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Ange’s system / formation

Think the point on getting sucked into emotional battles is spot on and you can see it irks Ange. Even yesterday, at times we played into their timewasting antics with some silly fouls or arguing. It's been a recurring theme this season and just throws you off your game. It's a very immature thing to be doing but we do have a few immature/combustible personalities in our squad.

It's an odd one but like you say maturity. What we do is what we saw Arsenal do at our place in 2022 -- they got sucked into the emotion of it. Holding got sent off, they gave away a penalty and suddenly it's 3-0. The difference between that Arsenal side and that performance and the one yesterday is remarkable. They controlled the game so well yesterday, despite us (imo) being the better side. But that's why I keep banging on about one thing...time. We need time. Ange needs time to work all of these things out.
 
It's an odd one but like you say maturity. What we do is what we saw Arsenal do at our place in 2022 -- they got sucked into the emotion of it. Holding got sent off, they gave away a penalty and suddenly it's 3-0. The difference between that Arsenal side and that performance and the one yesterday is remarkable. They controlled the game so well yesterday, despite us (imo) being the better side. But that's why I keep banging on about one thing...time. We need time. Ange needs time to work all of these things out.
Time and players
Their team that played in that game is different to yesterdays
As is ours…

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Comparisons to Poch surely also has to take into account the quality of the best teams in the league at that time compared to now.

True. But equally, our team when Poch took over was arguably weaker than the team we have now. We were starting games with a back four of Rose-Verts-Fazio-Dier, against Udogie-VdV-Romero-Porro now - to put it in context, the first back line cost a total of 25m, the second comes in at roughly 170m. Ange has had better tools to work with.

It takes time. Like it did for Poch, Arteta, Klopp. There's so much to be optimistic and happy about. Some of the football we're playing is breathtaking.

The issue mate, is that the more time we've had, the worse we look. This is borne out just by statistics - the first 10 games saw us garner 26 points. The next 23 have seen us garner just 34 - for context, United, who are universally being panned for having a disaster season, have picked up 39 in that time. With an injury list comparable to ours. If we were improving on the pitch, there would be no cause for concern - but that hasn't really happened after the bright start.
We're still short on missing pieces in the starting 11, then also the squad. Like for those other managers that have needed time.

Yes, but this is true of all managers, everywhere. Give them their first choice pieces and they'll do well. To me, the true skill of a manager lies in achieving results with what he has to hand - Ange has been pretty up and down on this score.

If we're still seeing those same weaknesses hurting us with a similar frequency a year from now I'll start getting concerned.

The job Ange has done so far has been incredibly impressive. Losing Kane, completely changing the way we play, integrating a lot of new players, quite a few younger players without PL experience.

'Incredibly impressive' feels a little unwarranted imo. He's done reasonably well, but as I said, even a comparison with 14/15 Poch indicates that others have been put in similar situations and done more, with less.

I think he'll continue to do very impressive work. Why wouldn't he with another summer transfer window, another preseason, players more used to his system.

My last point on the pre-season - this entire season we've had free midweeks for the team to be drilled in Postecoglou's system. Arguably, we've had far more time to train in his system across the eight months of this season, than we will have in the summer where it's just four-five weeks of mainly fitness work. Yet, this has done us little good - we had two weeks to prep for Arsenal while they played four games in that span, and yet they were 3-0 up at halftime.

The more time we've had to train in this system, the worse we have gotten.

I have to underline, I'm not advocating we sack the guy or anything crazy like that. But I think rose tinted glasses are leading to an overestimation of the job he's done so far - which has been reasonably good, but really nothing spectacular, imo.
 
True. But equally, our team when Poch took over was arguably weaker than the team we have now. We were starting games with a back four of Rose-Verts-Fazio-Dier, against Udogie-VdV-Romero-Porro now - to put it in context, the first back line cost a total of 25m, the second comes in at roughly 170m. Ange has had better tools to work with.



The issue mate, is that the more time we've had, the worse we look. This is borne out just by statistics - the first 10 games saw us garner 26 points. The next 23 have seen us garner just 34 - for context, United, who are universally being panned for having a disaster season, have picked up 39 in that time. With an injury list comparable to ours. If we were improving on the pitch, there would be no cause for concern - but that hasn't really happened after the bright start.


Yes, but this is true of all managers, everywhere. Give them their first choice pieces and they'll do well. To me, the true skill of a manager lies in achieving results with what he has to hand - Ange has been pretty up and down on this score.



'Incredibly impressive' feels a little unwarranted imo. He's done reasonably well, but as I said, even a comparison with 14/15 Poch indicates that others have been put in similar situations and done more, with less.



