NEW MANAGER

[CroJack]

It is quite ludicrous that football/sport management appears to be the only career where you can be handsomely rewarded for failure!!

It's not. CEOs in private and public businesses get millions in so called golden handshake even if they run businesses into the ground. We taxpayers in the Western world bailed private banks out in 2008 and what did they do? The very next year their CEOs got billions in bonuses!!! They should have ended up in prison instead.

 

[Jackflash]

This is the last week of training ground work before we hit a period of 4 matches in 10 days, then a cup tie 4 days after that.

Is this a week to make things better or worse. Is Cooper capable of correcting and improving or inflicting damage. Luton beckons ... a good time to tell.

For that period I think Cooper needs to take a back seat and be manager in name only,this is a time for experience in rotating the squad.A job for Curt and maybe assisted by leon or/and Trunds.Cooper can't get it right with one game a week.

 

[Yankee_Jack]

For that period I think Cooper needs to take a back seat and be manager in name only,this is a time for experience in rotating the squad.A job for Curt and maybe assisted by leon or/and Trunds.Cooper can't get it right with one game a week.

So basically it's abdication and phone a friend time ... does he have any left.

 

[ivoralljack]

Perhaps he might yet come good. Okay, I concede that might be a long shot but stranger things have happened. We've seen strikers who couldn't score in a brothel start netting them for fun; journeymen players who gradually clicked and went on to enjoy top careers and so on. I'm thinking, actually desperately hoping, that the team will suddenly click, give someone an almighty hammering, take confidence from it and go on a great run.

 

[Yankee_Jack]

@ivoralljack ... but Dozy Andy Pandy not only looks like he can't organize a piss up in a brewery ... but in addition he can't motivate drunkards to drink.

 

[ivoralljack]

@ivoralljack ... but Dozy Andy Pandy not only looks like he can't organize a piss up in a brewery ... but in addition he can't motivate drunkards to drink.

I take your point and tend to agree but I'm doing my best to keep positive. Cooper must be learning SOMETHING on the job, particularly with Leon and Curt bending his ear on a daily basis. Look at Rodgers. He cocked up two jobs at Watford and Reading then struck lucky with us. Okay, I accept that it proved a dream fit with the players we had and the way we played but he did come good for whatever reason when he could have disappeared without trace. Now he's being touted as a successor to Pep at Citeh!! Strange things happen in football for sure.

Then there's our players who seem to have been delivering at only 70% of their ability, some of which might be nothing to do with Cooper. If they all played to their potential and ability in one game that might be the catalyst for everyone to move onwards and upwards. Let's see how we go against Luton. Surely that's a very winnable game for us.

 

[Yankee_Jack]

Luton should be a very winnable game for us, which is why I see it as an acid test. Cooper could argue that with weekend/mid-week barrage of games it leaves no time for real work to get done on the training ground .... so let's see what he can do with a full week on the training ground.

He's either going to "fix" it using his term from his presser a week ago ... or he's going to pour more acid into the works.

There's always likely to be one or two apples in the barrel that have a year at a lower level relative to the previous year. But, we have the top end of the squad playing at 70% ... the top end, the lot he keeps selecting because he apparently doesn't like or trust the opposite end. Who can possibly depress output across the board like that other than the coach.

Over the last few weeks he has benched Borja. He has benched Fulton in preference to Byers, who continues to muddle along. He has brought McKay out of the wilderness and John. He had a flirt with Peterson and Carroll. And after a brief flirt with Naughton he's gone back to Bidwell. Yet he persists with Celina and Byers.

The only player who appears to be busting a gut is Ayew. And Ayew in chaos mode is just trying to bugger and bully the team over the winning line ... which if he wants out in January is what he must do ... carry the rest on his shoulders.

I'm not sure that Curt and Leon have the confidence in their roles and perhaps the authority to pull the trigger on Cooper. Or, to walk into his office and have a frank WTF conversation.

 

[CroJack]

Cooper could argue that with weekend/mid-week barrage of games it leaves no time for real work to get done on the training ground ..

He has had three international breaks and done nothing on the training ground. The only result of "the real work on the training ground" has been more confusion and chaos on the the pitch.

Ffs, if you are not good at inventing things then do what Chinese have done in the past 30 years: steal and copy. Winning formulas in football are not intellectual property and you don't need to buy the licence to copy what the best in the business do. Everything is broadcasted today. All analytical tools are available if you want to understand what the best managers in the game do, and they do what the best managers have allways done - their teams play with intensity and tempo. Everything else is just the icing on the cake. It can't be more simple than that, and yet we lack intensity and tempo. There is nothing misterious about running more and faster than your opponents do. There is nothing misterious about harrassing your opponents by tackling and fouling them. Football pitch is a battlefield where you have to fight for every square inch for 90 minutes, and if you don't do that you will be defeated.

 

[Yankee_Jack]

@CroJack ... but dozy Andy Pandy has his eye's half closed and his mind idling roughly above stall. He is the last person to copy from others.

