Giaretta - New Contract

Seems generous to credit Manga for Kone, seeing as we signed him on 5th December, and Manga joined on 22nd December.

 

Agree. Just replying to another poster who suggested it.

 

If he was sold a promotion dream and Manga fell for it then he’s a fool - last seasons squad was never going up, if he was as sharp and clever as made out then he’d have made his own judgement and come to that conclusion. At the very least you’d expect him to have a plan B in case promotion didn’t come off.

Our signings in recent years have been more misses than hits but Manga was no better. I don’t know if Kone was his signing or not but I’m sure Ferreira and Araujo were and neither of those looked anywhere near suitable for the Championship.

Manga seems to get a free pass from most mainly because of the dislike of Giarellta, but looking at Manga in isolation he looks like he’s very expensive when you consider all the people he brought with him, and showed no sign of being worth the money.

 

Easy to say with hindsight but we were the bookies favourites at the start of last season. The bookies aren't fools as otherwise they wouldn't make money. Last season was especially disappointing because we should have had a good chance of going up but totally underperformed.

 

Apart from the bookies that sponsor us. they're fools.

 

As mentioned for me Manga gets a free pass because there isn’t enough signings to judge him on (as well as uncertainty over level of interference from proven bulletproof failures).

 

We absolutely were one of the favourites at the start of the season after we “managed to hold onto Pedro and Sarr” but by the time Managa joined it was clear the make up and attitude of the squad was poor and we were heading for a 25% chance of promotion at best if we qualified for the POs.
It was either a terrible decision to appoint him or a terrible decision to dispense with his services. Not sure which.

 

It looked a rancid squad from the get go that was never going up, and that was proven long before Manga rocked up in January.

If Manga came in under the impression we were going up and he would have Premier League money to play with then the bloke is on another planet.

 

I'm not sure that's entirely true. We had Sarr, Pedro, Davies, Louza, Asprilla, Kamara, Bayo, Dennis, Sema, Choudhery plus a fair few players that had won promotion from The Championship 18 months previous. That is far from rancid which makes the season we had even more difficult to take. That lot should have been top 6 comfortably

 

Their attitude (did they want to be here, and many knew they'd be off in the summer) and ever changing managers were the main issues.
We didn't have Dennis for long...

 

But as of day 1 of the season that is a very good squad. Everything that followed was a car crash

 

Yes I'd agreed it was very good on paper but my post above was why it became a car crash.

 

Sarr didn't want to be here.
Davies is an awful player who generated a load of unwarranted hype.
Louza plays when he fancies it.
Asprilla is a pup.
Dennis was always unlikely to stay.
Choudhury is average at best.

That leaves you with Sema who is a top Championship player and Pedro who is different gravy but still one man.

We've all seen enough promotions from the Championship to know you need a balance of creativity, grunt work, defensive robustness and a proper united squad. We didn't tick those boxes and never looked likely to.

Back to the main point - whether you fancied us for promotion pre-season or not, by the time Manga arrived in January it was pretty obvious we weren't going up. We stayed top 6 and top 10 for longer than expected but even if we did fluke our way in the play offs the squad had already shown it lacked quality, togetherness and a mental toughness to win promotion.

 

I really don't think it was. Some good individuals but never looked likely to be a coherent team and nowhere near enough character in it for when the chips were inevitably down.

The balance of characters and skill sets was all over the place and a fair few people called that early doors.

 

I completely disagree. One or two may have said we will struggle but they always say that so will be right at some point. There was nothing to say that team at the start of the season would not be coherent, as it turned out it was a complete mess but hindsight is a wonderful thing. Plenty of character in players like Pedro, WTE, Sierralta, Cleverly and Choudhery. There were plenty of goals in the side with Pedro, Davies, Sarr and Bayo. We had players with Championship and Premier League experience and as I said plenty who had got us out of the division before. That squad should have finished top 6 minimum
Why do you not think it was coherent? I've left Dennis out as I guess he would inevitably leave
What happened last season was probably the most disappointing season I can ever remember aside from maybe Bassets season because it should have been so much better in my opinion

 