My last point on the pre-season - this entire season we've had free midweeks for the team to be drilled in Postecoglou's system. Arguably, we've had far more time to train in his system across the eight months of this season, than we will have in the summer where it's just four-five weeks of mainly fitness work. Yet, this has done us little good - we had two weeks to prep for Arsenal while they played four games in that span, and yet they were 3-0 up at halftime.

The more time we've had to train in this system, the worse we have gotten.

I have to underline, I'm not advocating we sack the guy or anything crazy like that. But I think rose tinted glasses are leading to an overestimation of the job he's done so far - which has been reasonably good, but really nothing spectacular, imo.
I think you can also flip everything you have said in reverse too

Poch got loads wrong first season. He fixed them over time
Ange has got stuff wrong. He needs time

Poch was dealing with club with different expectations and pressure. He changed that by improving things.
Ange after 10 games was suddenly expected to get CL because it all started is well. is that right? It should always be about the start point and if we improve, and if we improve relative to the league
 
True. But equally, our team when Poch took over was arguably weaker than the team we have now. We were starting games with a back four of Rose-Verts-Fazio-Dier, against Udogie-VdV-Romero-Porro now - to put it in context, the first back line cost a total of 25m, the second comes in at roughly 170m. Ange has had better tools to work with.



The issue mate, is that the more time we've had, the worse we look. This is borne out just by statistics - the first 10 games saw us garner 26 points. The next 23 have seen us garner just 34 - for context, United, who are universally being panned for having a disaster season, have picked up 39 in that time. With an injury list comparable to ours. If we were improving on the pitch, there would be no cause for concern - but that hasn't really happened after the bright start.


Yes, but this is true of all managers, everywhere. Give them their first choice pieces and they'll do well. To me, the true skill of a manager lies in achieving results with what he has to hand - Ange has been pretty up and down on this score.



'Incredibly impressive' feels a little unwarranted imo. He's done reasonably well, but as I said, even a comparison with 14/15 Poch indicates that others have been put in similar situations and done more, with less.



My last point on the pre-season - this entire season we've had free midweeks for the team to be drilled in Postecoglou's system. Arguably, we've had far more time to train in his system across the eight months of this season, than we will have in the summer where it's just four-five weeks of mainly fitness work. Yet, this has done us little good - we had two weeks to prep for Arsenal while they played four games in that span, and yet they were 3-0 up at halftime.

The more time we've had to train in this system, the worse we have gotten.

I have to underline, I'm not advocating we sack the guy or anything crazy like that. But I think rose tinted glasses are leading to an overestimation of the job he's done so far - which has been reasonably good, but really nothing spectacular, imo.
I thought I’d check your logic to test my memory

That first season Poch had a lot of options and played a lot of players

IMG_3530.png
IMG_3531.png

He used a lot of players to work out who he wanted

Ange could have done with more games for that to work for him

Then add in the lack of CBs that meant when injuries kicked in we ended up playing full backs there

Both managers dealt with the cards they had to learn what they needed

What I’ll say is if you flipped the results and we ended the season as we started the fans would be crowing about it

Another thing I’ll add is when I see Arsenal I see Pochs peak spurs team. The similarities are there for me
 
True. But equally, our team when Poch took over was arguably weaker than the team we have now. We were starting games with a back four of Rose-Verts-Fazio-Dier, against Udogie-VdV-Romero-Porro now - to put it in context, the first back line cost a total of 25m, the second comes in at roughly 170m. Ange has had better tools to work with.



The issue mate, is that the more time we've had, the worse we look. This is borne out just by statistics - the first 10 games saw us garner 26 points. The next 23 have seen us garner just 34 - for context, United, who are universally being panned for having a disaster season, have picked up 39 in that time. With an injury list comparable to ours. If we were improving on the pitch, there would be no cause for concern - but that hasn't really happened after the bright start.


Yes, but this is true of all managers, everywhere. Give them their first choice pieces and they'll do well. To me, the true skill of a manager lies in achieving results with what he has to hand - Ange has been pretty up and down on this score.



'Incredibly impressive' feels a little unwarranted imo. He's done reasonably well, but as I said, even a comparison with 14/15 Poch indicates that others have been put in similar situations and done more, with less.



My last point on the pre-season - this entire season we've had free midweeks for the team to be drilled in Postecoglou's system. Arguably, we've had far more time to train in his system across the eight months of this season, than we will have in the summer where it's just four-five weeks of mainly fitness work. Yet, this has done us little good - we had two weeks to prep for Arsenal while they played four games in that span, and yet they were 3-0 up at halftime.

The more time we've had to train in this system, the worse we have gotten.

