Next Manager Watch

[felmani26]

Oh God - please not Sanchez.

Also, didn't he just drop him last weekend and basically say he rates the backup, Steele, over him?

Dropped or had a knock?

Either way, my choice would be Raya but merely playing devil's advocate here based on De Zerbi links and the obvious issues we have (or will certainly have) this summer.

 

[jpascavitz]

For once, I feel like the "safe" and logical choice is to appoint Poch and I actually agree with it. It seems that Levy and him know how to work together, maybe both agree they shouldn't have parted ways and I think that is a big head start compared to a different manager. No manager is perfect and Poch certainly has his flaws.

I would be excited by De Zerbi or Gallardo but think either would be tough to bring in due to their own reasons. Agree with others that I could see Gallardo taking the next logical step in Spain with a language barrier (not that it's a total dealbreaker) and De Zerbi would require a compensation to Brighton and there will be surely some who will have doubts after Potter's Chelsea move.

My personal (maybe stupid) opinion is that it doesn't matter who we get in next because I think they will eventually be given the boot if rough patches are hit and replaced by Poch at some point in the future, so might as well get that done and over with now lol.

I would rather get Poch back than miss out on a few "dream" targets and suddenly we're back scrambling for anyone available.

 

[Now it's Spursonal]

Can also throw Gallardo into the mix as well. Fact is they can't agree on anything which is why we are where we are. Unlikely to be Poch too many against it.

Please let this be the one.
Hopefully this is coming from the same argentine friends that were in Joe Lewis's ear before and made him overrule Levy to bring in Poch.

To have any hope at all under this ownership, we need to take a risk and appoint a potential revolutionary manager which Gallardo very much is.

Gallardo is definitely the most high-risk/high reward option for an appointment, but if we want to have any chance of competing then we have to take that risk and shoot for the potential upside!

 

[Ginola+Tonic]

Can also throw Gallardo into the mix as well. Fact is they can't agree on anything which is why we are where we are. Unlikely to be Poch too many against it.

Yes.
Fucking.
Please.

 

[Russ1201]

Fucking hell. No. Just no.

He be running on from the touchline to take any freekick

 

[king_yid]

Same people who were using Potters name a year or so back

Not me, and I was Potter in for sure.

 

[Bluto Blutarsky]

Please let this be the one.
Hopefully this is coming from the same argentine friends that were in Joe Lewis's ear before and made him overrule Levy to bring in Poch.

To have any hope at all under this ownership, we need to take a risk and appoint a potential revolutionary manager which Gallardo very much is.

Gallardo is definitely the most high-risk/high reward option for an appointment, but if we want to have any chance of competing then we have to take that risk and shoot for the potential upside!

Well, if there is one thing we know about Levy - its that he loves to take big risks...

 

[HedgieSpur]

This is going to sound a little harsh, but Poch really should have made this a no-brainer imo. The fact that its even a debate is down to the fact that since his time with us, he has not cemented his obvious talent elsewhere.

There were mitigating factors at PSG of course...Leonardo by all accounts was not easy to deal with, the superstar players presented a huge challenge in coaching/motivating/challenging them and the continuous scrutiny by the owners was overbearing at times.

With all that said, it was still a significant failure not to win the league that first season. I watched a significant number of games and I'd say that the style of football was good and he had a good rapport with his players, however they rarely took full control of games. I cannot recalll many games where they really steamrolled the opposition. At times, they played some great football, but it wasn't the swashbuckling carefree stuff that a team with their talents should have shown on a regular basis.

Moreover, in that season:

1.. the football was good but not stellar
2. usage of the full squad was questionable (particularly subs during the game)
3. I don't recall him using many younger players or improving existing players (that may say more about my memory more than anything else!)

Point really is that, although they were better in the following season ( his first full season....and of course won the league), as data points go, Im not sure he's shown anything overly compelling for him to be re-hired.

Imo, it SHOULD be a no-brainer, and yet it doesn't feel that way to me.

 

[YB123]

This would be a huge kick in the balls for poch if he doesn't get the gig

Florentino Perez loves him.

 

[The Doc]

He be running on from the touchline to take any freekick

Aye. Love H. Fuck knows where we would be without him but making him player manager is peak SC. Fuck it. Let’s do it and appoint his bro as DoF too.

 

[Ghost Hardware]

For anyone curious about Gallardo who hasn't seen his football and are happy to read a in depth tactical analysis i strongly recommend you read this. Its a long read but very detailed. If you do i think you will understand why some of us really really hope he comes here and I think you will embrace the idea also.

Marcelo Gallardo: River Plate

Tactical analysis giving a scouting report of Marcelo Gallardo and the tactics at River Plate. This scouting report focuses on how Marcelo Gallardo implements his tactics at River Plate through an in-depth tactical analysis.

totalfootballanalysis.com

 

[ljinko888]

The thing that puts me off about De Zerbi is that ultimately we're talking about him based on less than six months at Brighton who were already in a good place under Potter. Their club structure is extremely good. One of the points of interest about Potter's Brighton was how they were very good in the XG/chances created statistics but had a hell of a lot of 0-0 draws because the finishing was really shoddy. That started to change at the start of the season by the time he left them for Chelsea (I think they were 4th) and De Zerbi has extended it to his credit while making some subtle changes. Is that enough to decide to pay whatever amount of compensation and entrust him with a big structural rebuild that we need though? I'm not convinced.

