Kobbie Mainoo, a £100m midfielder if he were owned by Brighton and Hove Albion or Nottingham Forest, was mocked with HE OFFERS NOTHING.
His crime? Being from Manchester United’s academy. Carringtonsexual.
Arne Slot’s tenure unraveled just as Erik Ten Hag’s did.
The parallels between the two men are clear - and though one should seek to avoid the trap of banal generalization, in this case the similarities are apparent & logical.
Both Slot and ETH moved to the PL from the Eresivisie. Both enjoyed great success in their domestic league, hailed for results and playing style, restoring stability and titles to their respective club.
In the PL, during their 1st seasons, ETH and Slot adapted their approach and decided to be cautious & pragmatic.
Instead of immediately remaking their teams to move towards their true vision, they largely focused on profiling & platforming their best players.
This conservative approach brought them success, especially so for Slot.
Interestingly, both used forward outlets with reduced OOP duties & higher starting positions during transitions - Rashford as the left forward, Salah as the right forward.
This mix of excellent profiling, simple but effective in-possession solutions, player quality and tiny tricks to minimize OOP issues proved to be quite potent.
Looking back, it was always going to be short-lived, masking how problematic the underlying ideas would turn out to be.
Even during their best periods, there were defensive issues at United & Liverpool that materially increased as Slot and ETH moved to implement their actual models in their 2nd seasons.
And once they got closer to how they actually wanted to play, things started falling apart, especially so for ETH. The defensive issues in particular became overwhelming.
The difference is that ETH was given another season due to his surprise FA win, whereas Liverpool decided to act right away.
It would be too trivial to write them off as two arrogant Dutch managers who failed to adapt to the PL. They are both good coaches who built serious careers prior to coming to England.
And therein, I think, lies the issue: what made them so good in the Eredivisie also made them very vulnerable in the PL.
You can get away with certain OOP gaps in a league like that. The quality gap is too large. But the more you get away with it, the more you become reluctant to accept they are even there.
My problem with you is that you're desperate for people who hate you to understand you. You think you can convince them to love you and treat you fairly. You're too old to be this naive. Nothing you do will ever be good enough for them. Learn to be indifferent to your haters.
They did it to Pogba
Rashford
DDG
Martial
Bruno.
They pile on you and decimate you until you break, then they turn around and Scream "oi he stopped trying and playing for this club"
This Club is Sick and needs help.
💭 When Amorim took charge and was losing games for fun, excuses were made that that wasn’t his team and that he needed a transfer window as well as preseason to turn things around. At the time some of us said it’s best he adapts to the squad that he had to gain results to buy him that time and numerous transfer windows in the future. Those making excuses for Amorim strongly disagreed.
Funny enough those people aren’t making the same excuses for Carrick despite him winning games in order for us to qualify for UCL football. They aren’t saying “it’s not Carrick’s team or he needs or preseason or he needs a transfer window”. Instead they are questioning his style of play. All Carrick has cleverly done is adapted to the squad that people said wasn’t good enough to qualify for UCL and has achieved it. People need to really take a second look at themselves. Have some shame. Give the man credit where credit is due. Stop shifting goal posts. It’s hypocritical.
It’s been 3 years since Man Utd were in the champions league. We are 6 points from qualifying and you man are worried about OOP, tactics and the way things look.
We’re in the business end of the season, get your 3 points, worry about style next season.