Pozzo Out

I think the irony is Pozzo has pretty much done the same thing, but much slower as the upfront price to buy out Baz was several times lower.

 

My point was about Pozzo, not Baz!

 

I know they have made mistakes but I wonder if the owners should get any credit for the current league position? Munoz seems to have worked, three free signings in Zinc, The Bloke From Chile and Carlos Sanchez has worked pretty well. Kept Sarr, reacted well when Ivic seemed to be struggling and obviously what they did during the Pandemic

 

Yes definitely deserve a lot of credit for this season. Gosling seems a solid signing for a promotion run in as well. I’m still in the Pozzo out camp but they’ve made a good fist of this season for sure.

 

My current ruling:

Pozzo In

 

I think it’s difficult to give credit for Munoz because ultimately it was a blind punt. They guy had virtually no managerial experience and what he had was in an absolutely tinpot league, there was absolutely no evidence to draw on that he’d work out.

This is the same person who rehired QSF and sacked Pearson with 2 games to go, there isn’t always a plan, sometimes it’s just as mad as it seems on face value and sometimes it will work and in the case of QSF Mk II and Pearson, sometimes it won’t.

You could argue that where he was smart was hiring a yes man who would put an arm round the players knowing that would work and that’s what we needed, but I’d argue it’s impossible to have known that, the players could’ve easily had no respect for someone with so little experience.

Let’s not also forget the most significant upturn in our fortunes has come about because Troy got injured. If he hadn’t got injured would we be where we are now? Not in a million years.

So overall I think Gino deserves credit for being lucky.

 

I think I was as underwhelmed as anyone at the end of both transfer windows but I am delighted to have been largely wrong.

What is noticeable is that the key new acquisitions are not only solid additions at this level but also bring the right attitude which has helped to transform the atmosphere of the team. PZ, Gosling, Sierralta, WTE, and Ngakia all seem to be solid professionals who are playing for the team. No egos, no baggage.

If we go up all will be useful squad players in and around the first team. If we stay down then I can see all staying and continuing to be key figures.

 

I’m convinced Pearson would have “worked” but for COVID.

 

I agree, I’m not saying Pearson was a bad appointment (he was a Hail Mary though, after screwing up with QSF, and I guess there are similarities to Munoz in that respect) but to end up in a situation were he was sacked with 2 games to go is pretty bonkers.

Obviously we may never know what actually happened, but all of last season is evidence of Gino making eratic decisions that did not work.

Munoz was an erratic decision that has worked, but I think it’s more luck than judgement.

 

We've had a promotion, a play off final, 5 years in the PL, an FA Cup final, and now potentially another promotion, all in 9 seasons. Think that suggests it's a little more than luck.

Plenty of poor decisions in those 9 seasons, but far more good than bad, and the results don't lie.

 

I didn’t say it was luck every time did I, but it is this time and for more than one reason.

Besides, if you read my post properly I was commenting specifically about the Munoz appointment and not the entire 9 years.

 

And I'm expanding on that by saying their overall track record suggests the 'erratic decision' of hiring Munoz may be down to good judgement of a situation, rather than luck.

Much like the appointment of Jokanovic, who also had a largely uninspiring track record, and whose appointment was largely met with disappointed reactions. In both cases it looks like the right man was selected at the right time, for the task at hand.

 

If Ginos’ track record of hiring managers was so good we wouldn’t go through so many. Having four separate people manage the team last season can really only be described a erratic at best. If you’ve had four people in charge and been relegated, then that’s erratic. Munoz was employed because he was cheap, available and the opposite to Ivic.

Let’s please not rewrite history here, after Ivic dropped Troy, Munoz quickly restored Troy to the team and made public noises about how he was the main man and how important he was. Every fan (apart from maybe you) could see this was a monumental error and was massively holding us back. This carried on until low and behold he gets injured, we change formation and we haven’t looked back, winning 8 from 9.

Now was it skill on Gino’s part that Troy got injured or was it luck? Was it skill on Gino’s part that he employed a manager who immediately returned Troy to the team and made us play 4-4-2 to accommodate Troy, which stunk the place out until it was changed?

Who was the idiot for keeping Troy in the team? Munoz, Gino or both?