I have to underline, I'm not advocating we sack the guy or anything crazy like that. But I think rose tinted glasses are leading to an overestimation of the job he's done so far - which has been reasonably good, but really nothing spectacular, imo.
I think your assessment is fair, and good to see you not deterred by a certain poster who looks to shoot down anyone who dares suggest anything negative around the subject of Ange. He's done a good job anhd when considering all the negative aspects of last season the football we played at the beginning of this season was tremendous. But, this was when Ange was very much an unknown quantity and there is now a clear blueprint for how to play against us and as both our performances for the most part and results show, we haven't really come up with the answers yet so it's fair to ask questions.

Does he deserve more time? Sure, and he will of course get it - even those critical of certain aspects are more than happy to see how things play out. Will getting better players help? Of course it will, just like it would have helped Jose, Conte and every other manager. So its really over to you Levy on that one.

I'm not expecting Ange to abandon his philosophy, but if he really wants to achieve something in this country and not just be another manager who talks a good game but ultimately doesnt deliver then he really does have to adjust a little. The 'you score 3 and we'll score 4' type philosophy gets exposed in this league and perhaps in the off season he will think about little tweaks he can make to his system to shore us up defensively both in open play and for set pieces. It's a learning kerb for him as much as it is the players, and maybe he will flourish further from next season. Maybe he wont.

But there is no guarantee that time equals improvement, you only have to look at Contes tenure where most assumed we would kick on and he didn't. So for the time being whilst its right to acknowledge he has done a good job in getting a more positive vibe back into the club, its also fair to question what are clear vulnerabilities and discuss them....
 
I think your assessment is fair, and good to see you not deterred by a certain poster who looks to shoot down anyone who dares suggest anything negative around the subject of Ange. He's done a good job anhd when considering all the negative aspects of last season the football we played at the beginning of this season was tremendous. But, this was when Ange was very much an unknown quantity and there is now a clear blueprint for how to play against us and as both our performances for the most part and results show, we haven't really come up with the answers yet so it's fair to ask questions.

Does he deserve more time? Sure, and he will of course get it - even those critical of certain aspects are more than happy to see how things play out. Will getting better players help? Of course it will, just like it would have helped Jose, Conte and every other manager. So its really over to you Levy on that one.

I'm not expecting Ange to abandon his philosophy, but if he really wants to achieve something in this country and not just be another manager who talks a good game but ultimately doesnt deliver then he really does have to adjust a little. The 'you score 3 and we'll score 4' type philosophy gets exposed in this league and perhaps in the off season he will think about little tweaks he can make to his system to shore us up defensively both in open play and for set pieces. It's a learning kerb for him as much as it is the players, and maybe he will flourish further from next season. Maybe he wont.

But there is no guarantee that time equals improvement, you only have to look at Contes tenure where most assumed we would kick on and he didn't. So for the time being whilst its right to acknowledge he has done a good job in getting a more positive vibe back into the club, it’s also fair to question what are clear vulnerabilities and discuss them....
Anges record shows that his teams improve season by season
Contes record shows that his teams blow up within a period and he goes mad
That has a relevance when guessing what happens next
 
I thought I’d check your logic to test my memory

That first season Poch had a lot of options and played a lot of players

View attachment 17080
View attachment 17081

He used a lot of players to work out who he wanted

Ange could have done with more games for that to work for him

Then add in the lack of CBs that meant when injuries kicked in we ended up playing full backs there

Both managers dealt with the cards they had to learn what they needed

What I’ll say is if you flipped the results and we ended the season as we started the fans would be crowing about it

Another thing I’ll add is when I see Arsenal I see Pochs peak spurs team. The similarities are there for me

That squad was really strong in 14/15.

Think much better than what we have now.
 
You can just tag me mate
Not necessary when you guard this thread so intensely!

In all seriousness, I do agree with you that with time he will likely get it right assuming he does make certain changes over time. I just think you go a bit OTT at times with those offering shall we say an 'alternative' view to yours when it comes to dear Ange....
 
He was signed a while after conte. So think it was a paratici signing. Not exactly sure when he left. So maybe it had nothing to do with ange.
He was gone before Ange walked through the door, so why even make the comment about lack of wisdom?
 
According to wiki he left in summer 2023.
He was something of a freelancer, so there was never an official confirmation. But he wasn't seen around the training ground or involved in any of the sessions leading up to or since Ange has joined. It's safe to assume he was just never part of the larger discussion.
 
He was something of a freelancer, so there was never an official confirmation. But he wasn't seen around the training ground or involved in any of the sessions leading up to or since Ange has joined. It's safe to assume he was just never part of the larger discussion.

Well seems ange joined before he left. Ange has said he doesn't use specialist set piece coaches.

I think it was a mistake. Especially with a young squad.
 
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