Johan Lange - Sporting Director

[thfcsteff]

I really do think selling Brennan without a replacement, in the midst of an injury crisis, was also a dumb move that again shows up this data / theory vs judgement situation we’ve gotten ourselves into.

Selling a player at the peak of their value, moving them on if we don’t have any intention of building around them, is definitely something we needed to do better as a club. But I feel no one was like ‘hang on a minute, maybe we can hold off on this because everyone is being run into the ground’.

It’s just another example of really poor judgement, ‘not panicking’ as a virtue without having a feel for what the squad needed.

As much as anything, with an already fragile vibe, you do not want to punt on a player who the rest of the squad get on with unless you have a plan.
I am not sure we had a plan beyond showing everyone that 'look, we can sell players quickly if we need to we are getting better at that)...the way we did it was also, by all accounts, pretty rough.

 

[thfcsteff]

What player would have made a difference though when it is the club culture that is taking us down and now the player quality?

Weren't we involved in 2 of the big 5 or 6 transfers in January. We also picked up a highly rated 19 year old for the future.

I really believe we need to see the wood from the trees here. Everyone seems to be looking for spacegoats, especially the ones that don't actually kick a ball or coach the players.

His first, and most fundamental, task as we approached Xmas was to realise he and his 'mate' had got it wrong with their appt. Plans are lovely things until life punches you in the face and demands a sudden reaction. He saw us getting punched in the face and stuck with this 'plan' of his to guide through a season which most could see was already off the rails. He failed to make provisions early in removing the manager, he did not give the manager the necessary experience (short-term) he needed, and then he was part of the sacking AFTER the window. It was disastrous. I know we 'tried' to get Semenyo and 'tried' to get Robertson, but could the dept not have scouted other options, especially in the 'experienced' dept which Frank was asking for. I know, we signed Gallagher, but I'm talking richer experience than that. Besides, the profile of player we have is probably best stocked in Gallagher land.

Lange is heavily responsible for the current club culture/allowing it to have developed. Like it or not (and I will keep saying this regardless of criticism) HE is part of the group which decided that winning a trophy did not count and that we needed to rewrite the 'culture' of the club. You know my view on that so I'll spare us both, but even if someone felt he easily right, it is clear that he has been part of ballsing it right up because we have no fudging clue WHO we are right now, and are reliant on the players to dig deep and find something they have not been able to find as of yet.

It's not space-boating IMO, he has not done a good enough job and needs to go. I'd like to see someone replace the snake above him too, but I fear he'll contort and survive...

 

[Gazza]

He needs to be sidelined into young talent. He clearly has not done well.

 

[SissokoWasGood (BoL)]

His first, and most fundamental, task as we approached Xmas was to realise he and his 'mate' had got it wrong with their appt. Plans are lovely things until life punches you in the face and demands a sudden reaction. He saw us getting punched in the face and stuck with this 'plan' of his to guide through a season which most could see was already off the rails. He failed to make provisions early in removing the manager, he did not give the manager the necessary experience (short-term) he needed, and then he was part of the sacking AFTER the window. It was disastrous. I know we 'tried' to get Semenyo and 'tried' to get Robertson, but could the dept not have scouted other options, especially in the 'experienced' dept which Frank was asking for. I know, we signed Gallagher, but I'm talking richer experience than that. Besides, the profile of player we have is probably best stocked in Gallagher land.

Lange is heavily responsible for the current club culture/allowing it to have developed. Like it or not (and I will keep saying this regardless of criticism) HE is part of the group which decided that winning a trophy did not count and that we needed to rewrite the 'culture' of the club. You know my view on that so I'll spare us both, but even if someone felt he easily right, it is clear that he has been part of ballsing it right up because we have no fudging clue WHO we are right now, and are reliant on the players to dig deep and find something they have not been able to find as of yet.

It's not space-boating IMO, he has not done a good enough job and needs to go. I'd like to see someone replace the snake above him too, but I fear he'll contort and survive...

There’s this seeming desire to be Bournemouth, Brighton or Brentford because they use ‘data’ to over perform and so if we use ‘data’ then surely we’ll be champions!

I think Jack Pitt-Brooke said it on the Libero podcast, but the only manager that’s truly found a way to navigate the demand of the fans, the board and the players was Poch. Ange came close but clearly lost the board. There is so much to be said for someone just getting what the job is, understanding the club, and being uniquely suited to that. Moyes at Everton. Ancelotti at Madrid. Sometimes it just fits.

Equally, this obsession with ‘structure’ lead us down this path. The other point well made is that some of the better performing clubs than us now like Villa and Saudi Sportswashing Machine and Fulham just back their managers. What is Villa if not Emery. What is Fulham if not Silva etc. I think that’s so right.

We’ve tried to fanagle our way down a path of being data driven and highly structured, which leads us to hiring someone like Thomas Frank who can ‘change the culture’ to what I have no idea. Brentford but with better players? Who are for some reason just as willing to do as little in possession work as those Brentford players did? It’s mad.

