The 2023-2024 Football Thread

[Scepticalscribe]

Mourinho is still a class act in my book because he took one of the most dysfunctional teams in the premiership, Man United and turned them into trophy winners in his first season and almost winners in his second season. He achieved more in his stint at United than any other manager has since Ferguson retired. His first season at Roma and he wins them their first European trophy in their club history.

Yes he starts to wain after the second season but if any club wants to have instant success then Mourinho is your man. Wanting quick success is a club problem not a Mourinho problem. He knows what is required and tries to get what he wants and when he does get the players he wants, he wins, the facts speak for themselves.

Let us agree to differ.

I wouldn't appoint Mourinho to manage.......anything.

Every single one of his managerial appointments have ended in rancour, and recrimination and - more telling still - have left the teams (and the players) he managed in a considerably worse state than when he had been first appointed.

Players don't thrive, develop or grow under him, he rarely gives youth a chance, and whatever successes he has had have been predicated on negative and stifling tactics, and the cultivation of a toxic, and corrosively negative atmosphere and environment.

 

[Apple fanboy]

I’m not going to make excuses. We had players missing. We went down to 10 men for a stupid moment from our player. Some decisions went against us.

But ultimately Bristol City were just better than us. As the commentators said, they just appeared to want it more.

 

[laptech]

Let us agree to differ.

I wouldn't appoint Mourinho to manage.......anything.

Every single one of his managerial appointments have ended in rancour, and recrimination and - more telling still - have left the teams (and the players) he managed in a considerably worse state than when he had been first appointed.

Players don't thrive, develop or grow under him, he rarely gives youth a chance, and whatever successes he has had have been predicated on negative and stifling tactics, and the cultivation of a toxic, and corrosively negative atmosphere and environment.

Your disgust of Mourinho is misplaced in my opinion because you are judging him under the definition of a 'traditional manager'. Mourinho has never been a 'traditional' manager in the sense you describe. Mourinho could be described more as a 'fixer', a specialist that has a specific skill set to get the job done. You look at his managerial career since his days at Porto way back in 2002. He always lasts 3 to 4 years at a club and then moves on (fired or leaves) but during that time he always wins something, Spurs being the exception to that rule.

If a club is looking for a manager to develop and grow their team, Mourinho is not the man for the job and never has been in my opinion BUT if a clubs desire is to win something, anything, then Mourinho is your man.

It is no difference in the business world, you have specialist managers who's job it is to come in and fix things when things are going badly or terribly wrong and then leave as soon as what ever the goal is has been achieved and then you have managers who's job it is to help the employee's and the company grow.

Mourinho is that type of person in the football world.

 

[laptech]

I’m not going to make excuses. We had players missing. We went down to 10 men for a stupid moment from our player. Some decisions went against us.

But ultimately Bristol City were just better than us. As the commentators said, they just appeared to want it more.

I agree with Moyes point about VAR, it is either used in every game or it is not used at all. It is wrong to have VAR for one game and not for another.

 

[Apple fanboy]

I agree with Moyes point about VAR, it is either used in every game or it is not used at all. It is wrong to have VAR for one game and not for another.

Well yes and no. If you have it at every FA cup game imagine the cost? Some of those first round games are very small teams.

 

[laptech]

Well yes and no. If you have it at every FA cup game imagine the cost? Some of those first round games are very small teams.

The answer is no then. If smaller clubs cannot afford the cost of having VAR at a cup game then it should not be used at all throughout the competition.

 

[Apple fanboy]

The answer is no then. If smaller clubs cannot afford the cost of having VAR at a cup game then it should not be used at all throughout the competition.

That works for me. I’d get rid of VAR completely for ALL competitions in a heartbeat.

 

[laptech]

That works for me. I’d get rid of VAR completely for ALL competitions in a heartbeat.

But surely there have been ref decisions that have gone against your club in the past and you wished something like VAR had been present or have you never felt that way and just accepted the ref's decision?

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Your disgust of Mourinho is misplaced in my opinion because you are judging him under the definition of a 'traditional manager'. Mourinho has never been a 'traditional' manager in the sense you describe. Mourinho could be described more as a 'fixer', a specialist that has a specific skill set to get the job done. You look at his managerial career since his days at Porto way back in 2002. He always lasts 3 to 4 years at a club and then moves on (fired or leaves) but during that time he always wins something, Spurs being the exception to that rule.

Most of the time, he is fired, and leaves on explosively bad terms.

If a club is looking for a manager to develop and grow their team, Mourinho is not the man for the job and never has been in my opinion

Agreed.

And, to my mind, this is one of his many major failings

BUT if a clubs desire is to win something, anything, then Mourinho is your man.

But only for the most fleeting of moments, and not always even then.

