The 'If You Still Need to Purge Yourself Of Ange' Thread

BrainOfLevy said:

But again, ‘when players returned’, which players actually played in the league?

I also can’t believe you don’t think the drop off between VDV and and Gray / Davies isn’t that much. It’s monstrous. One is an 18 year old midfielder playing out of position in his first PL season and the other is a slow, small, converted left back.

I would agree that he could have changed systems in the PL too, but it’s not ‘getting away with it’ to be able to leverage the skills of Romero and VDV, it’s the entire point if you’re trying to build something that can overshoot your financial position. I think Gray and Davies were used at centre back because they can pass the ball out under some pressure, so it didn’t totally destroy our principles.

It simply would not have been Ange’s way to try and adjust his way out of a crisis. He’s an uncompromising, all or nothing kinda guy. And that led to some bad league form. But it also led to a European trophy. And I don’t think we have enough data to say whether or not the third season would have been over by November for him or not, because from the moment our injury crisis took hold, he did what he believed was best for the club, which was to finally win something. Deeper, more experienced squad and normalised injuries, there’s every chance we are top 6 again next year.

You asked whether we can expect to have gotten 28 more points under him. I think yes. It’s 8 wins and 4 draws. It’s Forest’s record this year. Yes…I can absolutely see a world in which he got that.

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But he adjusted and compromised in the last 4 EL games.

So he is that kind of guy.

Raziel said:

So again, just for discussion purposes

1. Vic -> Forster, agree, club took a gamble (we know in hindsight the intention was Kinsky this summer) and it didn't pay off. Caveat -> PPG/league did not improve once we got Kinsky and/or Vic return (see my final point)
1. Romero/VDV -> Dragusin/Gray/Davies, don't agree, no question Romero/VDV are our first choice and a step above quality wise but this to me more than anything highlights the flaws in Ange's system (as he played in the PL), basically with Romero/VDV you could almost get away with the tactic, but with no one else. If we just played some of those games like we did in EL (4-2-4) with the defenders allowed to have the play in front of them, the drop off would not have been so catastrophic.

The problem with the idea that injuries were the primary issue is player availability over time does not correlate with results over time
- Basically Ange's tenure can be divided into 3 month or 6 month time periods including the first 10 games, and the return (PPG/position) just gets worse as time (each quarter/half) goes on.

If injuries were a critical (not saying they weren't, but primary?) factor in his league form, the return of players in 2nd half of both seasons should have seen a significant uplift in results, we didn't.

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Of course he could've been pragmatic. That's also been discussed many times. As have his reasons for not (some to do with 'who he is', others to do with getting players to buy in whatever as long as he protects them - which he did). I think the pragmatic approach in Europe was an anomaly caused by the prize he saw which was gettable versus the sacrifices to get it.

As for the bold-face line, we're back at that incovenience of context and details. There are obviously many reasons for what happened. Injuries/tired players were, IMO, a significant portion.

Injuries break rhythm. Loads of injuries really break rhythm. Of course he could've done some things differently, but you cannot discount how long it takes returning players to achieve full match-fitness, the time to reintegrate several of them at a time, and the maintenance of that fitness via good rotation (as long as players around you are also fit). When he said mistakes were made in pre-season, I'd love to know more because there is a lot of logic in that thought for me with regards to player wear and tear.

thfcsteff said:

Of course he could've been pragmatic. That's also been discussed many times. As have his reasons for not (some to do with 'who he is', others to do with getting players to buy in whatever as long as he protects them - which he did). I think the pragmatic approach in Europe was an anomaly caused by the prize he saw which was gettable versus the sacrifices to get it.

As for the bold-face line, we're back at that incovenience of context and details. There are obviously many reasons for what happened. Injuries/tired players were, IMO, a significant portion.

Injuries break rhythm. Loads of injuries really break rhythm. Of course he could've done some things differently, but you cannot discount how long it takes returning players to achieve full match-fitness, the time to reintegrate several of them at a time, and the maintenance of that fitness via good rotation (as long as players around you are also fit). When he said mistakes were made in pre-season, I'd love to know more because there is a lot of logic in that thought for me with regards to player wear and tear.