Again, hindsight is a wonderful thing
I'm sure Sarr could have moved on but for some reason didn't fancy going to Villa. He was awful for the most part last season but he was far worse than could have been predicted
Louza was highly rated Moroccan international that should run the game in The Championship
Davies had just had an excellent season with Forest who's fans raved about him
Asprilla was a pup but has undoubted ability
I'll give you Dennis but he did start the season with us
Choudhery was ideal for breaking up play but the others around him let him down
Add Pedro, Sema, Bayo (had just come off a very decent season), Kamara (POTS 3 months earlier) and a back line that conceded very few goals 15 months earlier.
It's easy to sit here after the event but that squad on paper looks very good. A number of those players let us down and we lost Pedro and Louza for long periods due to injury. In fact we pretty much lot everybody to injury at one point which certainly did not help.
I'm sure you're happier anyway as you wanted to be back in The Championship with homegrown players and that's what we've got now

 

The forum brainbox mused it was the best squad in championship history no less

 

And you said we'd be promoted comfortably alongside Norwich, so I wouldn't get too cocky

 

On paper our squad was very very strong for the division, but I agree with SLB there was a lack of balance. Added to that how ill-suited the squad was to Edwards' system, the lack of discipline in the squad, and a horrendous injury record, it's not hard to see why it went wrong.

The fact we were just a couple wins off the play offs with 3 mostly-poorly performing managers, a squad of pricks who didn't want to be here, chaos at board level, and a grand total of about 5 good performances over the course of the season, shows just how strong the squad was, from a purely ability perspective.

 

Because our head coach wanted to play 3-5-2 but our most expensive player didn't fit in that formation, we didn't give him a right wing back and we had dreadful combinations in central midfield whichever way you sliced it (not terrible players, just no obvious trio that would would complement each other).

We also had numerous ageing and injury prone players which predictably came back to haunt us. And a dearth of players in their peak years that could turn in consistent performances whilst not getting injured or needing a rest.

Yes, there were a couple of over the top doom merchants as there always are but others just pointed out the squad looked like a classic "here's a bunch of half good players, see what you can make of that" rather than a group of players that had been brought together with any particular notion of how to making a winning squad.

It's not hindsight if you say it at the time and a fair few people did without resorting to claiming we'd get relegated. If you look back at the predictions thread, very few thought we'd go up and they were right.

 

Yes I am much happier in the championship, absolutely. I think the Premier League is a snooze fest and not fun to be in - plenty will disagree but our current level suits me fine.

But no matter what level we play at I never want to see what we had last season in terms of a squad who, in the main, were lazy, didn’t care and didn’t want to be here. Watching them each week was soul destroying.

 

I thought it was because Gerrard didn't fancy him? Would make sense, because anyone in their right mind would have walked to Villa Park from us, even if they weren't the same team they were to become under Emery

 

Whilst I get what you're saying (it's your job and livelihood, whereas I'm just an occasional reader and frequent whinger), but what use is it going back again in future if you're still not getting any answers? It's like signing Jurado, playing him every game and telling anybody who will listen that if you keep playing him the goals and assists will come.

 

Because you have to build trust, and that takes time. Trust has to be earned, it’s not a given.

It’s the same with managers, players, anyone really. The more you work with someone and show you’re not out to carve anyone up, the more they feel comfortable being more open.

I first met GT in 1996. He employed me in 1998. By the time he retired we had a very strong working bond. In the years after we grew closer as friends, and often sought advice and ideas from each other.

Obviously you don’t always have that much time, but where you can it helps to build trust in order to gain more useful information.

 

That makes sense, I'd imagine many in high profile positions have either been burnt or heard stories of people being burnt because they let their guard down to the wrong journalist, so they're cautious.

From your dealings with the current ownership, are there people you feel there's potential for a good rapport/more open dialect with in the future? No need to name names, I'm just curious if you're confident of progress so far

Sent from my Pixel 6 using Tapatalk

 

I can flip that question around - the only person who won’t talk to me is the owner. Everybody else has, and continue to do so. Sometimes that doesn’t manifest itself in lots of quotes, but helps inform me of what is/isn’t happening.

 

HMSPTL was very much alive before a ball was kicked.

 

But... that's clearly tongue in cheek for most people? 30% of people thought we'd get promoted on the predictions thread, 70% that we wouldn't. Only 15% thought we'd win the league (which has always been my interpretation of HMSPTL). It's not some niche view that a lot of fans didn't think we had a great squad last season.

 

The future is bright sir! Imagine in the future being able to get advice and bounce ideas off someone as skilled and wise as Giaretta!

 

I may not agree with everything you say but that part I'm absolutely with you

 

True, but I wonder how many of those 70% thought our squad was good, but correctly identified the attitude issues, and predicted a continuation of it?

 

It’s handy, as I’m thinking of becoming a lepidopterist in my spare time

 

You say that but a lepidopterist never changes it’s spots.

 

You need to invite him out for a pre-match curry.

 

Very good