[Albion] Fab out?

sussex_guy2k2 said:

Most of the anti-Fab stuff on here is based on watching what he does with the team.

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Maybe but there's also some bizarre stuff questioning his command of the dressing room, and the motivation of players purely because he says a few cliches and "guys " a lot based on 2 mins of footage and with no insight into what he says the rest of the time both 1:1 and with the group.
And also all manner of hearsay and speculation.

Guinness Boy said:

Bit of a strange post, but you only need to have a quick look on the Trump thread

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Not really. The lad does seem a tab obsessed with our manager and, as far as I could tell, he'd disappeared since the Fab out threads have been prevalent. Glad to hear he's active in the Trump thread but I'll have to take your word for it as I pay no mind to non-football threads as much as possible.

How does our manager compare with Postegoglou? Is he worse than Fab or do Spuds just have an inferior squad? Ditto Thomas Frank, Ruben Amorim.

sussex_guy2k2 said:

With all due respect, this is all hearsay. I get that you want to support the current manager despite the job he’s doing, but there’s no basis around anything you’ve said other than rumour.

The only parts you backed up with any fact are that FHs been given a very sizable transfer war chest and an incredible amount of talent that RDZ was never given.

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All true. But Hurzeler does not identify or choose the players. He’s head coach. RDZ pushed HARD to adapt the club’s approach. The club may have acquiesced slightly with our charismatic Italian (Igor/Fati?)but his subsequent meltdown has only hardened and refocused the recruitment strategy. Whether our German is ultimately capable of maximising the assets provided to him (especially after a 7-0 massacre) is why there are multiple head coach threads all over this board.

GoldstoneVintage said:

How does our manager compare with Postegoglou? Is he worse than Fab or do Spuds just have an inferior squad? Ditto Thomas Frank, Ruben Amorim.

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Exactly this. All managers in the PL are potentially a few losses away from the sack , or speculation about their future after a bad run. FABH being no exception. Ange has surely had a worse run that Hurzeler in the last few months. Why's that ? Perhaps he's over experienced ? ha ha.
Amorin hasn't exactly set the PL alight., Frank has struggled this season as well and Brentford are 3 points behind us. So has Glasner at points.
let alone McKenna, or 56 year old Peroira.

GoldstoneVintage said:

How does our manager compare with Postegoglou? Is he worse than Fab or do Spuds just have an inferior squad? Ditto Thomas Frank, Ruben Amorim.

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I would say all three have a VERY clear way of playing. They might not always be getting results but it’s clear what they want. Almiron has basically said the players aren’t good enough and can’t play my system but he is sticking to his guns. Frank is Frank. Ange, well, he’s stubborn at least.
I like to play a game in my head about many things. It’s called the ‘can I explain it in a sentence?’ game. You could do that about their style of play, footballing philosophy etc.
From what we’ve seen of Fab so far? Much trickier.

The Fits said:

This season I’m not massively concerned about results but I’d absolutely love us to win every game.
For me being result focussed with a new manager isn’t entirely helpful. If we were punching above our weight it would be foolish to want the manager out, even if you didn’t think he had much of a clue. You couldn’t argue with the results on the pitch.
But, when we are about par for the course, individual results are nowhere near as tangiable as performances.
Win, draw or lose our next five games, in the long run that means very little. What actually matters is has this manager shown he is actually learning? Is he showing any signs of instilling good habits in the players? Do the players look motivated and organised? Is there a recognisable shape and structure to our performances? Is there any control? Are we moving forwards, standing still or going backwards?
Because these are the things that really matter over a whole season, will realy matter next season, and the difference between finishing approx 7th vs 14th. Otherwise we just accept mid table and I think any manager could achieve that with this squad.
Not asking for miracles. Just genuine signs that the manager has the ability to push us on over the next few years.

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Precisely this. I want to see some tangible improvements in performance. If there is, I’ll be happy that he is working hard on turning this around.

Hard to believe watching the Liverpool vs Spurs game that we played them off the park in our best 45 minute performance of the season. Why haven’t we been able to to reproduce that sort of football?

Flounce said:

Hard to believe watching the Liverpool vs Spurs game that we played them off the park in our best 45 minute performance of the season. Why haven’t we been able to to reproduce that sort of football?

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Injuries, we had a proper CM then.
Monumental effort and energy put into that 55 minutes, then the players completely ran out of gas, fell off a cliff. Game management rose its head, a theme this season?

Any of the St Pauli guys still kicking about on here?

JBizzle said:

RDZ also inherited a team that was playing well, what he left was one that won just SIX of the last 24 matches, picking up only 22 points and seven defeats in the last 12 matches. Were were hideous from March onwards. I know RDZ had injuries but, if Fab isn't allowed that excuse, neither is RDZ.

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Get what you’re saying and yes we did lose some games badly towards the end. Difference being, players still ran through walls for RDZ, whereas the players seem to have downed tools on Fab.

Flounce said:

Hard to believe watching the Liverpool vs Spurs game that we played them off the park in our best 45 minute performance of the season. Why haven’t we been able to to reproduce that sort of football?

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A game is over 90 minutes which we struggle with, Liverpool went into second gear and that was that.

chaileyjem said:

Really ?

