Men's Soccer (Football) Thread [ARCHIVED] Soccer • Page 1164

The unstoppable force meets the immovable object

 

PSG dumps Poch for Zidane. United dumps Ole for Poch. Poch wins league with United, beating Conte's Tottenham by 1 point.

 

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I'm full sure the only way Ole gets sacked is if we don't finish top 4 and he will not get sacked until that happens. I think there's a small possibility he goes if we get knocked out of the CL group but I don't think that will happen.

 

I’m just happy we did this before it was too late. Top 4 is still within reach. ECL and league cup still within reach. The team is more talented than we’ve shown despite our obvious weak spots. Conte is the man that can steer us to a respectable season.

 

Honestly think United, Arsenal, Spurs and maybe even West Ham is going to be a very exciting battle for 4th -7th

 

I still don’t understand why this hire didn’t happen in the summer if Conte is willing to take it now.

 

because Levy played hardball, and is now realizing he fucked up and is willing to give Conte what he wants. These few weeks probably made him realize this situation is more dire than he originally thought.

 

Players have been told to expect Conte to be leading training tomorrow. I really wonder what is going through their heads.

 

I’m also curious how Conte will set up the team from the start. Assuming he runs his 352, I’d really like to see Tanganga in the RCB spot with Romero and Sanchez to fill out the rest of the back line. It’s not ideal, and I’m really hoping we buy a CB in January, but we’d at least have a good combination of pace and strength back there. Emerson and Reggie as the wingbacks would work fine.

Son and Kane is the easy pick for the duo up top. But the midfield will be interesting. I guess Ndombele, Skipp, Hojbjerg will be the best combination for now, but we still need a box to box type player badly. Maybe Conte will figure a way to get Hojbjerg more involved up higher like we see from him with Denmark at times.

January windows are tough so I’m not sure how much work can be done during that time. But if Levy is promising reinforcements then top 3 needs are CB, CM, and ST.

 

I think Conte is a good short term fix to a long term issue.

You needed a full refresh two seasons ago. The fact Alli, Dier and Sanchez are anywhere near that team is astounding. Lo Celso, Emerson and Ndombele are patchy and inconsistent. Kane needs to go, no ifs or buts or whatever happens in the next 6 months. He's disrespected the club and fans and should be made to walk the plank.

I think he will steady the ship, but I think they should have gone for a longer term choice.

 

Selling Kane and going all out for Declan Rice may not be the worst idea to get that midfielder you want while still keeping that England starter spot nailed down.

 

I think Levy is letting the " no trophy" stuff get to him. He tried the immediate success route with Mourinho, and now with Conte.

 

I agree with all of this, but I think waiting so long to do this rebuild and falling into this mess is the reason we need someone who can fix things quicker. It could obviously go disastrously wrong, but the morale at the club is so low right now. I think bringing in someone that can give these players confidence will be huge. Even if Conte is only here for a couple of years, the team will likely be in a much better position for a younger/long-term manager to come in a grow from there. If one of those guy came in now, I don’t think the players would respond and it’d be a much tougher rebuild.

 

I think the combination of Paratici and Conte is what makes this different than Jose coming in.

 

Conte is very good at rebuilding teams though too, and it isn’t always from extreme spending. He can be a longer term answer if things go how they should/could. Not holding my breath, it’s still Spurs, but I think the idea that Conte needs 100 million to refresh a squad otherwise he quits to be a little overblown. I don’t know. I wanted Conte originally, so I’m glad he’s coming now, but I do worry it could also blow up, but at this point, there’s not many other options left. Potter and Ten Hag both didn’t want to leave. Gallardo was the only other option I would’ve been happy with for a longer term solution.

With Conte, at least the players will be demanded to be at their best otherwise they’re out. He’s not going to play games and sugarcoat it for them. If you do not buy in, you need to go. And I hope we can sell more off in January. It needs to be done. Dele, Winks, both desperately need to go.

 

Oh man. If only this was our trip down there.

 

Levy deserves so much blame for all of this. Not only did he ignore Poch when he said we needed to rebuild, he followed it up by bringing in a manager who was guaranteed to create rifts within the club, on top of having no desire in playing attacking tactics. I mean, there were reports that we barely even practiced attacking tactics in training. And this isn’t the first time that type of thing has been reported about Jose. Then he hires Nuno, who is at least a nice man, but took Jose’s faults and took them to the extreme.

It’s no wonder the players look so checked out and disinterested. Everything around them has been a dumpster fire. But like Joe said above, if they don’t respond to Conte, then there really is no hope.

 

Levy got an absolute pasting on the Football Ramble today and I think they're right. He's grown the club really well over the last decade, but in the last 3 years he's really made a mess with football related decisions. Losing Poch the way he did was stupid, Jose was a poor (and probably expensive) choice, the search for a follow up was public and a disaster and then there's the whole Kane thing. When it comes to bargaining over selling players, he just gets so hung up on the bottom line and forgets that that isn't the only thing which impacts the club.

 

These guys are fantastic:

 

I’m hoping Paratici helps with the penny pinching negotiations in transfers.

 

FM22 is coming to Xbox Game Pass next week (when it launches obviously), for anyone curious about it that has a PC.

 

Gives me hope that Ndombele and Lo Celso will finally thrive together lol

 

Add in the issues regarding Kane and you can see how he failed to get to grips with the job. I hope he gets a position somewhere else that he can thrive.

 

Like United?