[Albion] Tony Blooms vision for the club (aka Olive Branch II)

[Springal]

Not sure Webster counts

 

[vagabond]

Not sure Webster counts

Could be borderline, included him as he was 24 when he joined. A young English player from the Championship.

 

[Springal]

Could be borderline, included him as he was 24 when he joined. A young English player from the Championship.

But about 130 appearances in the Football League before he joined us ...!

 

[GT49er]

No doubt. But last night is just one game with a hugely rotated side and nothing to do with the long term vision.

May have been last chance saloons for a few (AJ, Bernardo) who knows.

How many times have we thought that? ..................... and how many times have we been disappointed?

 

[Wellesley]

Got to the word 'haters' and realised it was yet more 'holier than thou' shite again from the OP.

 

[Jim in the West]

No doubt. But last night is just one game with a hugely rotated side and nothing to do with the long term vision.

May have been last chance saloons for a few (AJ, Bernardo) who knows.

Indeed - West Ham and Leicester fans were apoplectic with their selections in the recent matches against us and (for Leicester) Palace. Both West Ham and Leicester significantly underperformed after resting key players. Both managed to scrape draws. Unfortunately we didn't (but deserved to).

 

[warmleyseagull]

If he were to listen to the boo boys right right now, Tony would fire Graham Potter and install a fire fighter manager to dig us out of trouble. Else what would be the point?

So who would you get then. The just relegated Eddie Howe?
Mark Hughes? And say this new manager keeps us up. We all celebrate. But what next season? We start firefighting again, and if the manager is struggling, we fire them again.

Surely it’s fairly clear that even with this approach we would be in Groundhog Day every season and be relegated eventually. Our wage budget simply cannot compete with most clubs in the division.

But this is what some here want I think. What a lack of vision. How short term.

Or as Tony is trying to do. Have a vision. Try and beat the bigger clubs by playing the long term game (those who play poker will be familiar with this ethos). Change the playing culture at the club from top to bottom, have a technical director overseeing and ensuring we have the same footballing philosophy at all age groups. Start a production line of talent. That doesn’t require hundreds of millions of pounds. Buy cheap exciting talent and blood them. If the haters actually had a look you can see this starting to bare fruit already (Lamptey, Ben White, Molumby, Alzate, Sanchez, Ostigard, Connolly would all go for millions and millions pounds already).

This transition is obviously not going to be easy. And you’d have to be fairly short sighted to not see that. But the rewards are clear. Either continue being a yo yo club a la Norwich or West Brom, or try and become an English Ajax.

As Tony and the club have said many times, top 10 is a LONG term goal. And it’s not going to be easy. I think there’s a big subset of fans who understand this. However there are short term fans who clearly don’t.

If you don’t buy into Graham Potter or Dan Ashworth and what’s going on at the club, rather than direct and hurl abuse online to GP every week (and anyone who dares go against group think) you should be honest enough to take it up with Tony Bloom, as it’s his vision for the club.

So do you want to be West Brom and fire and hire a firefighter? Or do you want to be different and try and build something special that could see us become an English Ajax?

I recall both DA and TB saying that relegation is a distinct possibility in the long-term game. That is why GP is safe IMO, as well as the fact that a study some time ago by some Norwegians proved that changing manager made a short-term difference but not long-term: regression to the mean as the stattos say. Compare Watford to Norwich, for example.

The thing I struggle with them though is the long-term aim to be a top 10 side paying well below top 10 wages and (seemingly) unwilling to pay significant amounts for players. The latter may be mitigated if we actually sell anyone for a decent price (Southampton and Leicester have shown that you can divest then recirculate the transfer fees) but that doesn't get over the first problem. There is an almost perfect correlation between clubs' wage bills and their PL position - the odd outlier like Burnley 2 seasons ago excepted.

That suggests to me that English Ajax is at best a VERY long-term goal; they have been at it for decades. Meantime we have to put up with one home win in a year, distinct possibility of relegation, and frustration of watching pretty patterns producing FA. And that is just the short-term; whilst we might do a Norwich in Championship, we might also do a Sunderland.

I don't hurl abuse at TB - no-one can possibly do that after he has put in £250+m and seen the club rise to PL - but I do question the methodology to achieve the aim. And I don't think insulates criticism of GP playing tinker man; not playing strikers; and not training to avoid conceding from corners. Those are his problems.

 

[andy1980]

That and the 6 year deal he's on

I think I read somewhere that there was a clause in his contract that stated that he would get £x if he was sacked no matter how long he has left. I think Chris Hughton had the same.

 

[Acker79]

Maybe Potter is plenty good enough and a victim of his own success.

Over the past 18 months many, most, all but 1 or 2 of us, have been turned giddy by performances from GPott's team.

The amount of abuse the serial moaners Spence, et al, got once Potter settled in and the team was playing glorious football went on for page after page.


Sure right now something is wrong.