It is no difference in the business world, you have specialist managers who's job it is to come in and fix things when things are going badly or terribly wrong and then leave as soon as what ever the goal is has been achieved and then you have managers who's job it is to help the employee's and the company grow.

But such fixes are merely temporary, and are never permanent, which is why the "temporary specialist" is a curse, not a blessing, in the business world, unless one is viewing through the lens of the shortest possible perspective.

Moreover, even if appointed as a supposed "fixer", - a specialist in immediate and very short-term fixes - Mourinho's "fixes" don't last long; they are fleeting sticking plaster, of an incandescent variety.

They are temporary solutions, not meant to offer anything lasting, anything permanent, anything that can be built on.

Apart from his very early days at Porto, and his first incarnation at Chelsea, he has left every team where he has worked worse off - as a team, as football players - than they had been when he had been appointed coach or manager.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

That works for me. I’d get rid of VAR completely for ALL competitions in a heartbeat.

Personally, I'd prefer to see it run better, and resourced better, with more and better trained people carrying out the necessary tasks; it is not as though the Premier League is not awash in funds.

 

[Apple fanboy]

But surely there have been ref decisions that have gone against your club in the past and you wished something like VAR had been present or have you never felt that way and just accepted the ref's decision?

There have. But I was against it at the start and have not changed my view. It does not improve the game. We have as much if not more controversy than ever. Just drop it and go back to what we had before.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

AFCON is in full swing and Egypt again look drab. It could be a fairly open tournament.

I recognize that I am biased, but it seems to me that Salah receives an unfair amount of criticism for Egypt's recent lack of success. Much of the squad is pretty mediocre talent-wise and they play really boring, predictable football. In those circumstances it's easy to mark one player out of the game regardless how good they are.

They need some tactical flexibility and also for other players to step up and help create space for Mo to operate in.

In other AFCON news, Onana was dropped for his first match at AFCON. At first glance it sounds like retaliation but he only arrived in-country on 5am the day of the match - then complained he was left out. I doubt he was in good shape to play under those circumstances. But AFCON is always good for some poor planning, national team infighting, and intrigue.

That works for me. I’d get rid of VAR completely for ALL competitions in a heartbeat.

It's here to stay. But the calls for its adoption were made as a kneejerk and the application of the tech was not thought through. We can't stop it becoming an integral part of the elite game, but I oppose its introduction down the leagues. because the latter are still dependent on ticket sales and VAR spoils the in-person stadium experience much more than it does on TV, where the delays are filled with commentary and replays. The alleged reduction in reffing errors is not worth the disruptions below the top divisions IMO.

Here's a wild idea - let's invest heavily in reffing, rather than VAR, below the level of the Premier League. Improve training, pay, and occupational support. Make it a job more talented people want to do.

My issue is with Mourinho, rather than with severance payments to managers in general.

Any club that chooses to hire him, or appoint him, knows that it will end in tears, copious quantities of tears, and that the departure will be prolonged and embittered and will occur in a profoundly negative and toxic atmosphere.

I think the rise of the pressing game has consigned Mourinho to the second or third rank in terms of tactics. He's old-fashioned now at the elite level.

And it has to be added that he has always been a real jerk. People have a right to be defiant, results-oriented, and unlikeable if they want to be. But it means when they fail they look especially foolish and few people will shed a tear. Mou has always been a pantomime villain and hasn’t been a top level manager since the 2010s.

I think some people gravitate towards personalities like Mou who create a defiant siege mentality. He was the most successful example of that but there are many other managers who do that (Simeone for example).

 

[Lord Blackadder]

But surely there have been ref decisions that have gone against your club in the past and you wished something like VAR had been present or have you never felt that way and just accepted the ref's decision?

VAR has flubbed two big calls for Liverpool. If the title comes down to less than four points...all I can say is pre-VAR things weren't worse than that, so you could call it a wash at best. VAR has caught some things that would perhaps not have been caught before, and failed on others.

 

[laptech]

.....

And, to my mind, this is one of his many major failings

Why do you say it is one of his many failings? It has never been his job to help grow a team or to help youth players. His job is to get a club to win something of which he has done so with every club he has been at with the exception of Spurs. In my opinion your looking at Mourinho as a 'traditional' manager, a manager who is supposed to help develop players, help a team grow and that is wrong because that is not what he is tasked to do, again in my opinion. If you put Mourinho in the category of 'traditional' manager then yes he would fail at nearly every aspect of what a manager is supposed to do but in my opinion Mourinho is a 'specialist' manager, a manager who is tasked to come in, put a winning team together and win something and when he does the club owners/bosses will keep him on as manager for as long as the club win's things.

