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***Official*** English Football Season 2019-20

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There were significant calls for Micky Mellon's head just over two years ago and now we are two leagues higher :cool:

Bit different though.
Haha, I did actually think of him. Weren't you underperforming back then because you had an apocalyptic injury crisis though?
 

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TBH I thought Emery was ****e even when Arsenal's results were OK. Always felt like tactics and team selection were their weak points and individual quality and residual Wenger-era combination play were their strengths. The closer you looked, the worse Emery came across.
 

Cabinet96

Global Moderator
Shows you how rare it is for a badly underperforming manager to turn it around though, no? Literally the only example I've ever heard is from 30 years ago.
Yeah it's classic survivorship bias. Even a guy like Klopp, who is sometimes sighted as an example of long term improvement rather than short term, improved Liverpool's underlying numbers significantly straight away. Emery made Arsenal's worse with zero signs he could turn it around.
 

BoyBrumby

Englishman
Does raise a wry smile, actually.

All those ungrateful ****s who were calling for Wenger's head maybe want to have a good, long look in their shaving mirrors tomorrow.

Don't get me wrong, I think the great man's tenure had run its course, but all those "We've got our Arsenal back" chants from last season ring a wee bit hollow now.
 

GIMH

Norwood's on Fire
Haha, I did actually think of him. Weren't you underperforming back then because you had an apocalyptic injury crisis though?
The injury crisis cost us promotion the season before. Still had key players out long term when the following season started but also made some very poor signings.

Fortunately the conference has no transfer window so after losing at home to Wrexham, Mellon and Palios had a showdown, purse strings were loosened.

From there things were fine, though because of the catastrophic start it meant the defeats we suffered in October & November still had the idiots calling for his head, ignoring the progress.

His job probably was in doubt after that Wrexham game, but I think from there once Norwood scored a last minute winner at Bromley, it was always safe,
 

Furball

Evil Scotsman
TBH I thought Emery was ****e even when Arsenal's results were OK. Always felt like tactics and team selection were their weak points and individual quality and residual Wenger-era combination play were their strengths. The closer you looked, the worse Emery came across.
IIRC there was something in the underlying numbers, even last season when Arsenal went on their big undefeated run, which indicated that Arsenal weren't as good as their results suggested.

The amount of shots Arsenal are conceding this season shows that something is drastically wrong with the way Emery is setting his team up.
 

sledger

Spanish_Vicente
Oh yeah. He still would have been fired.
Yeah but so what? This doesn't really mean anything. Criticising the sacking of a clearly sub-optimal manager on the basis that they may have turned it around is like criticising someone who's had an abortion, after discovering their unborn had some severe abnormalities, on the basis that they may have just aborted the next Stephen Hawking.

The narrative/presumption that managers should always be "given a chance to turn things around" is also very dubious imo. In how many other professions does this really happen? Imagine a surgeon really badly botched some surgery on you, or a builder through negligence really damaged your house when renovating it. Would you give such a person the chance to turn it around? Like hell you would. You'd get on the phone to someone else ASAP. This isn't to say that it's never right to give someone the chance to turn it around, of course. But the presumption that we must always start from assuming that we must do this is just no good.
 
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Furball

Evil Scotsman
If Emery had overseen a massive clear out of an ageing squad, was playing good football and just had a poor run of results because Arsenal were largely unlucky then it would be different. He's alienated key players in the squad and presided over some pretty awful football. He had to go.
 

harsh.ag

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Yeah but so what? This doesn't really mean anything. Criticising the sacking of a clearly sub-optimal manager on the basis that they may have turned it around is like criticising someone who's had an abortion, after discovering their unborn had some severe abnormalities, on the basis that they may have just aborted the next Stephen Hawking.

The narrative/presumption that managers should always be "given a chance to turn things around" is also very dubious imo. In how many other professions does this really happen? Imagine a surgeon really badly botched some surgery on you, or a builder through negligence really damaged your house when renovating it. Would you give such a person the chance to turn it around? Like hell you would. You'd get on the phone to someone else ASAP. This isn't to say that it's never right to give someone the chance to turn it around, of course. But the presumption that we must always start from assuming that we must do this is just no good.
Applies more to Poch than Emery.
.
 

sledger

Spanish_Vicente
Haha, not like you to lynch people. You're more of a fan of just killing people randomly, if your performance as the Undertaker is to be believed.
 

Cabinet96

Global Moderator
Yes Sledger is spot on. Emery has given no particular reason to believe he is capable of turning things around. Have been thinking about it a lot in the last month or two and in his 51 Premier League games I reckon he's had about 8 that were encouraging. Of which I'd include a 1-1 against Liverpool, a 1-1 at Wembley against Spurs and a couple of thrashing of Fulham. So not exactly setting a high bar. His league record with Valencia and Sevilla is solid enough, but not particularly spectacular. Is a fourth place with Sevilla five years ago enough reason to believe Emery will soon start to suddenly get lots more out of a completely different squad, in a different country, when he has so far catastrophically failed to do so? I find the whole complaining that this is a modern football phenomenon really tiresome as well. As mentioned in basically no other profession would you be allowed to get paid millions, do a bad job, and just be given a chance to get better on nothing other than a hope. It's actually football that's always been the oddity in that sense, and it's now become more realistic.

Edit: I mean I really can't stress enough that in his time at Arsenal Emery hasn't excelled in basically any way. Team is worse defensively and in attack. His man management of individuals has been bad. His team selections suck. No individual player is playing better now than in their first few games under him and loads are playing worse. I can see why non-Arsenal fans might think it's a little bit harsh because at face value results weren't terrible last season, but the people who really engage in Arsenal every week are absolutely unanimous in this. I think purely in terms of performance relative to the strength of a squad, Emery has been the worst PL manager in the last season and a half. Maybe one of the Fulham managers last season would be a rival contender, I thought their squad was miles better than relegation quality, but that's about it.
 
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GIMH

Norwood's on Fire
You're both wrong, sacking people in most companies is incredibly hard even when they're absolutely useless
 

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