Dark Munster

Under garbage managers. Also against PL defenses. AArmstrong was also garbage as well. I reckon Tall Paul C'veDAJFU in this league.

Did he give a PowerPoint presentation to the kids?

No it's not. Do keep up.

He’s a good Championship defender.

Not even close. That was one match. The comparison here is over 2 seasons.

Me neither until I listened to TSP the other day. The WBA guest fan made some very interesting remarks about him.

And if we lose would you agree they have a much better manager, given the vastly greater resources we have?

He also said they don’t have a pot to piss in (or words to that effect) and their owner is AWOL, taking money out and not investing a penny. Basically they’re doing well solely because of their brilliant manager. He did very well against all odds last season too. But not hipster enough to be on Ankersen’s radar in the summer apparently.

You can say that again.

You can say that again.

As they say, when wolves are chasing you, you don’t have to outrun them, just be faster than the fat guy in your group.

Let's not get carried away. With our squad we should be where Ipswich are. Hats off to their manager for doing a great job with a squad that cost a fraction of ours. We have an expensive top two squad, with only Leicester arguably better, and there is no excuse for us not being in contention for automatic promotion. His tactics earlier were appalling, I don't buy the excuse that the players were having a hard time learning a great new system. Having said that, he does seem to be learning from his mistakes, midfield is much more solid, and defensively it's night and day, with THB and Janny B. forming a very good partnership in the centre, with KWP being brilliant all season. Credit RM also for sticking with Bree after he came in and did a good job, and leaving his bff Manning where he belongs on the bench.

With one exception I presume?

Sounds great doesn’t it? Until you realise the Sky money would drop to a drip once the big boys have left, along with all the good players, and that the new “premier league” would just be the Championship in drag.

Plus he got us promoted at his first attempt from L1. Plus he got us automatic promotion to the PL in his first attempt, being in the top 2 for most of the season. Plus we didn't concede a shit load of goals. Plus he didn't have his team play tedious propaganda football for more than half the time, nor did he at his previous club. But apart from that I guess he's exactly the same as RM. Strange he is much more popular with the fans. Must be because he's Spanish. Oh wait ...

Maybe he’s our new possession coach.

Yeah I actually hope Leicester win all their remaining matches (except against us of course), to take points off our rivals. We have no hope of catching them.

Wait, they'll be back. They are usually either crap or win the whole thing. I wish England could do that.

If the players aren’t doing what he wants then he’s failing as a manager. The players are good enough (at this level), they’ve proven that, so it’s no excuse crying “they aren’t doing what I want them to do.”

Puel got us to a final playing exciting football on the way, beating PL teams all the way (including Liverpool twice) and very unlucky to lose the final. He took us to 8th in the PL despite losing three key players at the beginning of the season and VVD and Fonte later due to injury and being sold. Plus he was competing against PL teams each week, not Championship dross. If he’d had Koeman’s squad with Mane, Pelle, big Vic we wouldn’t have had to play the “ turgid” football he was accused of which was necessary to grind out results being without those players and having Yoshi and Stephens as our CBs. I’d say that makes him a decent manager. If we had one of the crap Championship squads and were where are now in the league I’d say RM is doing a great job, just like the Ipswich manager certainly is. It’s quite simple, with the squad we’ve got we should be doing better.

That's a perfect summary. It seems he has the players on board, whether for good or bad tactics, even Aribo was up to speed today which is very promising. If he could just meditate about where he's going wrong (i.e. stubbornly going back to tippy tappy crab Russball), realise that will never work, then the potential is there for a successful season. But it has to start now. He needs to abandon possession just for the sake of it, but to be brave and front-footed. Shit, did I just say that? I sound like Nathan F*cking Jones.

Good grief, it's the manager's job to make sure the players play to a system, that's what he's been paid millions for. Blaming the players is no excuse. And who is saying when we play well the manager shouldn't get credit? I'm not saying that, and I don't think anyone else is. The point is very simple, we've played tippy tappy crab football for the majority of the season, and dropped many points as a result. His record before us makes it clear it's his strategy. Hopefully he's learnt his lesson, but I doubt it, since he's been doing this since he started coaching. We should be out playing most teams in this division with the squad we have. Not winning every match of course, but we should be up there with Ipswich. Him claiming we need time is a load of bollocks.

High % of possession isn't a problem, it's what you do with it (or more precisely don't do with it).

Did he actually appear? I heard he was out injured.

Disagree, it's when the team ditches Russball they look much better going forward, and defensively. Leeds first half being a prime example. Against Preston it was Russball for most of the match and we were lucky to get a draw against very limited opposition. He does seem to be a good man manager, which is important, so I'll give him that. He just needs to dump the Russball and play to the squad's strengths. There is no excuse for us to be 10 points behind Ipswich (having played one more match) and to have one of the worst defensive records in the league.