Can you not at least concede that a Coventry player falling on Troy and injuring him can only be described by any sane individual as luck, considering our run pre and post that injury, or do you in fact believe that was all just part of this 9 year masterplan that has seen us back where we started?

 

There’s a long way to go yet - and I’m still not convinced by our performances - I think the results are papering over the cracks a bit still .... but it’s definitely much much better than it was under Ivic.

if we go up then the Pozzo called it right by the skin of their teeth - if we don’t go up they missed out on a return to the prem and £150m by not investing £6m in Toney.

It is clear that this is not a prem ready side like Sunderland and Reading were back in the day and more recently Wolves were and to a lesser extent Leeds were ...... we have Sarr and Pedro who are Prem ready .......this current side will need a massive amount of money needing to be spent on it to keep it in the prem :

As a minimum
We need 2 strikers - £50m
We need 2 central midfielders - £30m
We need a GK £10m
We need a Central Defender £15m

Those prices are pretty much how much it costs just to get the best players from the Championship !!

Obviously we will be getting a new manager too..... which will be another bit of disruption, change of system etc etc.

I just hope we continue this run, get promoted and see what the summer brings

 

I don't think Munoz came to those early positive comments on Troy himself, I think they came from Duxbury and Deeney himself. I think Munoz just went along with it initially, and was maybe fortunate he got injured before Deeney started to turn on him. To be honest, I'm not really convinced Deeney was really injured as reported. Pure guess on my part but it wouldn't surprise me if the injury thing was a contrived excuse and a way out with a bit of face saving, when in reality, Deeney was about to be dropped.

 

Well fortunately we have a bigger sample size to look at than just last season. Also fortunate that Gino's decision making isn't limited to purely hiring and firing managers.

As I said, there's been plenty of poor decisions. Rehiring QSF, the timing of Pearson's sacking (although I personally don't think he'd have kept us up), the continual refusal to invest properly in the defence, the £18m on Gray. But for every poor decision, I'd argue there's be twice as many good decisions, and I think that's proven by the overall success we've had in the last 9 years.

Xisco came in, had one or two training sessions, and played it safe with a 4-4-2 and starting the club captain. We beat the best team in the league with that team. We then mostly had a match every 4ish days, with no real opportunity to fully train a completely new system. Performances were average, but results were good. We won 3 in a row for the first time all season. I can see why Munoz didn't want to tinker (I think he should have).

Then it started to fall apart somewhat against Millwall/QPR/Cov (2 points, 1 goal scored, 2 conceded). After Cov, Munoz I believe had his first full week of training, which enabled him to work on the 4-3-3. Even without Deeney we had Gray, Perica, Pedro. He could have stuck with 4-4-2 if he was completely married to it.

I think it was fortunate that Troy got injured, as he clearly has too much influence, his ability is waning/gone, and I think his hand flapping and moaning is bad for the morale of a young squad.

Can you concede that over the last 9 years, for our club of our size and wage bill, we've enjoyed more successful seasons, than unsuccessful? And that with a sample size that large, it's unlikely that this was entirely down to luck?

 

I don't think we'd see anything like that level of investment in the squad. If we get promoted we still have a massive financial hole to fill from relegation and the massive income drop caused by Covid. I reckon off the field promotion would simply mean we have a viable way to service the debt pile and maybe reduce it slightly so the next relegation doesn't see us in quite so much peril. On it I reckon any investment is still dependent on shifting the high salary, low return players like Gray, Deeney etc. If they go we might have some flexibility but if they stay it'll be a year of aiming for 17th with loan signings the main reinforcements.

 

There is nothing to concede, for the second time, I never once said most, or any of the good things that happened over the past 9 years are down to luck did I?

Of course over the past 9 years there have been plenty of good decisions and plenty of success, I have never once said there hasn’t been.

You seem to be saying that Gino can only make fantastic decisions or terrible decisions, is it not possible that he can also make decisions that could go either way? Or is it simply that binary?

Munoz had 11 games in charge in Georgia, it’s a decision that could’ve gone either way. Troy may or may not have got injured, again that could’ve gone either way. If his injury is indeed fake, then does Gino deserve credit for deliberately sabotaging our prospects my either insisting Munoz picks him, or letting him, and then doing a 180 and sidelining him?

