us (under Rodgers with a squad that should never have gone down) and Southampton relegated (in double quick time). And let’s not even get started on Puel. How can the defence of slow possession football still exist? 

 

 

[The Guvnor]

56 minutes ago, StriderHiryu said:

More suitable. 

 

IF we get back to the Premier League, I have some reservations about the style working there. But if you haven't seen, it, check out the highlights when they beat Leeds 4-0 when we were promoted. He has shown he isn't averse to playing without the ball and hitting teams on the break. That is different to Enzo who I think would be overly stubborn. 

 

His style is the classic Dutch / Barcelona 433 / 343 and it's variants. If you have technical players, that style will always be effective. When you are up against players who are more technical than yours, it can be an issue. 

Bugger!

[Claridge]

46 minutes ago, Bordersfox said:

Let's all keep talking about how pragmatic Cifuentes is until @Finnegan has a breakdown.  

let’s keep talking about him as if any of us really has any idea about him👀

[Winstonthedog]

Regardless of what we think about KP ... Top ... Rudkin... Whelan....  the new manager needs our full support... and backing ... give him his chance to prove what he is all about

[filbertway]

31 minutes ago, urban.spaceman said:

[dmayne7]

50 minutes ago, DJ Barry Hammond said:

You can’t just leave that bit hanging there - not as if that’s sacred information now!

I've probably shared it before and it's nothing revolutionary. They were on a coaching course at the same time (think towards the end of the the title winning season, though I spoke to him in Sept/Oct of the following season) and he had asked Shakey what the secret was to the success. Shakey told him that Claudio was clever in the fact that he made very few changes so the tweaks he made were impactful, but the key thing was that the players were so pissed off that Pearson got sacked they were extra fired up and were determined to try and win the league, or at least have a proper go and show people what a good a team he had built.

 

So nothing that insightful really as it could be meaningless, but think it also underlines how much the players loved Pearson and would also back up stories of things going pear shaped when Ranieri started to change things.

Edited 11 July 2025 by dmayne7

[lgfualol]

Heard deals off after Rudkin misspelled his name as Farti Cifuentes in the contract 

[tinpot_fox]

1 hour ago, StriderHiryu said:

More suitable. 

 

IF we get back to the Premier League, I have some reservations about the style working there. But if you haven't seen, it, check out the highlights when they beat Leeds 4-0 when we were promoted. He has shown he isn't averse to playing without the ball and hitting teams on the break. That is different to Enzo who I think would be overly stubborn. 

 

His style is the classic Dutch / Barcelona 433 / 343 and it's variants. If you have technical players, that style will always be effective. When you are up against players who are more technical than yours, it can be an issue. 

What happens if we are up are players who are faster than ours?

[Guest Lako42]

43 minutes ago, filbertway said:

Good to know he's already met Vestegaard's dog as he'll be seeing a lot of it. 

[Richmondfox]

46 minutes ago, Winstonthedog said:

Regardless of what we think about KP ... Top ... Rudkin... Whelan....  the new manager needs our full support... and backing ... give him his chance to prove what he is all about

As long as he doesn’t play Soumare, Ayew and Daka for half the season thinking they will suddenly get better and stop doing everything they have failed at. 

[Ricey]

Just waiting for Top to review all 387 photos and approve them.

[STUHILL]

5 minutes ago, Richmondfox said:

As long as he doesn’t play Soumare, Ayew and Daka for half the season thinking they will suddenly get better and stop doing everything they have failed at. 

Major red flag is playing Soumare 

 

Ayew was actually OK in some games last season. Hoping we sign a striker to start so don’t have to use Daka 

[Plastik Man]

2 hours ago, ThurmastonFox said:

Apparently the photos were taken today, yesterday or the day before. Consider yourself told 

Yep, and posted off to Boots to get them developed!

[Bordersfox]

1 hour ago, Claridge said:

let’s keep talking about him as if any of us really has any idea about him👀

He's been coaching for 20 years.  There is an abundance of information about him, his tactics and his character online, based on the evidence of what he's done and said.  There's even a video of him talking in detail about his own tactics 

 

So whilst you might not have a clue, plenty of us have some idea.  