Again, all sorts of stuff that sounds good in theory and reasonable when presented by management consultants but now just looks completely stupid once we’ve seen it play out.

 

[thfcsteff]

There’s this seeming desire to be Bournemouth, Brighton or Brentford because they use ‘data’ to over perform and so if we use ‘data’ then surely we’ll be champions!

I think Jack Pitt-Brooke said it on the Libero podcast, but the only manager that’s truly found a way to navigate the demand of the fans, the board and the players was Poch. Ange came close but clearly lost the board. There is so much to be said for someone just getting what the job is, understanding the club, and being uniquely suited to that. Moyes at Everton. Ancelotti at Madrid. Sometimes it just fits.

Equally, this obsession with ‘structure’ lead us down this path. The other point well made is that some of the better performing clubs than us now like Villa and Saudi Sportswashing Machine and Fulham just back their managers. What is Villa if not Emery. What is Fulham if not Silva etc. I think that’s so right.

We’ve tried to fanagle our way down a path of being data driven and highly structured, which leads us to hiring someone like Thomas Frank who can ‘change the culture’ to what I have no idea. Brentford but with better players? Who are for some reason just as willing to do as little in possession work as those Brentford players did? It’s mad.

Again, all sorts of stuff that sounds good in theory and reasonable when presented by management consultants but now just looks completely stupid once we’ve seen it play out.

Not to be ego-driven or pedantic, but I have said this for years. It is why that was so special, and why losing on June 1st 2019 was actually not just a tragedy for us, but for football because had we got across the line, we'd have shown it can still be done the 'right' way. It also amplified why I was (actually) furious that Poch did not get support for a rebuild, because it proved that few people actually 'got it', understood what he had done and what he was.

I am in no way a total luddite, but you will know that I very, very much value the intangible magic and alchemy of chemistry in football, across all levels. I won't get into it here, but trust me, 'culturally' the descent into some faceless, non-accountable series of metrics, spreadsheets and projections has been both disgraceful (to me) and destructive (to the fabric of the club).
I understand that what I am about to say will be aggravating to some, and I do genuinely apologise for that if it happens, but the writing was on the wall when we decided that there needed to be a 'cultural reboot' of a 'project' which was only two years in and had already produced a European trophy! That we decided to shut 'the project' down and reboot in another direction (effectively a message to every single player saying 'yeah, well done, nice night out but not good enough overall AND we don't feel you have learnt anything from this past season') was awful IMO.

I always support whoever our manager is until they show themselves to be. charlatan/not up to it. Mourinho showed me his arsse when he stole Poch's job by saying to Levy that he could do better with that squad. Liar. trumper. fudge off. And I waited for Frank to rise above and beyond 'one thing is for certain, we will lose football matches', and hoped he would ride to 'we stand on the shoulders of other and will build upon Ange's work' only to sady hear, 'this isn't really a CL club because they finished 17th and only got into the tournament by winning a trophy'. Which again must've been wonderful for the players. Still, everyone got excited that he and Paratici went to Brennan Johnson on what, Jan 5th, and said effectively 'fudge off we won't ever use you', thus showing we could be a really efficient 'selling club' except for the fact his muppet mate Lange didn't get another attacking body in! Marvelous work, well done team! Also, BTW, well done on reading the dressing room, which already in a weakened psych state lost one of the players who was popular and kept the vibe light. Oh, and was the top scorer last season; complain about his ineffectiveness all you want, I thought the reason we HAD that manager was because he USED players well and used tools at his disposal....AND then when Lange finally did step up and do some press explaining WTF was going on, he effectively told us all we needed to understand that patience and not panicking was the M.O...

...apologies @SissokoWasGood (BoL) as I find myself in the midde of an 'inside voice' rant, but here we are and here I am. Last June we had a tremendous vibe around the club, a trophy, the glow of winning and the football world wondering if we could take the bounce into the league and be a force. Instead, the absolute *unts running this club smugly fu*ked it up. people can blame the players all they want, this is on the upper management and the management they chose to run the football side of things. Inadequate, 'modern club data driven middle management WA NKERS who live in a small bubble of data-driven smugness. I despise them I really do, to the extent that I find myself half-thinking that maybe a benefit of going down would be those tossers getting jettisoned.

Older contributors such as @parklane1 do, like me, vividly remember Keith Burkinshaw post the UEFA Cup win. It was seismic. I didn't really understand what he meant, but I soon came to. As it was, the season following that UEFA Cup win was decent, finishing 3rd and qualifying again for a UEFA Cup we never got to play in because of the British ban. Whatever about Irving Scholar (and it is a history WELL worth reading if folks don't know it) his heart was absolutely in the right place and he loved this club.
WHO of the Lewis family, Charrington, Venkatesham, Lange, could you say actually KNOWS football, let alone cares about damn about this club?
None of them...

Thanks for reading/listening hahahahaha...