Chris Warner

Totally fair. IMO Frank fully realised is making other teams look naive and us looking ruthlessly efficient. When not working, it looks like what we have now, which is a lot of nothing. Who knows if we get there…

I don’t disagree he’s more reactive. I’m just a little sympathetic to the offensive injuries and that he has spoke of ‘adding layers’ which suggests a bit more time might get us to more effective play. I was Ange’s biggest fan, but we are where we are. If he fails to get it working, he’ll be gone.

Also in fairness to him, the injuries especially offensively are crazy right now. It’s not quite last season’s level because we’ve still been able to rotate a bit, but the numbers are really stacking up.

I think in fairness, I’d expect him to loosen his system to Copenhagen, and play his system today. And in an ideal world, we’ve shut United out and been clinical, and we look smart rather than naive. I just don’t think his actual system has clicked or fully formed yet. But I’m glad he loosened Wed.

Agreed. It clearly hasn’t clicked yet. And if he can’t figure out the offence his philosophy and system is never going to work with us. There’s clearly still more we need to figure out to get fully firing.

…Ange’s biggest fan!

…stupid like today. Maddening silly clearance for their first. And maddening lack of control to even give away the corner for the 2nd. But Frank talks of layers, I think he has a method. And I don’t think it’s all there yet. Given positive signs, I’m willing to see where it goes. I say this as…

…better in these sorts of games, relative to what Brentford are capable of. I think when it clicks, Romero and VDV should be capable of shutting out the good players, and we convert higher quality chances. Right now the offence isn’t quite there, and we’re either getting unlucky like vs Villa, or…..

I instinctively agree with you, but I’m not sure it won’t work better with Frank given time. Essentially, I think he needs a better game in possession for the weaker sides (Copenhagen was a positive step) and the better players we have relative to Brentford should see us carry out his philosophy…

We also limited them to half that XG today. Not saying it’s great, but the Frank philosophy is to limit chances against and create a lower number of higher quality chances going forward. I don’t think it’s all clicked yet, and I much preferred the Ange philosophy, but I see what he’s trying to do.

Would genuinely love to understand more about why Vinai was hired. How will be complement Levy? Which gaps is he plugging? The video made it seem like they’d make every decision together, and Vinai does not take the job if it’s just to be a sense check on DL.

And because of this, your point on Ange suffering from the squad build bet while the hierarchy benefits from his trophy bet is so perfectly put. That’s why the sacking feels wrong to me. I firmly believe the next season we would have roared back under him, and now we’ll never know.

Really great thread. This point is so often missed in the analysis. He could have easily got more points in the league (even with Europa focus) but had an eye on the third season, not destroying the identity, keeping the squad bought into the bigger picture they were building towards.

I really wanted Ange’s third season. A deeper, more experienced squad more comfortable with the physical demands and fully embedded into his system. The momentum of actually winning binding the squad together. He’s took much of a risk for these owners though. Nothing changes meaningfully with them.

Ange has always needed belief in his long term vision, that it would pay off in the face of the doubters more than anyone thought possible. It happened to him everywhere he’s been. For whatever reason ENIC never understood that aspect, or simply thought the variance wasn’t worth the pay off.

I think it’s about having ‘alignment’ within the structure. Eg Frank working with Lange. But also with the goals of the club. Predictable revenue over big swings for the top prizes. I agree with you that Ange as manager would have been consistently top 6 anyway, but he would have wanted more.

Completely agree with this. No issue with Frank. He’ll have us probably 5-7th next year. 3-4th if it’s a really good year. But he’s not the hire we’re making because we have a plan to attack Liverpool and City. It’s basically the same plan we’ve had since Jol was manager. Won’t change under ENIC.

And then it just goes back to your original point, this trade would not have been made but for a historic injury crisis. But Ange is punished for making something of this season, rather than creating the illusion of stability with a late season charge to 12th. So utterly deflating.

Under Ange, Frank or anyone else, we’d be top 6 next season, maybe 4th, maybe 8th. But we’d be there. But it is extremely obvious that appointing Frank is not the act of a club preparing to challenge Liverpool and City. The promise of Ange was that he’d be so daring as to go for more. Horrible move.

I genuinely do not understand how this isn’t obvious to the decision makers of the club. Well, I do. It’s because Ange risked the guarantee of PL prize money (even at 12th) for the promise of a trophy. And they didn’t like it. This sums up everything about the club, it is simply not about winning.

You are completely correct. Never is it more obvious with this decision. The intention is to spend enough to be consistently top 6. We will not be challenging for the title under ENIC unless we get lucky. Simple as that. All the bleating about league form comes down to this.

I love this comparison - liken it to the Warriors winning a title with Kerr in 2022 after having a horrible 2020. Klay is out, Steph injures his hand. They have two way players in their starting 5 and got 15 wins, no where near the play offs. Why did that happen? Their best players were injured!!!

And it was a crucial win to avoid Europa play off. One of the earliest examples of prioritising Europa over the PL in the season.

Agreed. On your point on pragmatism, I agree too. Ange could have done something entirely different in the league too, but I think it would have destroyed the belief in the identity he was building, in a way ETH had none at United. He did what he could to maintain it for the long term.

The other context on the Leicester game is that it came out afterwards that Sarr was just unfit to play, but suited up because we literally had no one else. Those are the margins at the elite level that would swing a win or loss.

…for Europa, and still give us enough of a platform to go back to ‘Angeball’ next season if we could ride this out. And he pulled it off! I’m not seeing what tactics are supposedly so terrible, considering what we played most of this season wasn’t what Ange is even building.

..ball longer occasionally. And obviously Frankfurt away onwards in Europa was a distinct low block. I will give people that the Ipswich (unlucky) and Brighton (bad) defeats were under this system, but otherwise it looks like a blatant attempt to get the players through a crisis, in top condition…

The thing I still don’t get is the criticism of tactics that haven’t resembled ‘Angeball’ for most of the season. It wasn’t low block either, it seemed to be a half way house of not completely destroying the identity (so we could go back to it later) but letting the players run less and knock the…

Out of a potential 45 available you’re saying that maybe 5 lost can be explained by injuries?

Ironically I don’t even believe Ange’s season 3 line was about negotiating, so much as it was about giving the fanbase and players belief in the same way his second season comment was, because he puts so much stock in that. I really do hope you’re right.