But there wasn't anything wrong after 90 minutes v Utd.
Or when the B Team was ripping up the EFL Cup.
When Newcastle and Alan St Maximum were humiliated.

3 (three) months ago.

The table looked wonky after Villa.

Just 1 month ago.


Arsenal have won 2 games and have gone from being our bunnies to one win away from Top 10, and 6 points behind Spurs.

Brighton should have won 2 of their last 3 games.



As said I have no idea what's wrong, but I find it hard to believe making it right will take wholesale Allerdycing.

Wasn't there? See, I'm probably one of those 1 or 2 who have never really been giddy about the football we play. I'm pretty sure if one were so inclined they could find posts from earlier in Potter's reign of me talking about how I've found his football frustrating, how under Hughton I'd walk away resigned and dulled into apathy, but under Potter I was walking away angry at wasted opportunity, so this isn't something I'm saying just because we've had a poor run of late.

We have consistently underperformed in front of goal. Against Man Utd we hit the woodwork 5 times, March blasted the ball over the goal from inside the area a few times and needed to be one foot away from the goal line to get a shot on target. Of course the big talking point was the post-game VAR penalty winner. But we had so many chances to run away with it. Van De Beek's agent(?) wasn't plucking the figure from air when he said we should have scored 7 goals.

The problem has been there since the beginning - we are not converting our chances. It has been papered over with VAR controversies, the occasional terrible opponent/luck (Watford away, Newcastle away, Tottenham at home), and the ability to pass the ball around the middle in a way that seems to please a lot of fans. It was becoming an issue at the start of the year and the lockdown break seemed to help us as much as we claim it helped Leeds.

I agree, that I don't think the answer is 'wholesale Allardycing' (brilliant phrase, btw), but I do think we need to realise it isn't something that has just crept up over the last few games. It's just the last few games have torn away the paper. Playing teams below us and struggling, getting to the end of the year without adding to our single solitary home win all year, more fans are finding their line and starting to realise we've been 'keep[ing] playing like that...' for a year and a half, and with the very occasional exception it hasn't all come good.

For me, it's wages. Until we're willing to pay the wages of better players, we are stuck wasting money on the hay of lower quality players in the hopes of finding the needle of a player who has top ten quality, but accepts bottom five wages.

 

[Not Andy Naylor]

The OP mentions Lamptey, Ben White, Molumby, Alzate, Sanchez, Ostigard and Connolly as the future of the club and potentially worth millions but I query the way they're being used. Alzate in particular is one of the players best suited to the way Potter seems to want to play, but seems to be out in the cold, while Molumby is being wasted.

I also agree with Acker79 (above) that they style of play can be frustrating rather than entertaining. Specifically, it all slows down near the penalty area instead of speeding up. Solly March sums this up. As soon as he is confronted by an opponent you can see his two minds and almost invariably he will check back and play a safe pass instead of trying to go past his man. Arsenal early in the second half last night showed what purposeful attacking can look like. Quick movement, quick decisions, no messing about. Direct football can be good when it involves running directly towards the opponents' goal rather than taking five minutes and 23 passes to get there, by which time they have 11 men behind the ball.. .

 

[Justice]

If he were to listen to the boo boys right right now, Tony would fire Graham Potter and install a fire fighter manager to dig us out of trouble. Else what would be the point?

So who would you get then. The just relegated Eddie Howe?
Mark Hughes? And say this new manager keeps us up. We all celebrate. But what next season? We start firefighting again, and if the manager is struggling, we fire them again.

Surely it’s fairly clear that even with this approach we would be in Groundhog Day every season and be relegated eventually. Our wage budget simply cannot compete with most clubs in the division.

But this is what some here want I think. What a lack of vision. How short term.

Or as Tony is trying to do. Have a vision. Try and beat the bigger clubs by playing the long term game (those who play poker will be familiar with this ethos). Change the playing culture at the club from top to bottom, have a technical director overseeing and ensuring we have the same footballing philosophy at all age groups. Start a production line of talent. That doesn’t require hundreds of millions of pounds. Buy cheap exciting talent and blood them. If the haters actually had a look you can see this starting to bare fruit already (Lamptey, Ben White, Molumby, Alzate, Sanchez, Ostigard, Connolly would all go for millions and millions pounds already).

This transition is obviously not going to be easy. And you’d have to be fairly short sighted to not see that. But the rewards are clear. Either continue being a yo yo club a la Norwich or West Brom, or try and become an English Ajax.

As Tony and the club have said many times, top 10 is a LONG term goal. And it’s not going to be easy. I think there’s a big subset of fans who understand this. However there are short term fans who clearly don’t.

If you don’t buy into Graham Potter or Dan Ashworth and what’s going on at the club, rather than direct and hurl abuse online to GP every week (and anyone who dares go against group think) you should be honest enough to take it up with Tony Bloom, as it’s his vision for the club.