 

I don't think anybody knows the process for getting coaches in but had Munoz been coaching at different levels before his first head coach role? Maybe people had seen this and felt he was good coach but in a far different way to Ivic and Pearson. I would say Gracia has been the most successful coach in recent times and he was more an arm round the shoulders kind of coach rather that the taskmaster kind that Ivic and Pearson were. They have been lucky but they may also have had good reports about Munoz. Every coach is a punt, even the best ones.
Troy getting injured has without question helped but sometimes you need something like that to force your hand a little and in fairness Munoz has forced it the right way currently. The team spirit is something we haven't seen probably since we last got promoted and it's great to see. Even the set pieces look to have been worked on
In regards to the players brought in, as usual some work and some don't and they have receive a lot of stick when we signed Gosling, Sanchez and The Bloke from Chile but they now look like excellent signings
As I've said previously, they made a lot of mistakes after the cup final but I think we have to give them a little credit back this season and it can't all be luck

 

I'm sort of perplexed by your first sentence, our performances have been largely professional and despite not scoring a lot more goals we have certainly created a lot more chances while keeping it tight at the back since Troy got injured. We have a much better squad than 18-20 other clubs in the league and a bit better or on a par with the others. Our squad is by no means perfect but I feel in comparison to other clubs we have very few cracks to paper over; the key difference is we are playing as a united squad rather than a group of individuals.

Had we been like this since September we would be ahead of Norwich now.

 

Gotcha, thanks. As I said, I think the last 9 years, which you admit have been successful, and likely not down to luck, mean that, imo, Gino has earned the benefit of the doubt for his decisions. For me, this means I'm happy to give credit for the appointment of Xisco.

 

I think we’re putting the cart before the horse anyway. Gino will have either significantly redeemed his reputation if we get promoted, or further compounded bad decisions last season if we don’t. We’re doing well in the here and now but if we don’t get promoted then the buck will stop with Gino for that.

 

Unfortunately many people set out their stall strongly against Xisco when he first came in, and now they're stubbornly entrenched in their opinions of him. The great thing about football is that if you insist someone is crap long enough, eventually you'll be correct.

While I'd never heard of him, I don't work in football. Given that it seems highly unlikely that the Pozzos reached out to some no-mark in a random league to offer him the job, the most likely explanation to me is that someone tipped them off about an up and coming head coach showing real promise, and they followed up on it. Xisco wasn't in the top job for long before coming to us but he has a coaching record going back years. That's easily enough time for someone the Pozzos trust to peg Xisco as a good head coach candidate and pass the word along.

I actually was impressed by Xisco's initial approach to job due to something people ridiculed him for: the interview when he stated he asked those at the club what formation to play for the first game. This is, for me, the hallmark of a good manager (whether in football or otherwise).

Instead of coming in and immediately changing everything when you don't understand current state, you engage those already there who are more familiar with what's already in place and then, once you're properly acquainted with things, you start to effect the required targeted changes. All of the worst managers I've ever worked with were the ones who immediately starting effecting mass changes without understanding the status quo.

There has been a lot of vitriol thrown around this year, and most of it is very contradictory: Gino is an awful owner who doesn't know what he's doing. The squad is rotten to the core with League 1 defenders. Deeney picks the squad. Xisco is a yes man who has no idea what he's doing. Sarr was an awful buy. Sierralta was a terrible signing, Gosling was a terrible signing, Sanchez was a terrible signing, we didn't spend money.

And yet despite this we're sitting in 2nd place as we come up on the tail end of the season, despite having had a pretty poor start under Ivic.

It's one heck of an achievement to be in with a chance of automatic promotion with a clueless berk of an owner who picks head coaches at random, a rotten and untalented squad, useless signings, and a yes-man gurning clown of a head coach. It's approaching witchcraft, in fact.

 

He only retired from playing football in 2016. He worked as an assistant for a bit at gimnastic and then went to Dynamo in 2019.

He hasn’t been coaching for years, he doesn’t even have all his coaching badges.

 

I paradoxically was more confident that they had picked someone so young and inexperienced. If you choose someone who opens you up to so much criticism if you get it wrong, then you generally require much more confidence in their abilities (compared with your standard pick). That's how I saw it, anyway.