I have shown the picture I posted in the thread on capture this picture to three people that know nothing about Cooper or football for that matter. The common comment was that Cooper had the appearance of somebody that was not interested or bored and really wanted no part of where he was. There is no energy emanating from him; it would be hard to expect energy to manifest itself on the field.

And I didn't mean to imply that the barrage of games was a valid excuse, just one he could plausibly throw out. I agree with you; it's probably been a blessing that he's had so little time on the practice field because, as you say, the international breaks have killed us.

 

[jackodiamonds]

...they do what the best managers have allways done - their teams play with intensity and tempo.

Guess the manager from the quotes:

“My football, in defence, is very simple: we run all the time. I know that it’s easier to defend than create. To run, for example, is a decision of the will. To create you need an indispensable amount of talent.”

“I am obsessive about attack... Attacking football is the simplest way to victory and success."

“While the opponent has the ball, the whole team presses, always trying to cut off the play as close as possible to the opponent’s goal; when we get it we look to play with dynamism and create the spaces for improvisation.”

One of the all time best, who was interviewed but not hired by Swansea (too expensive), whose ideas have inspired Pep and Klopp. And what he's saying here isn't some arcane secret. It's obvious. Press high, run like f@#k for the entire 90 mins, and take your chances to hurt the opposition when you have them.

Might buy Cooper his biography if he's still in a job at Xmas - not that he needs it. Just reading those three sentences should be enough.

 

[Yankee_Jack]

Those words sound like Cruyff

 

[CroJack]

Those words sound like Cruyff

Bielsa.

 

[ivoralljack]

I couldn't make my mind up about either so I kept stumm.

 

[Borini]

Our problem is our team is too concerned over keeping a good defensive shape, it's the transition from defence to attack that is our problem, players should drive into any space in front of them and someone else should do a 'Leon' and cover the gap they leave, it's all about awareness and movement , we have neither. That is why our play is so ponderous.

 

[jackodiamonds]

Bielsa.

Pretty sure you're about as big a Bielsa fan as I am so no surprises you guessed right

 

[jackodiamonds]

Our problem is our team is too concerned over keeping a good defensive shape, it's the transition from defence to attack that is our problem, players should drive into any space in front of them and someone else should do a 'Leon' and cover the gap they leave, it's all about awareness and movement , we have neither. That is why our play is so ponderous.

Ponderous is right. If someone showed highlight reel footage of every Championship team's attack, masked the kits and players faces, and played "guess the team", I'm pretty sure we'd all recognise Swansea immediately - they'd be the clips where the defending team somehow has 8 players in their own box and the attacking team makes too many passes before someone either has a long shot blocked or someone else over-hits a cross to an empty far post.

I wonder how much of this is the Swans reputation for being a passing and possession side come back to bite them. When Swansea concede goals, a lot of the time they're wide open at the back because the attacking play has come on the counter. All an opponent has to do is sit back, stifle the Swans over-complicated attack, and wait for those opportunities. I almost want Swansea to have less of the ball so they can be the counter-attacking team, winning breaks off the press.

 

[Behindthegoal]

Speaking of which. A nice win against the odds on Thursday would leave us handily placed to claim second place when one of the wheels falls off The Bucket.
If you follow Aesop, you'll never back the hare.
Just a friendly dig, guys. You've got to admit - even the great God Bielsa has feet of clay.
IMO he has a tendency to flog a willing horse.

 

[CroJack]

You've got to admit - even the great God Bielsa has feet of clay.
IMO he has a tendency to flog a willing horse.

Bielsa has done everything right at Leeds, and it's not his fault that Leeds are not 20 points clear in 1st place. In his case it's the quality of the Leeds players who can't score from millions of chances they create. Game after game Bielsa's Leeds play with the same high intensity and dominate opposition.

Here is the latest expected points table. Just have a look at how many points should Bielsa's Leeds have earned had it not been for wastefulness of Patrick Bamford and other Leeds players and lucky punches from the lesser teams like Swansea.



Despite being attacking minded Bielsa's Leeds have the best defence in the league.

In our case it's another way around. Lack of intensity, lack of system that enables creativity, lack of tackling, sloppiness etc. have made Swansea one of the worst teams in the league when it comes to defending. We simply allow too many too good chances against.

What has saved our ass was not Cooper's brilliance as a manager, but players who have been clinical to score from not so many good chances created. First Borja and then Ayew. And set-pieces. We are good both at scoring from and defending against set-pieces.

P.S. Have you noticed Stoke and Bristol's position in the expected points table?

 

[Yankee_Jack]

I also notice WBA's position. Clearly achieving above expectation. Can it last?

 

[CroJack]

I also notice WBA's position. Clearly achieving above expectation. Can it last?

I think so. They have a good manager and squad, and are good defensively. And they already have many points. They are 11 points clear off third place. Lost only one out of 23 games.