I keep thinking that there is no perfect blend of idealism and pragmatism that serves as our cheat code. It’s just philosophies and choices with different trade offs.
We’ll be good under Frank. I have no doubt. But there’s a really obvious, basic trade off with the idea that he’s kinda attacking but adapts when needed, and it’s that he needs to be the one to get his adaptations right every single time. We played Brentford this season towards the end of our injury crisis, but still within it, and won fairly comfortably. A coach with a belief in perfecting a system can beat a coach who will adapt theirs. If the former team is clicking into gear, it either doesn’t matter what the adjustments are, or they need to be absolutely perfect to be stopping the opposition.
That’s the trade. There’s gonna be times we fail to break teams down because our possession game isn’t as well drilled or refined. There’s gonna be times we decide to sit on a lead and invite pressure, and end up conceding. If Frank gets his adjustments right every game, maybe we win the league. But there’s extreme likelihood is we get back into the top 6, and we (the fan base in general) end up being kinda happy but kinda frustrated with the trade offs that become apparent from his philosophy.
This is not to say that any other coach is perfect, rather they will all struggle unless given time to get their squad the way they want it, in condition, and drilled to succeed. If that happens, we see the best of the trade off balance rather than the negatives. If not, the opposite.
I think that all reads true.
A couple of points though.
1. Most (all?) managers will get a certain amount of time to show that the direction of travel is positive (not just at our club)
2. As I noted in another post...It's hard when you are not the very top club(s)..they have the muscle to fast track plans, cherry pick the best and move on from failings without consequence.
3. It's not impossible though. Napoli, Leverkusen have their moments. And Simone is probably the closest example to what you are saying (he must be bordering on a generational manager now?), but even then it's only every now and then they succeed.
4. We had a manager in Poch that only failed on very fine margins and probably a bit of luck. He'd done (and been left to get on with) what you described, and we were hand on heart the best team in the league for a while.
5. Even Arteta has now resorted to changing the Goons game, simply because he's looking for a way past City and Liverpool.
6. I'm not being defeatist, just a realist. It'll probably take what you describe, but we will need to land with a gem of a manager, but offering a blanket theory doesn't negate the need to judge every case on its merits in the here and now.
7. I suppose the crux of it in this instance. Is you thought Ange fitted this mould and we've let an opportunity slip by? I don't feel that. He was nowhere close to Poch as an overall package. Where we might agree is I would have probably given both the next season (or the rest of the season in Poch case) Not necessarily because I think it's going to work, but due to the churn in managers we have anyway, i may as well let the long shot finish it's race before either putting up the screens and shooting it or marvel at it's training performance. Although I'm not the one in the firing line for throwing away seasons.
Good having you back Brain!