The Fate of Rome does give an interesting new slant on that period, especially if you read it alongside Peter Heather's "Rome Resurgent" which attempts to firmly embed Justinian's actions within the prevalent socio-political-religious context.
Read Peter Heather's "Rome Resurgent" on Justinian & what drove his policy. Heather is also very good on the fall of the Western Empire ("The Fall of the Roman Empire: a new history") & also the wider inter-relationship between established "Empires" & the peoples of the "wanderings" ("Empires & Barbarians").
Anyone got the foggiest idea what he’s up to with this formation? 4 games on the bounce now and it looks unplayable. None of the players seem to get it, any passing under pressure is woeful, lots of square pegs in round holes and we’re barely challenging opposition goalkeepers. I give zero ****s about being out of the cup but I thought he might use tonight to try a different system. But no.
The players clearly don't have the technical ability for his style of play. That and probably severe motivational issues to work hard and get the system. A great progressive coach and we are shipping out most of players that would work with it the best and not signing anyone that can work with it at all.
His style of play isn’t exactly super progressive wizardry though. He’s just setting up a bog standard 5-3-2 and I see loads of long aimless balls being hoofed forward. It seems easily counter-acted by an opposition press at the moment too. Any time teams get amongst us in the middle we fall apart completely and have no out ball. A lot more of the blame for off key performances lies with the players but I don’t think Ivic should be given the free pass some are gifting him so far either.
He did switch it to his preferred formation second half. But what's he supposed to do with that match day squad? Or in fact any of our match day squads so far? All of our centre backs are crap on the ball, and our midfield is so, so weak. So we can't progress the ball through the lines along the floor. Presumably that's why Garner was brought in but after starting brightly he took one kick and then fell apart. The only spark of creativity in the whole squad is Pedro. I had some reservations about Quina before the season but I don't think anyone could've predicted quite how poor he'd start. The biggest positive is the two clean sheets. Apart from woeful marking at set pieces, we've not given many chances away in the league games. I suspect he's being as pragmatic as possible with the players available.
He'll have known when he was appointed that he'll earn a bit of money, get a settlement and then move on ... sooner he goes and we get back Quique the better we'll be ... and we can all sing the Quique song on-line ...
"He's important - every player who can play is important for us in this moment because we know that we don't have a lot of players who can play and who is available to play 90 minutes." Ivic on Perica's red card. Other than at 'crisis clubs' lower down the league, have you ever heard such a comment? We don't have a lot of players who can play. I feel for the bloke, I really do.
I don't think anyone expected Quina to have such a poor start to the season. I guess he was one of the players Ivic was planning on building around.
I wasn't exactly expecting him to be great. To me he needs to mature a bit, I wasn't as forgiving as some were Re the party shenanigans, but he tries to do too much and doesn't do the basics well. I have no idea why he wasn't loaned out last year.
Don't really see what the party has to do with his footballing ability - Foden and Greenwood both made similarly stupid mistakes and would probably beat the side we put out tonight on their own. Fulham were in for him in January and we didn't loan him out and instead let him rot not even in the match day squad. Yet more outstanding Pozzo decision making.
Two completely different situations. Foden and Greenwood broke the rules to - Ok fine. Quina did it, and made himself unavailable for the game, and risked making team mates unavailable in the middle of a relegation battle. Nothing says "**** this" more than not caring like that. This shows his lack of professionalism and commitment. The mental side is half of the equation in football, the technical side is the other.
Ivic is his own man. He may walk away real soon. We are in a real mess. We have players that don't want to play. Players who are being kept away from being picked as the club wish to sell them. The club are in an awful financial state. To keep players out of the side is a stark warning of how perilously close we are to administration. If any club taps up Ivic or he feels let down by Gino, he will walk away. He does not deserve to be left with such a poor set of players. I said we may finish mid to lower table. I feel now it may be lower to relegation to League One.
Foden and Greenwood made themselves unavailable for an international fixture of some importance which they were expected to be involved in. Quina's was a stupid mistake but Pearson didn't have any time for Quina and he wasn't even making the bench so it had no impact on our squad the next game. He also was the only one of the three to give what I felt was a genuine apology.
Yeah, Quina has been pretty awful. Some players just don’t look at the races at all. To answer the “what’s he supposed to do?” question, I’d probably say do his job. Which means playing to the strengths of the squad he’s been given. For example, we all know none of the centre backs on the books can pass accurately enough to the level needed. We also all surely know even if we somehow stumble to sign one replacement, we’re not in a million years going to give him three. He must know that too. So he needs to abandon that bit of his plan then. No point trying to turn Craig Cathcart into a complete baller - no coach could do that. He needs to adapt quickly and I’m slightly concerned already that he’s not going to be flexible enough. More than happy to give him time to make it click but early signs aren’t very promising.
Has he actually apologised? I've seen and heard nothing - All I saw was Gray trying to justify it by saying it wasn't a late night party. Chalobah I believe didn't attend but had to isolate due to Quina being his room mate or something.
I honestly don't see how anyone can point the finger at Ivic right now. Everyone knows if he would be allowed to pick half the player we have on our books, we'd be probably be top with a very healthy GD already. We've not conceded a league goal yet, so we're already solid enough. We don't need a great coach, just a competent one who has the full use of the squad Watford currently possess.
Quina did apologise and it was widely reported that Chalobah had actually gone to the party and the story of him isolating because Quina went was false. Chalobah did not apologize as far as I'm aware.
