goodrobotusses

Slot was highly regarded as someone who’d done a great job both at AZ and Feyenoord. Amorim was seen as a wunderkind. Alonso had taken Leverkusen from the relegation places to unbeaten league winners. Is there anyone out there doing these things and getting the same hype right now? Football isn’t an infinite pool. We mostly have heard of its biggest talents within a year or two of their rise.

Let me guess Juve’s offer: a loan. In which we pay the loan fee. And the wages.

Wouldn’t want a single one of these for LFC. Tuchel the best in there but more of a cup manager and has a habit of falling out with players and higher-ups.

United supposedly doing Fletcher until the end of the season and then you’d expect it to be Glasner, but maybe they’ll surprise us. Feel like Rosenior won’t be a long-term thing at Chelsea either, so maybe they’ll also be after a manager again come summer. So that’s possibly us, United, City, Chelsea and presumably Spurs all looking for a new boss this summer. And as discussed elsewhere, not a welter of great options out there.

Yeah, don’t think anyone has gotten anything 100% (or even 50%) right, but there are still too many unknowns around our dropoff IMO. I think we look a lot less fit this season, but how much of that is the Jota thing and late transfer deals, and how much is Slot’s methods and the long tail of his not rotating last season? They looked fit enough in the first half of last season, but was that almost a case of senior pros bringing their good Klopp-era habits and summer holiday programs into Slot’s first pre-season? We defo looked knackered in the second half of the season but I put that down to lack of rotation.

There will be questions to ask of Edwards and Hughes, but think you need more evidence. A few more windows and another coaching appointment will tell us more.

I still think Villa will drop away, from third at least.

Agreed. The squad is unbalanced and we have some injuries but performances should be much better than they have been. One or two players won’t make the existing players fitter and play with more intensity.

After Klopp left, the three big up and coming coaches in Europe were Alonso, Amorim and Slot, at least of those who’d actually won something. Think the Real Madrid dressing room is its own thing, so don’t think it’s fair to judge XA too harshly (I would still take him if he were available), and Slot literally won the league here last season, but the balance sheet isn’t looking great this year. This is part of the reason I don’t think it’s right to assume there’s always another world class coach out there waiting to be plucked from obscurity once we pull the trigger on Slot, especially mid-season, and that if the club can’t find one it’s the fault of the club. These were the best lads of their generation at that moment and I don’t see anyone out there right now showing similar promise.

Given how his stature is growing by the week, Heitinga might get the Real Madrid job at the end of the season. He was probably the power behind the throne to Moyes at West Ham too. FWIW GvB won more as Feyenoord manager than Slot, albeit in one year more in the job. Getting Rangers to the Europa League final was also a pretty decent achievement.

Don’t see that happening at all, unless we somehow become a much more convincing team pretty sharpish. Think if a good candidate is available and we limp into the CL, they’ll fire Slot and replace him. Edit: not fire, let him go by mutual consent, as SL said.

If Klopp isn’t willing to do interim or a full return, just wait until summer. A bad appointment (including interim) would be worse than keeping Slot IMO (assuming we don’t Lazarus our way back to form and consistent results under him soon). Understand if others feel otherwise.

Not watching but assume the game is much of what we’ve been witnessing of late?

My general reservations about the likes of Tuchel and especially Nagelsmann aside, I don’t think we should hire anyone coaching at the World Cup. We need someone planning and implementing pre-season from minute one.

Don’t think that’s really our fault though. He could have pursued another option, if there were other offers. Villa could have been less of a s***show desperately signing anyone at the end of the window. I do feel bad for the lad because he clearly wanted to kick on after dealing with the disappointment of realising he wasn’t gonna make it here, but what were we to do, offer him a free transfer?

I mean, sure, and he’s a good lad and I wish him the best, but in this case I think he’ll live.

Why? Surely it’s better that Villa pay us to send him back than the other way around? Given we’re only presumably entertaining the idea of a return to give us another warm body. It’s not like Slot will put him back into the team or anything.

Nice of Ornstein to let the work experience lad do a bit round the office.

Apparently a bunch coming out of South America. Have no idea who the Ecuadorean equivalent of Ornstein is though.

Roughly where I am too. Thanks for posting this.

I think so too. Think we’ll still make CL but if Slot can only achieve that playing this kind of sluggish football, I think everyone will shake hands and go their separate ways. Where things might get messy is if we suddenly start playing well, but only in the last few games. Don’t think we can afford not to make a decision this summer. Repeating the keeping of Rodgers (even if that eventually helped secure Klopp) will just be bad for everyone involved. Basically, Slot doesn’t have much time to add performances to the 2ppg results we’ve had since Forest. His job likely depends on it.

I was curious about our supposed interest in the young Ecuadorean CB Ordonez. Seems to have been linked to a bunch of clubs, can apparently also play RB. Could just be an excitable agent, mind, and the same one that dicked us over with Caicedo for all I know. Also the potential issue around stepping up from the Belgian league.

Supposedly left because he didn’t feel he was given licence to fully implement his ideas here. The counterpoint here though is… have City become particularly good at set pieces since he went there and I’ve just failed to notice?

His dad made him wear tiny gloves throughout his childhood so he'd have the sort of little hands one needs for a long throw.