'Traditional' manager yes I agree with you that he has many failings but put him under the term 'Specialist' and he comes out on top ever time. Specialists are never there for the long haul, they are there for short term high gains. The business world has many such type of people, the football world has one too and his name is Mourinho.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

'Traditional' manager yes I agree with you that he has many failings but put him under the term 'Specialist' and he comes out on top ever time. Specialists are never there for the long haul, they are there for short term high gains. The business world has many such type of people, the football world has one too and his name is Mourinho.

I loathe the short-termist mentality in club football, because it is primarily driven by greed, and in many cases it is the root cause of historical clubs getting wound up. So to me Mourinho is emblematic of that. I don't care how effective he is in seasons 1 and 2. He costs a fortune to hire, demands a huge transfer budget, and leaves the club in tatters in season 3. The fact that he often wins a few trophies in there is a valid argument in his defense but for me the costs outweigh the benefits. I also subjectively find his football boring to watch. He's fundamentally reactive and his attention to detail focuses on defensive shape and winding up the opposition. He'd be a great fit for Newcastle....

There is no question that for a period in the 2000s and early 2010s he was an incredibly effective manager for getting immediate results at the elite level almost anywhere. And that is worth a lot of money to club suits and fans who want to win things above all else. But at the end of the day he built nothing lasting at any club he managed. So I am happy to cite him as one of the most high profile and successful managers of the 21st century thus far, but in terms of long-term impacts on the game itself he is well behind many others.

A lot of people are fiercely protective of him and that's totally fine; he certainly has the trophies to back up his reputation (as he is very quick to remind us constantly). But he's still a human time-bomb and leaves nearly every club he manages in disarray. There are other very successful short-term managers out there (Ancelotti comes to mind) who leave less of a sour taste in the mouth.

 

[Apple fanboy]

VAR has flubbed two big calls for Liverpool. If the title comes down to less than four points...all I can say is pre-VAR things weren't worse than that, so you could call it a wash at best. VAR has caught some things that would perhaps not have been caught before, and failed on others.

How many decisions went Liverpools way the year they won the title? Quite a lot as I recall.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

How many decisions went Liverpools way the year they won the title? Quite a lot as I recall.

Nobody wins a title without some luck. But of course nobody remembers that 20 years later; we just see the final table.

Man Utd were often lucky during their dominant years under Ferguson. They always seemed to get a big call when they needed a little help to win. But The counterargument is that they often made their own luck by constantly pressuring the opposition and creating circumstances for marginal calls to fall their way (though I am bound to say that Fergie was also a legendary intimidator of referees and that had to count for something....Klopp is often accused of the same behavior).

But I was speaking of all this previously in the context of VAR. It was supposed to reduce the 'luck' factor by getting all the big marginal calls right. Has it?

 

[Apple fanboy]

Nobody wins a title without some luck. But of course nobody remembers that 20 years later; we just see the final table.

Man Utd were often lucky during their dominant years under Ferguson. They always seemed to get a big call when they needed a little help to win. But The counterargument is that they often made their own luck by constantly pressuring the opposition and creating circumstances for marginal calls to fall their way (though I am bound to say that Fergie was also a legendary intimidator of referees and that had to count for something....Klopp is often accused of the same behavior).

But I was speaking of all this previously in the context of VAR. It was supposed to reduce the 'luck' factor by getting all the big marginal calls right. Has it?

Indeed it has not. It never will. It should just be removed.

 

[laptech]

I loathe the short-termist mentality in club football, because it is primarily driven by greed, and in many cases it is the root cause of historical clubs getting wound up. So to me Mourinho is emblematic of that. I don't care how effective he is in seasons 1 and 2. He costs a fortune to hire, demands a huge transfer budget, and leaves the club in tatters in season 3. The fact that he often wins a few trophies in there is a valid argument in his defense but for me the costs outweigh the benefits. I also subjectively find his football boring to watch. He's fundamentally reactive and his attention to detail focuses on defensive shape and winding up the opposition. He'd be a great fit for Newcastle....

....

But isn't this a club problem? Mourinho fills a task that a club wants and he does it very well but yet he is the one derided for it and not the clubs that hire him. I've seen 'specialists' used in companies and they all follow a typical mantra, they know they are only going to be there for a short time therefore they are not there to be liked, they are not there to be 'one' of the team, they are there to get a specific job done. Mourinho does EXACTLY the same. He tells the club what he needs and starts to work on how to achieve the clubs goal which is to win things. Realistically he knows he is not there to help develop the team or to develop the youth, he is there to win and if that means doing it in ways that upset certain players then so be it. Again, he is there to get results so if that means playing defensive or boring football then so be it.

This is why the man never bothers me the way it bothers others because I am able to detach from what is a 'traditional' manager and see him for what he is, a 'specialist' manager and if you look at the way Mourinho does things when at a club it is nearly one for one on how a 'specialist' manager in business behaves.

