Is Bruno Lage A Good Manager Or Should He Go?

[Wilf Wolf]

What are we actually waiting for.

He could win on Saturday but even Zenga and Saunders won games. Zenga went and won away at champions Newcastle!

There’s zero evidence we’re going to just click and become a good team. We aren’t aiming for 14th, we’re aiming top half, so that’s a massive fucking turn around.

We’ve been shit for god knows how long. The writing has been on the wall and we aren’t getting better. A win Saturday will just kick the can down the road and waste more of the season.

He’s done absolutely nothing to deserve time. Put us out of our misery

It won’t be long before we reach the point where we’d snatch the hand off anyone offering 14th. All the signs were there last season but whilst most on here understood it was a combination of freak statistics in terms of taking chances and Sa performing heroics the powers that be were fooled by that. By May it was apparent that Emperor Lage barely had any clothes and something needed to change. We’ve now brought in more good players and it’s the same predictable bilge and surely even Sellars and Shi can see that now. A win against Saints will paper over the odd crack, nothing more. Get to 6 points, quite probably less, from 10 games and top half will be the absolute limit of our ambitions. They need to act now and give the new manager some free hits whilst bedding in.

 

[Lupo]

Wonder how many of the 6.3% have changed their mind since May

 

[Tony Towner]

At least one has, one of the others may be able to tell us by the medium of emojis

 

[Sniffer]

At least one has, one of the others may be able to tell us by the medium of emojis

If @Mel Evo 's Brexit analagy is correct then I'd be inclined to think that one hasn't changed his mind.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

In the interests of balance, a healthy process, I’ve listened to the Bruno defenders on one of the podcasts. It’s an interesting insight into the mindset of people who wanted Nuno gone and for whatever reason thought Bruno would be great. He still needs more time in this view, even if that means next to no points until mid-October. The laughter that follows every reference to the lunatics who want Bruno out is a little hollower, but the Brexit like belief remains: I said it was a great idea so I’ll now blame anything and anyone else for the disaster put in front of me. It’s so destructive, mainly for the relationship between players and fans, and Fosun should act now. Of course, they should have acted at the end of last season and that they didn’t gives me no confidence they’ll do so now. After Sat perhaps, when we’ve needlessly wasted another few days.

I just don't get it.

The thing is they're really shit diehard believers. Because I've seen people on Twitter and indeed on here who not two weeks ago were insisting that it was ridiculous to want him out and he needed time/players, and now they want him sacked every bit as much as I do.

Ultimately a proper manager will sort us out, I have no doubt about that. There's too much quality there not to, unless whoever the 2022 equivalent of Saunders takes over. A learning experience for Fosun, you can't just put *anyone* in charge and it'll look after itself. This league is too good for that.

When he does get sacked he'll never work in England again. Dreadful record, worse football and he can't speak English properly.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

I wrote this in May:

According to Transfermarkt the Gestifute clients are:

Nuno
Mourinho
Gattuso
Lage
Sergio Conceicao
Karanka
Rui Faria
Hugo Vicente
Vasco Seabra
Nuno Capucho

Never heard of Vicente or Seabra. Vicente doesn't even have a Wiki page, Seabra seems to bounce around mid/lower table Portuguese teams for not very long with not much success.

Faria stopped working with Mourinho in 2018 and has managed one Qatari club for a year since, out of work now.

Capucho had a few (shit) months with Rio Ave in 2016 but otherwise has just managed a series of Portuguese second division teams.

We all know Karanka, plays even worse football than Lage, awful at Blues and Forest, falls out with players and boards all the time, he got the Granada job until the end of the season a couple of weeks ago.

Gattuso seemed to be ok-ish at Milan and Napoli, got the Fiorentina job last summer but it all got cancelled within a fortnight or so without him taking charge of a game, also seemed close to the Spurs job before Nuno but the fan reaction made Levy reconsider, hasn't worked since.

Conceicao has been Porto manager since 2017. Won two titles and they're going to win it this year too.

