Smirking_Saint

You realise it doesn’t work like that

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Ralph was a very pure gagenpress, hyper aggressive, effectively he would intentionally GIFT the opposition possession at times in optimal areas (for us) via a long ball but also initiate a press so to try to catch them with a bad touch etc. It was pretty effective at first, he then changed it slightly as teams didn’t succumb to that, so we’d move up the pitch then press at certain trigger points, but ultimately that was our tactical philosophy… a press.. pressing tactics are actually arguably the hardest to coach, which is why you don’t see them outside of many top leagues and rarely internationally.. players need to be aware of triggers and act in groups, there needs to be a level of autonomy. Jones… agreed, Im actually not sure if I could tell you what he was trying to do and Ill be 100% honest I was so demoralised I tended to turn games off 😅, it was a mess, he was just so out of his comfort zone it was actually quite sad seeing how badly he was failing, he just flailed around trying to find anything that would stick Selles… I dunno, I actually do think there is a good tactical coach there, I do think he has good ideas but it just didn’t work did it… I think he wants to press, but its half baked (like the end of RH’s reign) and a half baked press is a disaster, kills team shape and the opponents just wander round it. I think we pass it slowly in order to try to pull a team out, so we can press but it doesn’t really work and we end up trying to pass our way through which we can’t because our front line is, as stated before, terrible from a movement POV

Funnily enough, early Ralph this was a tactical play… was soon found out though Bang it forward, initiate the press immediately and hope for a poor pass or touch, it was somewhat effective at first

We’ve been fucking awful but we certainly haven’t attempted to be a possession based side, go and ask any coach what our tactical philosophy is and Id wager none will say possession based. Passing a ball around and looking for option’s doesn’t make us a possession side by the way. Our MO is to try to catch the oppo in favourable positions in and around their penalty area, unfortunately we genuinely have very very little threat/build up other than that, but it has got even worse under the end of Ralph/Selles… teams know if they leave us on the ball we’re ponderous and toothless, hence the passing back.. because frankly our attacking bank of four make very few penetrating runs outside of Theo

I believe their may have been inquiries into Carrick but were quickly rebuffed, Corberan I’m not sure about but was chatting to someone I know in the industry a few weeks back and was basically told we wouldn’t get much from Corberan who wants a run at promotion with WBA this year…. From what little info I have and trying to piece in the holes we interviewed a couple of names, sounded out some coaches.. for instance its in the public domain we could have got Potter if we were still a prem side BUT he is now looking at other options, I read about Nice but I wouldn’t put much money on him going there I think he wants to stay in England Jaissle was basically a no now because he prefers pressing football Gallardo ? I’m not sure why he hasn’t been approached by any European clubs yet but I think most in the industry see him as a bit of a risk, I think he’ll pitch up at a middling La Liga club first and we’ll see where he goes from there Mowbray.. yeah he’s steady but really not particularly inspiring, has plenty of experience of this division though. The more I read and hear about Martin the more optimistic I get, but he’ll need to be backed, which I think he will be. He’s a good progressive coach, if he wasn’t coming to us I think he’d be at a club vying for promotion next year anyway IMO

I’m glad somebody said it 😂

I think Martin is more qualified for the Championship than Marsch, added to the fact that we want to move away from a high press

They’re acting quickly and addressing the staff shortages, these guys being hired by SR means they’ll know their vision and buy into their plans… so on the face of it looks positive Like Dusic says, we won’t know if these guys are going to be competent until mid season at least

Ahh the old their choice is shit and I’ve provided absolutely no tangible argument whatsoever post I’ll ignore the rest of the childish drivel I suppose we’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see who you suggest would do a better job then 👍🏻

Who do you suggest ?

Yeah thats how I see it, tbh Shields was a poor employ from the start, clearly he isn’t the most professional of people, and if Im honest his socials never painted a particularly strong picture of him being so. But still.. his leaving left the club in the shit. There is probably a level of arrogance to say Rasmus was comfortable covering this role in the short term, and it failed.. why they never tried to replace sooner who knows ? From a recruitment POV I’ve spoken before about how its been poor for a while, youth recruitment has largely been a success but signing impactful signings to deliver straight away is very poor… despite many wanting to bash Reed/Semmens/Rasmus or whoever is in charge in the main a club will recruit based on scouting, not the DoFs main recommendations But yes.. I think a large part of our failure was that SR enacted major changes early/mid season aswell as carried an older boardroom set up that just didn’t align, work well with SRs vision.. when you add that to poor player recruiting, manager changes etc then the overall lack of stability anywhere was always destined to be disastrous Now… Im not absolving Rasmus of any blame, he is culpable as much as any, he even said as much BUT I’m not sure the intention was that he was going to be making all the key decisions as he was. I cant speak of what/if any involvement Crocker had but sounded like he was marginalised which is a shame as whenever Ive spoken to him, which admitted isn’t frequent, he seems a very grounded, sensible and intelligent footballing guy Like you say, this year is where we can judge SRs full ownership with no distraction or excuse and they have a significant job BUT seem to be lining up their ducks quickly and sensibly… so far