Poch's Southampton looked a lot more structured to watch in his early days from the gung-ho approach of Nigel Adkins. I remember watching one of Poch's first games being at Old Trafford where they played Ferguson's United off the park but lost 2-1. Even Ferguson admitted the best team lost. But he needed a full season to demonstrate that it was not just a new manager bounce or short term blip before we (or potentially other teams) considered hiring him. And lets not forget that Southampton had just been promoted to the PL for the first time in years that season whereas Brighton have been established starting with Chris Hughton as manager. That's not to downplay De Zerbi's job performance so far but I think being manager of Brighton right now is quite a cushy place to be because they're not scrutinised when results don't quite go so well since they're the opposite of chaotic. Everything at Brighton is a smooth running machine from the management to the recruitment to the infrastructure.

 

[GetSpurredOn]

It'll be interesting what names will be linked once the date of Paratici's fate draws closer.

Am I right in saying that only Rui Braz has been tentatively mentioned as a possible successor? I've said before, a Braz-Gallardo axis looks really exciting on paper but I wonder if other names such as Michael Edwards will come to the fore.

Who knows, we may promote from within so someone like Gabbanini who's currently chief scout under Paratici or Steinssen but then conversely, Levy might rip up the playbook once again and dispense of utilising a DoF.

I don’t think he will ditch the DoF system. Levy seems to have favoured it of late, and only seemed to ditch it when the manager in residence wouldn’t work with one. Redknapp wanted control when Commolli got the boot, but as soon as Redknapp was let go we went back down the DoF route, until Poch outlasted Baldini and also assumed total control. Only after Poch did we go back to DoF.
I think when the DoF is in post first, Levy lets them run the management side, picking subsequent managers. But if the DoF goes before the manager, then the manager seems to stay solo.
I think Levy will want Paratici’s future resolved soon, then we’ll see manager movement. If Fabio is looking on increasingly shaky ground, you’d hope they are already looking at replacements and getting them to tentatively throw out ideas.
De Zerbi feels like a Paratici appointment, purely on a (lazy on my behalf) fellow Italian link, he seemed to be looking at Italian or Italian based managers first time round. Gallardo feels more like a post Paratici pick up.

 

[YB123]

I don’t think he will ditch the DoF system. Levy seems to have favoured it of late, and only seemed to ditch it when the manager in residence wouldn’t work with one. Redknapp wanted control when Commolli got the boot, but as soon as Redknapp was let go we went back down the DoF route, until Poch outlasted Baldini and also assumed total control. Only after Poch did we go back to DoF.
I think when the DoF is in post first, Levy lets them run the management side, picking subsequent managers. But if the DoF goes before the manager, then the manager seems to stay solo.
I think Levy will want Paratici’s future resolved soon, then we’ll see manager movement. If Fabio is looking on increasingly shaky ground, you’d hope they are already looking at replacements and getting them to tentatively throw out ideas.
De Zerbi feels like a Paratici appointment, purely on a (lazy on my behalf) fellow Italian link, he seemed to be looking at Italian or Italian based managers first time round. Gallardo feels more like a post Paratici pick up.

Both are Paratici picks.

Gallardo was wanted by Spurs in summer Nuno was appointed but as we know wanted to see out season with River. Confirmed by Romano.

 

[DenverSpur]

Can also throw Gallardo into the mix as well. Fact is they can't agree on anything which is why we are where we are. Unlikely to be Poch too many against it.

What about Tersic(?) the Dortmond manager? He’s done a good job there and has PL experience as assistant to Bilic at WH.

 

[C1w8]

Totally agree. People regularly bring up this thing about all these players still being here from Poch's time like it's a big deal. It would in fact be a lot more surprising if every single player in a twenty-five-man squad had changed in just three and a half years. That would be a turnover of at least 50 players!

As you point out, the handful of players who are still here from Poch's time are hardly significant going forward. Some of them aren't even in the current squad and most of the others are only on the periphery.

You're missing the point a bit - it's not brought up because it's surprising they're still here after 3.5 years, nobody would expect them to all be gone by now. It's brought up because we are potentially going on a re-run with the same manager, hoping he can have an impact on players who have been down that road previously and got tired of it.

They are also more senior members of our squad. Sure some only have one/two years on their contracts but if we have 3-5 match day squad players not fully buying the Poch way, this is a massive issue., and nobody - not the fans or levy will be happy waiting two years to solve it.

That's not to say things cant still work out, but when weighing up options on who takes over next its right that this is being raised as a red flag.

I'd love poch to come back, but i doubt we have more than one re-run at max in all likelihood, so i'd rather he took over at a more ideal time, and i just dont feel like this is it so soon after he left (though who knows if a better moment to come back ever really materialises).

That said if he does come back i'll be dusting off the old he's magic you know as soon as he's signed.

 

[Sandro30]

On COYS they seem fairly convinced that Levy won't go for Poch FWIW.

I shared this behind closed doors post Leicester. I don't want to talk about the reasoning in public but it's definitely a Levy view that he doesn't want to go back there.

 

[Stamford]

Can also throw Gallardo into the mix as well. Fact is they can't agree on anything which is why we are where we are. Unlikely to be Poch too many against it.

Finally some good news

 

[YB123]

At the risk of sounding like old man shouting at clouds here

Who is this hierarchy exactly? Paratici is in no place to be deciding anything right now and the rest of the board have about as much football pedigree as my dog.

It's so frustrating. They keep getting it wrong over and over again and yet here we are with a bunch of accountants once again deciding on the most important position in the club.

Paratici verdict is this month so that will be telling. Until then, nothing will happen.

 

[felmani26]

Both are Paratici picks.

Gallardo was wanted by Spurs in summer Nuno was appointed but as we know wanted to see out season with River. Confirmed by Romano.

If that's the case then logically I can't see why he wouldn't be firmly on the radar this time round either.