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Is this a fancier version of the Redknapp era?

I think the success of a team is often as impacted by the strength of the opposition at any given time as it is the quality in the team itself. Lets be honest Leicester's year literally everyone else was in either free fall or rebuild - the fact that the foxes were the winners was ultimately down to that in the end - the jokes on MOTD were that nobody wanted to win it with 8 games to go.

If you compare the team to the truly great prem teams, there's always been three ingredients - depth, workrate and flair. Ferguson had two players for each position, a mindset programming which meant the whole team worked and ran harder than the opposition, and then Cantona, or Ronaldo, or Beckham, or Van Persie, the list can and does go on.

We now have a squad which on paper at least have minimal gaps. Bar centre half where we are a little exposed to a possible "made it" lapse from Tanganga, followed by a chasm in class to Carter-Vickers, we have a squad of 22 for the main task at hand which is to be compact, well organised and if the Utd game is anything to go by, work bloody hard.

The flair bit is the bit that excites me. I've noticed that a lot of people's references to the poch era miss what made his best team so good - Eriksen and co were great but the reason for our dominance in games was the complete unplayability of Rose and Walker down the flanks. They had great engines, were not scared to get stuck in and do the dirty work and created chance after chance for the forwards. Now with Reguillon and Doherty, or even Aurier, we've got the scope to do that again - indeed with Reguillon it will be impossible to curb - its his natural game. In order to do that you need someone better than Dier at sitting in front of the defence, and in PEH we have that. Also in the flair camp are the obvious, Bale, Kane, Son and Bergwijn but increasingly also Ndombélé who can turn a moment in a game. If you compare the list of players who could turn a dour 0-0 into a gritty 0-1 in January in Burnley, to what we had 12 months ago, we've lost Eriksen, and gained Reguillon, Doherty, Bale, Bergwijn and Vinicius.

I'm looking forward to this season, based on that last bit.
 
I assume that’s Stipe Pletikosa between Niko and Corluka. Took me a while to try and think who it could be!
 
I like Harry, and I am grateful that he made us exciting to watch again, and was able to further the good feeling that Jol created. Ramos lead us to a trophy but his setup was a bit boring, Graham Plus if you will. Redknapp and his team was anything but boring. And he could handle the media well, if it weren't for the FA turning his head I believe he could have lead us to something.
 
I like Harry, and I am grateful that he made us exciting to watch again, and was able to further the good feeling that Jol created. Ramos lead us to a trophy but his setup was a bit boring, Graham Plus if you will. Redknapp and his team was anything but boring. And he could handle the media well, if it weren't for the FA turning his head I believe he could have lead us to something.

He's an absolute crook, he's not Jose when it comes to tactics but, despite myself, there is something I like about Harry. Like you say, he made us incredibly exciting to watch and made a lot of our lads play better. I loved his reign. Shame we weren't a bit more competitive against the big clubs but I'll always remember him fondly.

Wouldn't put him in charge of the Christmas Club money though.
 
He's an absolute crook, he's not Jose when it comes to tactics but, despite myself, there is something I like about Harry. Like you say, he made us incredibly exciting to watch and made a lot of our lads play better. I loved his reign. Shame we weren't a bit more competitive against the big clubs but I'll always remember him fondly.

Wouldn't put him in charge of the Christmas Club money though.
He's proper old school and had no tactics to speak of, but his all-or-nothing run-around-a-bit total unpredictability was part of what made it fun. Especially after the dark age, we were starving for entertainment as much as trophies. I remember Harry going absolutely nuts about being called out as a wheeler-dealer though, I think he looked upon himself as quite the clever one. Good times!
 
He's proper old school and had no tactics to speak of, but his all-or-nothing run-around-a-bit total unpredictability was part of what made it fun. Especially after the dark age, we were starving for entertainment as much as trophies. I remember Harry going absolutely nuts about being called out as a wheeler-dealer though, I think he looked upon himself as quite the clever one. Good times!
I think he was unhappy about the insinuation in how he did business as it was around the time of his court case!

 
Look at Niko.......jeez
There was a time, maybe enhanced in my memory as I sat lower shelf side at WHL, when Niko first came and was playing on the left, it felt like he used to get the ball on that side of the pitch, drop a shoulder and cut past a player or two like they weren’t there and plant it in the right top corner whenever it took his whim. Reminded me of Ginola but then I think he lost his place / got injured and never seemed to be the same player.
 
I like Harry, and I am grateful that he made us exciting to watch again, and was able to further the good feeling that Jol created. Ramos lead us to a trophy but his setup was a bit boring, Graham Plus if you will. Redknapp and his team was anything but boring. And he could handle the media well, if it weren't for the FA turning his head I believe he could have lead us to something.


The FA never turned is head as he was NEVER in the running to be the England manager, it was his pals in the press who were trying to convince everyone he was. He never got a look in and you can take that to the bank.
 
The FA never turned is head as he was NEVER in the running to be the England manager, it was his pals in the press who were trying to convince everyone he was. He never got a look in and you can take that to the bank.

I'm sure thats true, its annoying because it fudged us up. It's also annoying that he wasn't in the running as at the time he was exactly what England needed.

So I'm still annoyed at the FA.

Also, they could have come out with an official statement saying there was no way they would hire him.
 
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I'm sure thats true, its annoying because it fudged us up. It's also annoying that he wasn't in the running as at the time he was exactly what England needed.

So I'm still annoyed at the FA.

He was never in with a chance of the job, the FA had never recovered/got over the farce that was Keegan and the way that ended. The press got KK the job and were trying the same with " rent a quote". It was never going to happen.
 
Remember being at the game after his court case when we thrashed Saudi Sportswashing Machine 5-0 and thought for a moment that we might actually be in with a shout of challenging the Mancs for the title... then the tabloids did their bit :(

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Nope

We played nice football under Redknapp.
I thought we played some lovely stuff against Southampton, Saudi Sportswashing Machine and United. Chelsea too in spurts.

Opinions and all that but the idea that Mourinho only ever sets his teams out to play in a very specific (unexciting) style has always seemed way off base to me. Or at least far too simplistic.

It's all about personnel (and to a degree the style and quality of the opposition) with Jose.

His first iteration Chelsea team are amongst the best to have ever played in the PL. They scored plenty (a record breaking amount in fact, if memory serves). They also just happened to concede very few, leading some to lazily label them as efficient or boring. Whereas to me that pretty much describes the perfect team.
 
Remember being at the game after his court case when we thrashed Saudi Sportswashing Machine 5-0 and thought for a moment that we might actually be in with a shout of challenging the Mancs for the title... then the tabloids did their bit :(

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Saha’s debut too, another case of inflating expectations!
 
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