RDZ had Pedro, Verbruggen, Baleba, Igor, Ansu Fati, Dahoud, Milner , Adingra , Barco - to work with in the 23/24 season. Ansu Fati broke the bank and some of these were at RDZ request (Igor, Dahoud)
And Enciso, Estupinan, Gilmour, Buonanotte , Mitoma, Ayari, Colwill and effectively Ferguson as new players to work with in that 22/23 season (he joined in Sept).
ANd he of course did a lot with them but tough to deny that he didn't have a) incredible amount of (new) talent to work with b) a sizeable transfer chest.
Now should he have been given even more and should the Jan Transfer Window in 2024 have given him more than Barco given the injuries . But you can only buy the players that were available (eg: Dewsbury Hall /Leicester turned us down) . And we know that RDZ definitely wanted recruitment to go in a different direction. Maybe in hindsight - but its a myth that he wasn't backed. he was backed big time.

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As has been said before, our recruitment goes in cycles. Although FH has had a lot of money spent on new recruits, they take time to bed in. Time that the squad RDZ inherited had already had. The Athletic did a study a few years back of the peak age of players in different positions. I've compared their graph against the two squads. Obviously it's not an exact science. It only talks in averages.



I've taken the 20 players with the most minutes and scored them for how far they are off the peak age. Those pre-peak age are coded in green, those past are in red, amber for those at 'peak' age. It's not really worth averaging out whole totals because individual player's numbers won't necessarily balance the numbers of their teammates.

In short, although the current squad, overall is closer to peak ages than was RDZ's 6th place finishing squad, the most used 11 tells the opposite story. Six (54.5%) of RDZ's most used 11 were within three years of their 'peak' age, whereas only three (27.3%) of FH's are. Additionally, only one (5%) of RDZ's 20 was more than five years past 'peak', Lallana, who played the second least minutes, whereas four (20%) of FH's are and three are in the most common first eleven. Only two (18.2%) of RDZ's first 11 were more than three years below their 'peak' age, compared with FH's 5 (45.5%).

So added to @chaileyjem's point that RDZ had similar squad investment, he also had the blessing of a regular first eleven much closer to their prime than Hurzeler has. This doesn't protect FH from criticism. His selection at Forest suggested a manager quite far from his peak himself, but it does show that RDZ came into the club at a time when his most regular first eleven were closer to their prime.

We had watched most of them perform less consistently for Graham Potter over the preceding couple of seasons, but that work made them ready to acheive under the erratic genius. We now seem to be back closer to the beginning of GP's player improvement and development. The expectation is that higher levels of per player investment will lead to a yet higher peak, but as fans, we are all aware how frustrating it could be watching GP's development period and having to start the same process again is painful. We are now also aware that we are always at risk of the sweetest blooms being picked. Our hope is that Hurzeler is capable of matching the improvements in young players that Potter made. A concern is that, whereas we could see clear, but perhaps inconsistent evidence of this happening under GP, we haven't got much sign that FH is doing the same. Perhaps we have too small a sample with a lot of the players. We know that progression is not linear, but with the senior, tone setting, players ageing and no obvious replacement leaders/role models coming through, it's a worry.

Stato said:

As has been said before, our recruitment goes in cycles. Although FH has had a lot of money spent on new recruits, they take time to bed in. Time that the squad RDZ inherited had already had. The Athletic did a study a few years back of the peak age of players in different positions. I've compared their graph against the two squads. Obviously it's not an exact science. It only talks in averages.

View attachment 196294View attachment 196302

I've taken the 20 players with the most minutes and scored them for how far they are off the peak age. Those pre-peak age are coded in green, those past are in red, amber for those at 'peak' age. It's not really worth averaging out whole totals because individual player's numbers won't necessarily balance the numbers of their teammates.

In short, although the current squad, overall is closer to peak ages than was RDZ's 6th place finishing squad, the most used 11 tells the opposite story. Six (54.5%) of RDZ's most used 11 were within three years of their 'peak' age, whereas only three (27.3%) of FH's are. Additionally, only one (5%) of RDZ's 20 was more than five years past 'peak', Lallana, who played the second least minutes, whereas four (20%) of FH's are and three are in the most common first eleven. Only two (18.2%) of RDZ's first 11 were more than three years below their 'peak' age, compared with FH's 5 (45.5%).

So added to @chaileyjem's point that RDZ had similar squad investment, he also had the blessing of a regular first eleven much closer to their prime than Hurzeler has. This doesn't protect FH from criticism. His selection at Forest suggested a manager quite far from his peak himself, but it does show that RDZ came into the club at a time when his most regular first eleven were closer to their prime.

We had watched most of them perform less consistently for Graham Potter over the preceding couple of seasons, but that work made them ready to acheive under the erratic genius. We now seem to be back closer to the beginning of GP's player improvement and development. The expectation is that higher levels of per player investment will lead to a yet higher peak, but as fans, we are all aware how frustrating it could be watching GP's development period and having to start the same process again is painful. We are now also aware that we are always at risk of the sweetest blooms being picked. Our hope is that Hurzeler is capable of matching the improvements in young players that Potter made. A concern is that, whereas we could see clear, but perhaps inconsistent evidence of this happening under GP, we haven't got much sign that FH is doing the same. Perhaps we have too small a sample with a lot of the players. We know that progression is not linear, but with the senior, tone setting, players ageing and no obvious replacement leaders/role models coming through, it's a worry.

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Top post again, thank you.

UnhingedSeagull94 said:

Get what you’re saying and yes we did lose some games badly towards the end. Difference being, players still ran through walls for RDZ, whereas the players seem to have downed tools on Fab.

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Did they? Up until Christmas that year, I agree but after that? If people are still running through walls for a manager, you play like it and we weren't.

In terms of downing tools under FH, again have they? Other than the last 20 mins on Saturday, I don't think the players had given up and weren't trying. It's all about perception, and mine may well be different to yours l which is fair enough either way, but I don't see a group of players that aren't trying. I see a group that are trying, but were soundly beaten in the end and looked demoralised.