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Agreed on the pre season bit. This is the part I am really fascinated about. Because it’s an actual, substantive ‘football discussion’ as opposed to discussing whether a manager who got us 5th and a European trophy in two seasons is actually ‘good enough for the Premier League’.

Ange has alluded to mistakes having been made. What exactly were they? Which ones he is himself culpable for, versus the medical staff? How did this affect our start to his second season? What did he get wrong in his assumptions? Was there something else we could have done, or were decisions made with the best data at the time?

This is what I would love to know, because I think it impacts the start of this season just gone. It was like we were playing well but poor finishing and a lack of killer instinct were stopping us converting games into wins. And at the margins of the elite level, a little slip off in conditioning could well have been the reason. But why? Why was it allowed to happen to us? I would love to know!

Baleforce said:

But he adjusted and compromised in the last 4 EL games.

So he is that kind of guy.

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Agreed - but for whatever reason he chose not to be in the Premier League.

He’s clearly a smart enough guy who knows a bit about football, so rather than jump to something along the lines of him being stupid or stubborn, I’m interested in trying to understand the reason why.

It might be - he wanted to keep the European teams thinking that we would not adjust our style too much in *their* game, so that said adjustments actually had a bigger impact when we surprised them.

It might be - his whole motivation for the squad, the big theme that attracted players to sign, was based on bravery. So he may have thought that compromising in order to win a trophy in a particular context is one thing that would not affect that motivation or belief in being brave, but doing it in the League would have destroyed the principles he had built on.

It’s one thing to play smart in a knock out round when you don’t get another chance for luck to even itself out over the course of 38 games. It’s another to turn to pragmatism over those 38 games when you have preached the virtues of being brave, sticking together, and working towards the bigger picture. If he compromised, the next time he asks them to play out from the back under pressure and they don’t, his authority is lost. (In this theory)

It might be - that whatever time we had for actual training was devoted to the strategy to win the Europa games, so there wasn’t as much time to build a plan for back up players to adjust to a league opposition. So maybe he decided that the best thing to do would be to play a basic version of his overall system, and hoped that whatever residual cohesiveness remained in those back up players would see us through?

It might be - he was stubborn and should have changed more in the league too. Maybe! Maybe he also could have gone hell for leather and picked up a few more points in the league, and still won the Europa. I feel like one of the only times we really upped the tempo and played some form of Ange ball in those last few weeks was Forest at home. We just had a dreadful start, but created well.

It might be - that he just did not realise he had the option of being pragmatic, because he’s a one trick pony. (Although this is somewhat disproved by the fact he did adjust in the Europa).

Again, I just go back to the idea that I agree it’s not impossible that he may have got a few more points in the league, and also won the trophy. But it’s about risk and reward. He was promising these players that they would be legends, and winners if they followed him. And I think ending the season in a gallant 13th with a QF/SF exit would have been no good for anyone. He would not be in the job, the players would not be winners, we would all be miserable, and we wouldn’t have the CL to look forward to. When the potential reward, and the salvation for a dreadful season was so great, I can see why he took every decision to *make sure* it happened. Especially when the alternative is likely still a bottom half finish, and no trophy. I do not think this means he is incapable of managing in European competition and the league generally, I think he took those specific decisions in the specific context he was faced with, because it would turn a horrendous season into a legendary one. Rather than attempting to turn a horrendous season into a terrible one, which is what a few more places up in the league would be.

Another thought experiment - if the injuries had put us down in say 10th, 8 points off of 6th, when players started to come back properly, I think he would have made different decisions. There was still a chance to maximise our options by making sure we qualified through the league, and ‘seeing how far we could get’ in the Europa. And I don’t think we’d be questioning so much why there was such a divergence between League and European form.

The fact that we were so far off, meant the decision to put all eggs in the Europa basket was the obvious one. You may disagree with that, but I’d just point you to the paragraph above and the post above that. It’s the point of the thought experiment - I contend that Ange, the Ange we have all been discussing, with his level of ability and acumen, would have gotten us more points in the league after a less severe injury crisis had subsided, if we was closer to the European spots in the league when he started getting players back.