[The Year Of The Fox]

1 minute ago, Bordersfox said:

He's been coaching for 20 years.  There is an abundance of information about him, his tactics and his character online, based on the evidence of what he's done and said.  There's even a video of him talking in detail about his own tactics 

 

So whilst you might not have a clue, plenty of us have some idea.  

Which still gives absolutely zero indication of how he’ll fare here 

[Bordersfox]

1 minute ago, The Year Of The Fox said:

Which still gives absolutely zero indication of how he’ll fare here 

Eh?  It's entirely obvious the tactics he'll deploy and the sort of players he'll want to utilise.  

 

Yeah no sh1t sherlock we can't predict the future and whether he'll be a success.  But Claridge claimed we have no idea about him.  Clearly that's not true.  

[StriderHiryu]

14 minutes ago, tinpot_fox said:

What happens if we are up are players who are faster than ours?

That’s where our team needs an overhaul. If you want to aggressively press, play a high line and attack the opposition we need much faster players. This manager used a really young team in Sweden to facilitate that. If the opposition is faster and stronger, this style won’t work. 

 

If the manager plays Okoli, Nelson, Fatawu, Monga, Mavididi, etc his style should work. Players like Reid and Ayew did do their defensive work but they lack the speed to play regularly in a 433 / 343. 

 

That said it’s horses for courses. If the opposition themselves lack pace, then slower players aren’t such an issue. Reid under Marco Silva was effective as either an attacking midfielder or winger when making the rotations we’ll probably see under Cifuentes. Vestergaard was too slow and immobile for the Premier League but against bus parkers he can still do a job. 
 

I hope and expect those players to be squad options instead of first team though. Hansi Flick at Barcelona transformed that team by relying on the young players for similar reasons. 

[Spanner73]

2 hours ago, winteriscoming said:

Please don’t. Still pisses me off that we got Ayew and Skipp for a combined 30m but wouldn’t pay the compensation for Corberan. 

He’s Enzo-esq until we need to be direct then it’s John Beck Cambridge style just launch it into the box, ie Dublin,crouch& Ormondroyd as a front 3 👍

[Richmondfox]

2 minutes ago, STUHILL said:

Major red flag is playing Soumare 

 

Ayew was actually OK in some games last season. Hoping we sign a striker to start so don’t have to use Daka 

I will support any manager until he plays Soumare in back to back games.  Then he has confirmed he knows nothing.  At least Enzo was clear and stubborn with the roles he needed people to do otherwise they got binned. 

 

Ayew being ok at times is how toxic last season was. Shame the rest of the time he would play the role of a hold up striker on the half way line during a counter attack. 😂

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Bordersfox said:

He's been coaching for 20 years.  There is an abundance of information about him, his tactics and his character online, based on the evidence of what he's done and said.  There's even a video of him talking in detail about his own tactics 

 

So whilst you might not have a clue, plenty of us have some idea.  

Come on mate, he's FOREIGN. He might well have been coaching for 20 years, including in this country, this division and against us very recently, but how are we meant to know anything about him? Realistically you'd need to be an obsessive hipster mega-nerd to have any idea about anyone who isn't Sean Dyche or Chris Wilder.

[coolhandfox]

15 minutes ago, The Year Of The Fox said:

Which still gives absolutely zero indication of how he’ll fare here 

Same for any manager to be fair.

[Bordersfox]

9 minutes ago, Guest said:

Come on mate, he's FOREIGN. He might well have been coaching for 20 years, including in this country, this division and against us very recently, but how are we meant to know anything about him? Realistically you'd need to be an obsessive hipster mega-nerd to have any idea about anyone who isn't Sean Dyche or Chris Wilder.

You got me.  I do enjoy reading about foreign managers but only after riding my penny farthing to the nearest craft beer establishment, of course stopping along the way to purchase some beard wax.