Yes he did - see https://www.instagram.com/p/CCBjFLDglw_Y3Bx3jSWwX6RngBsMllJUz8Nhto0/?hl=en Yeah - Gray somewhat missed the point. Not sure that last bit is true.
Has he actually been asked outright if he can pick the players or not? Or rather, whether the decision to exclude some of them is his choice or not? Seems to me a man of integrity and guts - which some of you are sure he is by talking up the prospect of him resigning on principle imminently - would answer honestly. Especially as Duxbury has already pretty much publicly said it’s Ivic’s decision. You’d think he’d want to correct the record if it wasn’t true, no?
Ah I'm not on Instagram so can't see it. If Chalobah did go then he's down in my estimation to. That whole scenario summed up the squad last season - giving zero *****.
Correcting that would get him sacked. Look what happened when Marco Silva called out the Pozzos for shipping out Amrabat against his wishes.
Maybe. So Ivic is a company man then? Prepared to do whatever the boss says, even if it means he takes the blame? Doesn’t sound like someone who’s about to resign in disgust to me. That’s really all I’m digging at here. He can’t be both in my view.
Difference between telling them what he thinks privately and publically calling them out. I dont think he is going to resign in disgust - I am sure he knew full well the ******* circus he was signing up for.
Yeah this must be quite a shock. "Right, who do I have as centre backs? A couple of ageing British ones? Ok, unlikely to be able to pass that well but at least they should be dominant, no-nonsense defenders. No? Ok, what about the Belgian who used to be a striker, he will be my main passer from defence. What do you mean he's a total liability with the ball at his feet? Fine, what about the young British guy, he must be able to complete a pass, they all learn that these days? He just shanks it into touch? Ok fine, it'll have to be the Chilean. He'll be a rugged South American centre back and good on the ball. What? He can't complete a pass either? Where do you find these players?"
I thought this to - But sounds like Garner came here due to our "Top Players" - so if we plan to lose them all he'll be very disappointed shortly to . I reckon some are staying, but I don't know why we haven't seen any of them yet.
He's alluded to it, and that's as close as you'll ever get, unless he actually decides he has made a mistake and may fully spill the beans then. He's clearly been briefed over the players who the club are trying to move on, and part of that discussion would have been not to risk players who are likely to be sold. If you think that was not part of the conversation, that's up to you, but I think it's highly likely, or else at least some of those players would have been used. It's hurting the club by not picking these players. I know Duxbury made it clear it's Ivic's choice, but that's the way he moves. A scapegoat tucked away in case he needs it later on. I'm sure it's Ivic's decision in the final analysis, but it's easy to set the parameters so the coach feels obliged to do what his bosses are asking him to do. I think his most recent interview, he said, if a player is not available he's not even in my thinking. I thought that was telling, but he also said he wants players in yesterday......meaning he is getting anxious he hasn't got the team he is allowed to use as yet. He's got two decent enough results in his first two games, so the heat is off, but it will grow rapidly if we go weak on Saturday and lose. But the angst will not be directed towards him. I think fans would be pretty fed up with the owner and this is where the anger will be directed towards, regardless of Duxbury's swerving.
Even worse was that this took place 2 days before a game and one night after one! Not exactly a professional way to behave.. I was actually a bit embarrassed by the way people in the club kept coming out and saying we don't want to play etc when everyone else did or at least making an effort to. In the end the only players that actually broke any lock down rules during the re-start were ours! I presume those 3 weren't bothered about player welfare and safety? We clearly didn't want to even try to play and it showed. I am not sure why after all this time we cannot play a Welbeck or Capoue when we have 2 other options out injured in Hughes and Gray. We've kept 2 clean sheets but with some luck...the defence will get caught out one day.
I think he’s been told a very small number can’t be picked at all - eg. Welbeck with his supposed massive appearance bonus. Some others like Sarr were allowed to take leave and I presume that wasn’t Ivic’s choice. And I suspect he’s also been told, as you say, a certain number of players could be here today, gone tomorrow and so he’d have to work out how to deal with that. Plus that replacements won’t come until they’re off the books. I’m sure he knew that when he signed on for the job and it didn’t come as a surprise to him. Neither of those things is particularly uncommon in football, especially after relegation from the PL. I reckon he hoped the wantaway players would move on early doors, some replacements would be signed and everything would be sorted by now. So he decided to exclude some of them (eg. Capoue) from the main squad, probably in an effort to motivate those left and create a stronger unit to introduce new faces into. We’ve seen it reflected in comments from Ngakia. It sounds like a solid enough plan if they’re definitely going, as I can’t imagine the gain from playing them for 2 or 3 games would be that big. And it shows faith in those more committed to the cause. Now though it’s looking like the turds won’t flush and he’s got to decide whether to get his rubber gloves on and fish them out of the bowl. Or leave them there to stew while he keeps going at the handle. I think if he’s getting anxious it’s because reintegrating those players is now going to be significantly harder with them having been left out of the main group, rather than if he’d kept them involved from day one. We’ve been a bit unlucky already with injuries too - Masina and Gray were undoubtedly part of his plans and players he expected to be able to count on in these first few weeks. That’s only increased the urgency as the group he has left looks criminally weak in some areas.
'What about that bloke from Udinese, the Nigeria captain? Yeah, yeah, the one who's actually good! Wait, what do you mean Udinese are keeping him? I thought he was ours!'
