BoyBrumby
Englishman
Pothas to disagree.With all the excitement I totally missed the fact that Man City got beat today. Not that it mattered.
IIRC that's the double over Citeh for the Bees.
Pothas to disagree.With all the excitement I totally missed the fact that Man City got beat today. Not that it mattered.
I don't think Pep will ever play that team again but we were still great.Pothas to disagree.
IIRC that's the double over Citeh for the Bees.
investment is key with smart recruitment. Spurs were in a similar position 5-6 years ago and lost their way because they didn’t buy anyone for a year and then bought the wrong players trusting their manager input too much. so far it seems like Kroenke jr and Edu are smart cookiesMost points Arsenal have managed in a season since the Invincibles year as well.
The future is hopefully bright.
Edit: @geraint
they will be sold to some American group soon, it was already half confirmed and Dyche can work magic with these dudsReally should have been another 5 minutes added for the time-wasting in the last 10, but ho-hum. Reckpn Everton will be back in this battle next year TBH, got no money and a **** squad, who can't score.
The importance of keeping Saliba can't be understated though. He's truly a transformational player.Most points Arsenal have managed in a season since the Invincibles year as well.
The future is hopefully bright.
Edit: @geraint
The defence calls its first witness: AFC Bournemouth.Interesting how many teams this season were playing badly, sacked a highly rated manager, and became even worse. Spurs, Chelsea (x2), Leeds (though the more egregious example was last season), Leicester, Southampton. I think the new manager bounce might be dead?
Then there’s Forest looking awful and being expected to sack the manager, suddenly deciding to sack the DoF and give the manager a new contract instead, and having things work out.
Leicester improved under Smith, but that largely meant a lot of draws whereas before him it was a lot of defeats. I’d say they arguably moved too late. Hard to argue with your point though. And I’m not really sure Everton were much better under Dyche than Lampard.Interesting how many teams this season were playing badly, sacked a highly rated manager, and became even worse. Spurs, Chelsea (x2), Leeds (though the more egregious example was last season), Leicester, Southampton. I think the new manager bounce might be dead?
Then there’s Forest looking awful and being expected to sack the manager, suddenly deciding to sack the DoF and give the manager a new contract instead, and having things work out.
I guess it kind of depends on how far you can separate the new manager "bounce" from experiencing an upturn in fortunes after sacking a manager who is just self evidently crap tbh.
E.g. Leeds sacked Marsch, who seemed a totally serviceable coach, presumably looking for a bounce they never got, whereas Villa and Bomo sacked their coaches who were clearly just plain bad, replaced them with competent people, and experienced drastic improvements.
I think Villa are just an example of improving by replacing a terrible manager with a good one.Leicester improved under Smith, but that largely meant a lot of draws whereas before him it was a lot of defeats. I’d say they arguably moved too late. Hard to argue with your point though. And I’m not really sure Everton were much better under Dyche than Lampard.
I know Furball mentioned Bournemouth but Villa and Palace are surely the better counter examples.
Everton were definitely a bit better under Dyche. I agree that he tightened the tactics up a little and brought more of a set piece threat, but the biggest thing he did was just getting Doucoure in the team.The new manager bounce is definitely a thing. Players generally lift their game to impress the new boss so you see better performances at times. It's just that in many cases, team performances haven't just been down to reduced player effort.
In Dyche's case, he didn't really change the attack much and his tactical changes were related to improving ball recoveries and interceptions, and as a result, giving the opposition less chances to score. Also he made them pass the ball more directly and into the right channels and obviously he reduced the spaces a bit. Clearly Everton weren't doing these things as well before, which is why you see different stats and better performances, but it's nothing ground-breaking really.
So in Everton's case, they didn't have a proper style of play/tactics in place to deal with the quality of the opposition and perhaps there were more finer margins to consider like technical deficiencies, key player performance issues/injuries, positioning, etc., plus the obvious circus associated with their boardroom. Having said that, I'd argue that the new man coming in gave them a bit of freshness and focus that helped in addition to the relatively minor tactical tweaks that he made.
Leeds, on the other hand, were just shambolic defensively and were probably more suited to Bielsa-ball than the siege mentality that came with Big Sam. Marsch, while being a promising manager, completely failed to address their defensive short-comings and is equally culpable. They'd probably have been relegated regardless of who the manager was (unless it was Pep Guardiola of course).
Uppercut in subtlely referring to Emery as a good manager shockerI think Villa are just an example of improving by replacing a terrible manager with a good one.
Palace are definitely a counter example though. I ended up posting about them a lot this season and how I thought they were a decent team getting a little unlucky during a rough patch of fixtures, and I think they would still have pulled clear under Vieira. I also didn't think Vieira was a brilliant coach (though he wasn't terrible either). But I'm just making excuses, it was a textbook new manager bounce.