Which previous Pozzo managers do we think might have been sacked too soon? I ask this question for the perspective of where the club currently is. Would keeping any of the previous lot have left us in a stronger position right now? Thoughts...
Pearson would have been fine in the Championship and could have saved us having to pay off 2 managers. Who knows in the Premier league - we were doing fine with him before COVID struck .
Well, to be quite honest, they're all on a hiding to nothing while the 'plan' from the owners is to buy random players (that don't even fit the manager's style of play!) and hope that one or two of them will turn out half decent, there needs to be far more joined up thinking for any manager to actually have a chance of building something. The managers I've felt the most for were Walter (retrospectively, at the time it was grim, but he did have horrendous injury issues), but he understandably got the hump and his position became untenable, and the two smiley Spaniards, who did something great for us the season before, probably should have been canned in the summer, but didn't deserve to be get exposed in the manner in they did the next season, but no manager we've ever had here in the Pozzo era would ever have built something!
Ivic might have been decent for us in the Prem, he's clearly a decent manager, who had the Deeney problem, and half a squad for his half of the season, maybe it would have been slightly easier for him in the Prem without Deeney, but again, as long as the Pozzos are there, they'd be interfering...
Yes Gracia was a strange one 3 games into that season the we just appoint someone who had been and gone before !
Silva should be on the list. The owners should have given him what he wanted in the transfer market and increased his pay when Everton started rattling. Would love to have seen where we would have ended up with him. We were sensational at times.
Under the current system, in the way the club operates as a whole, I'm not sure there would have been particularly different outcomes with any of them - they all left because it had become the only recourse at the time, essentially - I think Pearson still gets viewed with somewhat rose-tinted glasses, in that after a brilliant start he largely ran out of ideas and repeatedly committed the same Watford-brand mistakes as all the others - he didn't show that he could react tactically or change the flow of a game at all either. It's possible that he might have done better/well in the Championship, but it's not like he's pulling up any trees at Bristol so we can't necessarily know - he may have been inspirational and used his experience to get us up, or he might have fallen victim to the Ivic/Munoz-pre-Coventry curses and been seen as too disciplinarian, or sunk us under the weight of forcing Deeney on to the pitch every single game regardless of suitability. But yeah, regardless, that possibility in itself speak to why I think the outcome would be broadly the same. We'd still be likely to have an imbalanced squad made up of players of varyingly questionable attitudes and motivations, with odd holes (mostly in defence, of course) - we might still have Troy lording it about demanding his place on the teamsheet, and we'd still have some variation of Gino and whoever he's installed not appearing to think in a joined-up manner or even play to their supposed strengths in recruitment and methodology. Gino would also presumably have continued to make inexplicable decisions that seem from the outside to run counter to his goal of running a 'successful' Premier League football club.
To be quite honest, I think any old manager would have got results with Sarr and Deulofeu actually starting together regularly, couldn't actually point out any ingenious tactical manoeuvres he employed!
His career since leaving us suggests otherwise. His success with us was due to an unbelievable run of our players scoring world class individual goals. When they dried up (towards the end of the cup final season) we didn't win a single game and barely scored another goal.
I voted Dyche but not because of how he has managed to keep Burnley in the Premiership for a sustained amount of time on a shoe string. What I did like about Dyche when he was in charge was his no nonsense policy to the players. We had a decent season under him before the Pozzo's took us over and for a club of our size and what we had then as a team - it was a decent season overall. As exciting as it was to see Zola in the dugout - and witnessing some exceptional football, I do wonder how we would of done had Gino given Dyche funds and let him outlay his plans for us. Being an ex-player, he clearly had a love for the club (not sure if he still does) and wanted to bring us a certain level of success as well as surviving in the Championship. He may of fallen out of love with the Pozzos in the end and got handed is P45 regardless, but it would of been interesting who he could of brought in, and even if he was in charge right now, I can almost assure you we would have a much more capable back line than we do at the moment. I've never felt he was bitter when he left us, but I know was never in the new takeover's plans. What we have now is a shackle squad held together with aging journey men and an owner who never invests where the money needs to go. I do hope, that Claudio can work a small miracle and turn us around eventually, but you fear he will never be given the time.
100% agreed. His short spell will be remembered as the peak of the pozzo era. Everton seriously fhucked us with their antics. It is infuriating to think what might have been. It's up there with van diks disgusting foul on deulofeu as turning points in the clubs history.
Fair point, I maybe should've expanded a bit more in my initial post. For me, Gracia was the one HC we had who seemed to have a plan and got the best out of the players at his disposal, even if they weren't necessarily the players he would've signed if he'd had autonomy. I think after the cup final would've been the right time to move him on.
Dyche & Joker should have both been given a chance. Without knowing what happened in the background, Pearson went too soon. ADD should never have been reappointed.
My thoughts exactly, Joker or Dyche! However as I could only choose one of them I went for Dyche! P.S. I still think the Dyche Zola Dream Team would have brought us great success
Dyche could of been very interesting to see what he’d of achieved as Skyla says he had a good season before Pozzo on a shoestring. It would of been nice to see a different approach this time bringing Ranieri in to mentor Xisco. Imagine bringing those ex coaches back and having them for certain positions like Zola attacking coach dyche defence, Walter tactical and so on. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
They appointed him off the back of what he nearly did with Hull over the course of half a season, I doubt he was on their radar before that. So their plan with him stretched as far as him being available and out of work at the time, and what he achieved over the previous few months. I don’t think there was any plan there as such, circumstances just aligned. I think the last time they had a plan ended with Wally.
Don’t let @hornetboy1 see you say that but yes we were safe for a long time before we lost 6 in a row at the end of the season .
Don't forget two goal keepers on the bench vs Citee last game. Oh, and that rather amusing Walter Out board made by that woman that sort of became a meme.
With the exception of Mazarri and Ivic and not including Silva, I reckon they were all chopped way too early. But the sackings that I still consider absolutely bonkers are QSF (model 1), Jokanovic and - most unfairly and stupidly of all - Javi Gracia. (I know QSF and Jokanovic weren't strictly speaking 'sacked' but you know what I mean.)