Thing is… the amount of shots he has had is contextual only to the tactics employed.. I havn’t watched Swansea enough to know how they play, Ive taken a more keen interest in Martins set ups etc but not watched any replays yet…Swansea are in the top 4 consistently for shots on target/per 90/in total over the season so clearly Martin see’s the need for his team to let the reigns off a little in the final third so I’m not really bothered that Piroe is one of the leading shot takers because clearly its an instruction to do so if he gets an opportunity He is in the top 3% of the league for his shooting accuracy (55/92 on target) but again Id need to know the context ? Number of long range efforts vs short ? His most important stat though is that he has an xG of 12.88 for the season and he’s scored 19 (2 pens) so he is out performing his xG or to be precise, scoring the chances he should score and on top of that the harder chances too

Last year was a fuck up but it was on more than just Rasmus, I think most sensible people looking into the club can see that tbh Lets see what we do this year, they needed to get organised quickly and that looks like it’s happening A lot of the success of the multi club model will be dependent on us anyway

Dragan is more invested in SR than he is Saints, make no mistake about that He’ll want out of SR/Saints before he ditches Rasmus from what I believe

We want to go heavy and emulate CFG, that’s basically the model that SR want and as such it looks like we’re trying to bring in as much experience from that organisation as possible, undeniably I think it’ll end up/has ended up strengthening the links between us Agree… Semmens gets a lot of hero worship but he was, imo, part of why we as a club were all over the place in the summer, like I said before I believe; - He was charged in getting a striker over the line in the summer and failed - There was a lot of misalignment between SR and Semmens footballing vision and they clashed - He was instrumental in keeping RH and then appointing Selles I’m also not convinced he did a ‘fantastic’ job under Gao, it always felt to me like he basically managed our decline, we majorly got away with it that was imo, strongly because Ralph over achieved and there was a lot of dross in the prem He isn’t going anywhere but I think his ‘stepping back’ is going to an oversee role for building the overall footballing group, my understanding is he will still be sticking his nose in to ‘help’ wilcox etc though… but.. I do think he got his hands burnt over the winter window so hopefully won’t be as blaise about his ideas

Im also not the biggest admirer of Piroe, I’ve written about my worry that he isn’t clinical enough in the Russell Martin thread but you are doing him a bit of a disservice tbh in the way you’ve butchered the stats… he just simply isn’t 93rd in npXg in the championship (he is infact in the top 9%) he also has outperformed his xG the last two years FBref doesn’t compare against just the league they play in but against 8 other leagues, so its not the fairest of reflections… for instance Gyokeres has the same npXg as Piroe (0.40) snd I’d take him in a heartbeat. For balance though, the stats do suggest that Piroe isn’t super clinical, infact his conversion has him in the 71st percentile and he takes an average of 6 shots per goal, for reference Akpom is 3 and Gyokeres is 4.25 Edit - Shots per 90; Piroe - 2.38 gyokeres - 2.07 Akpom - 2.17 Not really a huge margin is it

Yeah well… like I suggested I think there are reasons for that tbh

Not yet, but he won’t be here next year, he wants out

Yeah I expect as much tbh… its really optimistic because both look every bit prem quality Hamer looks an absolute revelation, reminds me of a younger Kovacic, technically gifted and very combative, all round a very good player Gyokeres yeah, can see Broja. Tall, reasonably quick but he has great feet and looks clinical, sort of like a Tammy Abraham mould

Admittedly its from the prem, but Ive still not really seen a lot that fills me with confidence He’s been out of the Championship for 2 years ? And for 2 years its just not worked, I find it unlikely tbh that he’ll rekindle his form here now… generally when players are out of form for a long period of time they tend to need to find themselves a new club

If I had to choose him or Adams to play through the middle I’d pick Adams because even if neither are prolific Adams ability in other aspects of his game would/could be very useful to Martins set up I don’t personally see much of a way back for AA, he hasn’t shown me any indication of ability from what Ive seen, he’s lightweight, isn’t an intelligent runner, is not progressive on the ball… he is effectively a poacher and he’s failed at that.. and I appreciate Im being pretty scathing of him but I’d suggest if we are hanging our hat on him coming good we’re in trouble This is his underlying stats by the way… he’s just an awful footballer

Yeah I like Archer he looks very good, young too and is a reasonably well rounded forward My number one choice would be Gyokeres, to me it feels very much like a Lambert esque signing if we could pull that off He is ready made for a championship promotion run but I feel like he’ll pitch up in the prem next year either way… sticking to the Coventry theme I’d also try to nick Hamer too but I’d say he’s destined for bigger things

22/23 xG - 19.8 / Goals - 18 21/22 xG - 12 / Goals 22 That 21/22 stat looks a bit mental tbh as it’s suggesting that he basically scored twice the goals he was expected to When you dig a little deeper though he does look a little wasteful, he takes a lot of shots (in the top 10% of the division) of which you’d expect a striker too anyway, but his actual conversion rate only just puts him in the top 30% Playmaking wise he looks very poor, if we are talking about his pure stats, generally all key stats in that area have him sat at or below the top 50% in the division Of course… Ive not really watched him so its hard to get a FULL picture but certainly from what Ive read I do think we could do better than Piroe

He’s not been officially appointed yet but people are being branded a ‘Russell Martin Apologist’ Jesus wept give your head a firm wobble