 

He retired and immediately became Moreno's assistant in 2016. He was interim manager of a small local club in 2017 (and presumably on the staff prior to the position becoming vacant). He was on the coaching staff at Tbilisi in 2019, when they won the league, and returned as head coach in 2020, where they also won the league. That's one calendar year since he retired where we have no known coaching activity; however, UEFA badges require a certain amount of hands on experience, so it's likely he was working in a coaching role somewhere, even if it isn't reported in the media.

That's some kind of coaching role in 4 out of 5 years since retiring as a player.

He has the A license, which is more than ample for our level and requires a pretty extensive level of study and application. He's only missing the Pro license (which is only required once you want to manage in the top leagues), and he has more than enough time and experience to get that before it would become a problem in a theoretical season in the Prem. It's a non-issue.

 

I’m just curious about the sort of waves he could’ve been creating, as a coach, to be a serious contender on the Pozzos radar?

A lot of fantastic coaches make awful managers anyway, such as Craig Shakespeare. Even a great rep as a coach means very little, especially in the context of Munoz’s limited experience at very very limited teams.

Ivic had a phenomenal managerial record over 3 seasons, 4 if you count the Paok youth team, at a better level than Munoz, yet he still didn’t work out.

Munoz was cheap (as we’ve got no money) available (as we’d never go after an in work coach) and probably happy to take instruction from above, play the players he was asked to, and be more than happy to step aside at the end of the season.

It was a gamble and it seems to have paid off, but we don’t need to pretend it’s anything other than what it is. We don’t need to create a narrative that he was some ultra talented up and coming coach making waves across the continent.

Sometimes things just are what they are.

 

Presumably it was a GT or Boothroyd type situation: someone with credibility (from the Pozzo perspective) recommended him.

The fact that we don't know why the decision was made doesn't mean there were not good reasons for it.

Things are always what they are.

The reality of the situation is none of us know why the Pozzos decided to hire Munoz because we were not privy to the cause of the initial interest, the interview/interviews, and internal discussion prior to the decision to hire. Making guesses is fine, but presenting them as fact is something else entirely.

I, for one, find the idea that they just randomly plucked someone from a Georgian league just because he was a cheap option a complete non-starter. You hardly have to go to the relatively obscure Georgian league to find a cheap option.

 

This shouldn't need to be stated. But sadly, it does.

 

I think the assumption was that he would be coming in as assistant when the story was first reported in Georgia, but Ivic's fate was obviously long decided by then.

I think he knew before he was sacked, hence his "screw you" squad lineup at the end.

 

I’m not sure that’s what anyone is saying, that wouldn’t make any sense. The point I’m trying to make is that the basis for appointing him, whatever that was, would’ve been extremely limited, it couldn’t have been anything else because there just simply wouldn’t have been enough credible evidence.

They obviously had their reasons, but unless a manager has a demonstrable track record of success at a similar level then then it’s a huge gamble and in a lot of scenarios won’t work out, Ivic being a good example.

If I pick a 100/1 shot in the next race at Cheltenham and it comes in, it’s not skill on my part, it’s luck.

 

Yes. On the other hand, if you pick said horse because someone you trusted said "this horse is the real deal and is going places, definitely worth a shot at that price" and you decided (after you doing your own research) to back said horse, it's another matter entirely. The two approaches might boast the same underlying action but involve a radically different level of risk.

Spotting up and comers is a skill. The Pozzos spied Joka, brought him in, and he got us promoted. He repeated the feat with Fulham, so he was obviously not just lucky. The Championship is hard to get out of. So to return to your horse analogy, if you picked said 100/1 shot one time, maybe you got lucky. If you're continually plucking long odds horses and they're competing strongly on a regular basis, you're probably very good at judging horses.

As near as we can tell, I think, the goals for the Ivic replacement were a) get someone in who could get us promoted and b) get an attacking coach in to play more attractive football and get the most out of Sarr, Pedro and friends.

Now they brought in Xisco to get us up and to get us playing better football, and he has pulled us up into 2nd place, got us playing well, brought out the best in our attacking players, restored squad morale (Femenia has already directly credited Xisco's training methods for this in the Wobby) and made us genuinely exciting to watch to the point where I legitimately feel we can beat anyone in this league.

Saying that's wholly down to luck on Gino/Xisco/both's part just feels extremely churlish to me, especially on the back of what has been our second most successful spell in the club's history.