If people view Mourinho as a 'traditional' manager then they are always going to have problems with the man because that is not who he is in my opinion. Unfortunately football is a business and as in business you need to win to get the big bucks (sponsors and merchandising) and all the clubs bar Spurs, Mourinho has done just that. Like I said and when he has done that, off he goes to another club that wants to win things at any cost.

 

[timber]

If you listen to his interviews he doesn't present himself as some specialist just a regular manager.
He also sounds a lot worse in English as he isn't really very good at it despite all the years to practice. The special one thing for example comes from a misunderstanding.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

This is why the man never bothers me the way it bothers others because I am able to detach from what is a 'traditional' manager and see him for what he is, a 'specialist' manager and if you look at the way Mourinho does things when at a club it is nearly one for one on how a 'specialist' manager in business behaves.

As @timber said, I think Mourinho himself would bristle at the 'specialist' label. He sees himself as one of the best managers out there full stop and rejects the short-termist 'specialist' label. Even though his career resume clearly demonstrates that he is a a guy who swoops in, wins things, spends money, blows it all up, and moves on after a couple seasons.

 

[laptech]

As @timber said, I think Mourinho himself would bristle at the 'specialist' label. He sees himself as one of the best managers out there full stop and rejects the short-termist 'specialist' label. Even though his career resume clearly demonstrates that he is a a guy who swoops in, wins things, spends money, blows it all up, and moves on after a couple seasons.

It would be very difficult for Mourinho to argue against the facts which does imply a 'specialist' role rather than a 'traditional' role.

 

[HandsomeDanNZ]

That works for me. I’d get rid of VAR completely for ALL competitions in a heartbeat.

Watching a lot of non-VAR football, now that the Saints are in the Championship where there is no video assistant, I have to say it is both good and bad.
There are times when as a fan, you'll lament the inability to review a blatant handball in the lead-up to a goal, or that obvious penalty shout that wasn't given; but it really is swings and roundabouts. Every team also benefits to some degree, when they are similarly rewarded with a non-call or even a blatantly incorrect call in their favour.
I am enjoying many aspects of Championship football and the lack of VAR is one of them.

Implemented correctly, VAR would be and could be very useful and a good tool, but it's too intrusive, often misused (in the broadest sense - not implying bias or cheating, just human error or too much reliance on it) and is not fan-friendly. Football is an entertainment business and VAR takes away from the spectacle somewhat.

 

[Apple fanboy]

Watching a lot of non-VAR football, now that the Saints are in the Championship where there is no video assistant, I have to say it is both good and bad.
There are times when as a fan, you'll lament the inability to review a blatant handball in the lead-up to a goal, or that obvious penalty shout that wasn't given; but it really is swings and roundabouts. Every team also benefits to some degree, when they are similarly rewarded with a non-call or even a blatantly incorrect call in their favour.
I am enjoying many aspects of Championship football and the lack of VAR is one of them.

Implemented correctly, VAR would be and could be very useful and a good tool, but it's too intrusive, often misused (in the broadest sense - not implying bias or cheating, just human error or too much reliance on it) and is not fan-friendly. Football is an entertainment business and VAR takes away from the spectacle somewhat.

Exactly. You score a goal, but you can’t even celebrate for 5 minutes.
The other rule I dislike is the linesman not flagging an incident straight away. So the play carries on until a pause. Then they pull it back to the offence and the free kick. Sometimes there can be a minute or so of play that ultimately won’t count.
What happens when a player gets injured in that minute etc?

Trying to reinvent the wheel for the sake of it.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

It would be very difficult for Mourinho to argue against the facts which does imply a 'specialist' role rather than a 'traditional' role.

It's quite easy to doggedly argue a point that's unsupported by facts. That's kind of how much of the world works these days. 🤣

Watching a lot of non-VAR football, now that the Saints are in the Championship where there is no video assistant, I have to say it is both good and bad.
There are times when as a fan, you'll lament the inability to review a blatant handball in the lead-up to a goal, or that obvious penalty shout that wasn't given; but it really is swings and roundabouts. Every team also benefits to some degree, when they are similarly rewarded with a non-call or even a blatantly incorrect call in their favour.
I am enjoying many aspects of Championship football and the lack of VAR is one of them.

Implemented correctly, VAR would be and could be very useful and a good tool, but it's too intrusive, often misused (in the broadest sense - not implying bias or cheating, just human error or too much reliance on it) and is not fan-friendly. Football is an entertainment business and VAR takes away from the spectacle somewhat.

As you say, it all boils down to implementation. It's one thing to cook up some technological gizmo or system, but using it effectively is another matter. VAR is just people watching replays in a room. So in reality what matters is not so much the technology itself, but the process the VARs follow to make decisions. And that's the part they really didn't think through carefully enough before implementing.