Nuno won't come back. Probably wouldn't be a good idea even if he would.

Mourinho isn't going to leave Roma for us.

Pretty much leaves a shortlist of one, at best two if we go down that road!

Mentioned it a couple of times now but Fonseca (not Gestifute) is about the best we could do I think. Gets linked to a lot of jobs all the time but hasn't nailed one down since he left Roma.

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/paulo-f ... iner/19944

PPG everywhere except Paços de Ferreira is pretty good.

https://themastermindsite.com/2021/06/1 ... s-tactics/

Reputation for attacking football, but people told us that was what we were getting from Lage, and look at us.

I'd take that swap to be honest and I'd be more comfortable with someone with his experience being given a budget than Lage, who still has next to fuck all experience and appears to regularly get into awful runs of form.

I'm sorry if it grates but I can't share any positivity around Lage which pretty much amounts to pointing at the league table - if I wanted to do that, I could sit at home and bask in the sort of reflected glory while reading my Sunday paper, but it's really not the point (nor are we "amongst it for 7th", there's a reasonable chance we get 0 points from here, 3 at absolute best, either way it isn't happening) - we all know deep down (even if some won't admit it) that we've been largely awful to watch and all you're seeing now is results starting to marry performances. We absolutely need better. I've used comparisons to Solskjaer before - how obvious was it that he was never ever a Manchester United manager. But he finished 2nd last season so stayed this year...how did that turn out?

If you run a club properly then you take action before the situation becomes critical. Chelsea of course operate in a completely different market to us but despite their huge turnover of managers over nearly 20 years (not sure any have lasted more than three full seasons) they're successful because they lance the boil when it's obvious that there's a big problem here and there's no realistic chance of the guy in charge turning it around.

Whatever you think of Lage - I think he's a bit of a dick, he throws players under the bus all the time and increasingly garbles absolute nonsense that isn't even comprehensible, but that's neither here nor there - who honestly sees him turning this around, and why, on what basis? Because 7 defeats out of 10, when none of those 10 were against the top three, is fucking calamitous.

Most of it still holds although we missed the boat on Fonseca (went to Lille) and Gattuso has the Valencia job, but I doubt we'd ever have appointed him anyway.

People need to stop thinking "Mendes" when they think of our new manager, he needs to be happy to work with him and know that transfers aren't really his domain but that's it.

 

[Keef]

I’m arguing with one on Facebook, says now Bruno has spent millions, he needs the time to sort it out, because the players need coaching to his way of playing, it’s not going to happen overnight.
I’ve fired DWs stats at him to no effect

 

[PuntsWolf]

It won’t be long before we reach the point where we’d snatch the hand off anyone offering 14th. All the signs were there last season but whilst most on here understood it was a combination of freak statistics in terms of taking chances and Sa performing heroics the powers that be were fooled by that. By May it was apparent that Emperor Lage barely had any clothes and something needed to change. We’ve now brought in more good players and it’s the same predictable bilge and surely even Sellars and Shi can see that now. A win against Saints will paper over the odd crack, nothing more. Get to 6 points, quite probably less, from 10 games and top half will be the absolute limit of our ambitions. They need to act now and give the new manager some free hits whilst bedding in.

Don’t get me wrong, if the poor run continues we will be needing snookers for a good finish. Newcastle went on a crazy run last year but the damage we already done.

The only positive so far is we haven’t lost to all of these bottom half teams so hasn’t damaged us too much in the relegation battle so far.

 

[jd1981]

Seen some incredible stuff on my Facebook this morning, not on twitter but one person said “how many times are we going to keep getting rid of AMAZING managers because we don’t get what we want?”
Needless to say I destroyed that statement in about 4 sentences.
The other is “he needs time for the side to gel”
Seriously if I hear that one more time, managers in place for a long time doesn’t equal success it’s a complete utter myth.
It’s a myth that an influx of players means you can’t make them play as a unit early on.
He hasn’t been handed a bunch of U21 or a group of free transfers then I’d be more sympathetic.
Spending upwards of £80million pretty much means you’ve got players who should be able to naturally fit into your squad.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

We have never ever ever been hasty in sacking managers, bar Nuno. No other time in the last 35 years. Most of them lasted way longer than they had any right to.

 

[WsWolf]

Don’t get me wrong, if the poor run continues we will be needing snookers for a good finish. Newcastle went on a crazy run last year but the damage we already done.

The only positive so far is we haven’t lost to all of these bottom half teams so hasn’t damaged us too much in the relegation battle so far.

I can't see us being in a relegation battle unless we keep the clown in charge. My concern is that some of the quality we do have will want to play for a side that are going to actually compete for things rather than bum about in midtable.

 

[jd1981]

I can't see us being in a relegation battle unless we keep the clown in charge. My concern is that some of the quality we do have will want to play for a side that are going to actually compete for things rather than bum about in midtable.

We already in one even if we win Saturday come 10 games gone we’ll be sat on 6 points more than likely.
Absolute max I can see us being on come WC break is PPG.
Once you’re at that stage it’s hard to get out off.

 

[WsWolf]

We already in one even if we win Saturday come 10 games gone we’ll be sat on 6 points more than likely.
Absolute max I can see us being on come WC break is PPG.
Once you’re at that stage it’s hard to get out off.

I don't buy that, with a competent manager Newcastle flew up the table because they had some quality. The teams who struggle to get out are there because their players aren't good enough, that's not the case for us. Anyone half way competent would have us on at least 10 points by now.

 

[pr0sl0]

We have never ever ever been hasty in sacking managers, bar Nuno. No other time in the last 35 years. Most of them lasted way longer than they had any right to.

Don't know if you'd agree that Zenga was dispensed with fairly sharpish but that one felt like a sensible nipping in the bud to me at the time. Otherwise, yep. Lots of zombie tenures to look back on with little fondness.

 

[Langers]

I don't understand the argument for us only replacing Lage with a Portuguese/Mendes client/both.

Why would we do that? It makes no sense - we are actively improving the squad, and not all of the deals we're involved in - or those we've secured - have had Mendes links.

The head coach would be the most important signing of all. If Fosun really are serious about investing in the team again, they'd be able to look at a much wider list of potential candidates.

We have a quality side, we have owners who have put money into the squad, we're an established Premier League side. We should be a pretty attractive proposition.

Obvs we need to bin Lage first. I would hope the board are looking into this already and are seeing who would be the best fit for the role....

 

[Johnny75]

I don't buy that, with a competent manager Newcastle flew up the table because they had some quality. The teams who struggle to get out are there because their players aren't good enough, that's not the case for us. Anyone half way competent would have us on at least 10 points by now.

Agree with this, 10 points was the absolute minimum from the first 6 games.

He'll be gone after Saturday if we don't score and draw 0-0

 

[Wolf Hunting]

The problem I see is that the players need more guidance and he isn't the man to provide it.

This. Absolutely this!

 

[Tony Towner]

I don't understand the argument for us only replacing Lage with a Portuguese/Mendes client/both.

The simple answer is because we did it last time with a manager with at best a questionable pedigree who has proven to be abysmal, coupled with Jeff Shi's knowledge of football which you could write on a postage stamp and the person who will officially be in charge of the recruitment is an Academy Manager.

Obviously we shouldn't go down that route and the lack of available candidates means we probably won't, but it's not difficult to see where the assumption comes from. As and when it happens it'll be Lopetegui imo, because it's the easy solution

 

[Wolf Hunting]

We have never ever ever been hasty in sacking managers, bar Nuno. No other time in the last 35 years. Most of them lasted way longer than they had any right to.

And this one is gonna continue that trend.
If Jeff meets the board once a month, can we find out when that is?
Cause that's when the decision is gonna be made.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

We don't have a board as such.

It's two legacy directors who never have had any say as such, then Jeff and his crap executive team. Jeff reports to Guo who to be honest, doesn't really care that much. That's it.