So do you want to be West Brom and fire and hire a firefighter? Or do you want to be different and try and build something special that could see us become an English Ajax?

The Premier league is defined ultimately by budget, a comparison Leeds are winning games because they invested in some quality players we are not prepared to pay over £20m for a player leaving us scraps to work with, Ajax works because the Dutch league is shite.

Do you realise if we go down it could be another 20 years before we are promoted again if ever.

Whilst the idea of total football is a nice idea clubs are buying better quality players than us. We aren’t unlucky better quality players are scoring against us as what happened last night.

With a budget like ours we have to play to the strengths of the squad people might not like that idea but let’s get real we aren’t Barcelona and never will be.

 

[Stat Brother]

Wasn't there? See, I'm probably one of those 1 or 2 who have never really been giddy about the football we play. I'm pretty sure if one were so inclined they could find posts from earlier in Potter's reign of me talking about how I've found his football frustrating, how under Hughton I'd walk away resigned and dulled into apathy, but under Potter I was walking away angry at wasted opportunity, so this isn't something I'm saying just because we've had a poor run of late.

We have consistently underperformed in front of goal. Against Man Utd we hit the woodwork 5 times, March blasted the ball over the goal from inside the area a few times and needed to be one foot away from the goal line to get a shot on target. Of course the big talking point was the post-game VAR penalty winner. But we had so many chances to run away with it. Van De Beek's agent(?) wasn't plucking the figure from air when he said we should have scored 7 goals.

The problem has been there since the beginning - we are not converting our chances. It has been papered over with VAR controversies, the occasional terrible opponent/luck (Watford away, Newcastle away, Tottenham at home), and the ability to pass the ball around the middle in a way that seems to please a lot of fans. It was becoming an issue at the start of the year and the lockdown break seemed to help us as much as we claim it helped Leeds.

I agree, that I don't think the answer is 'wholesale Allardycing' (brilliant phrase, btw), but I do think we need to realise it isn't something that has just crept up over the last few games. It's just the last few games have torn away the paper. Playing teams below us and struggling, getting to the end of the year without adding to our single solitary home win all year, more fans are finding their line and starting to realise we've been 'keep[ing] playing like that...' for a year and a half, and with the very occasional exception it hasn't all come good.

For me, it's wages. Until we're willing to pay the wages of better players, we are stuck wasting money on the hay of lower quality players in the hopes of finding the needle of a player who has top ten quality, but accepts bottom five wages.

Yeah sure.

I was very much in the 'blimey when this clicks, it's gonna be fan-blooming-tastic' camp.
But have finally started walking down your side of the street.

That said, Potter has created a style of play that is capable of hitting the woodwork 5 times!
How responsible is he for actually hitting the woodwork 5 times?

I have no idea what he's done to Bissouma, it's just a shame he hasn't done that to anybody else.
The average age of the team has been considerably reduced - that can't be easy.

As said elsewhere, for the team to work it needs wingbacks, the one thing the team doesn't have is recognised wingbacks.
I hope the entirety of the boardroom are owning that because if they aren't nothing will change.

A part of me still wants to believe the pieces are all there.

 

[WhingForPresident]

Roberts is on loan, Alzate has been ill / injured a lot of this season but has featured. Connolly & White have come through making Premier League debuts and regular appearances.

I know Roberts is on loan, I'm not just referring to yesterday. Not sure about what the case is with Alzate, maybe you know more than I do about why he has basically disappeared after being one of our best performers last season.

So you’re just basing your entire perspective on yesterday’s completely rotated side.

And who’s just talking about academy players? Part of the plan is also to be smart with recruiting talented young players and give them a chance here. And that doesn’t mean “play them every match”. There’s a clear development plan at work (hence our loaned players).

Lamptey
Ben White
Webster
Alzate
Molumby
Connolly
Maupay
Sanchez
Sanders

All given senior debuts under Potter. Note that 6 of the above were here during Hughton’s reign.

As if Potter had a choice but to play White after his season at Leeds and the subsequent transfer speculation/new contract, he can't take much credit for that. Webster and Maupay obviously don't fit a so-called Ajax model considering we paid c£20m for them both in their 20s when they both already had a few full seasons at Championship level under their belts. On Molumby- he went to the press saying 'play me or loan me out' in the summer, so would have presumably been given assurances of chances in the first team. Bet he is massively pissed off with how it's played out. He made his debut under Hughton FWIW, as did White and Connolly.

The only signing we've made that fits that bill is Lamptey, which was obviously a great piece of business.

 

[Springal]

I know Roberts is on loan, I'm not just referring to yesterday. Not sure about what the case is with Alzate, maybe you know more than I do about why he has basically disappeared after being one of our best performers last season.

Alzate has had well documented groin injury which resulted in an operation and us having to carefully manage him back. Also a lot of travelling for International football and suggestion of COVID at some point.

 

[Sea Eagle]

I’m in the Potter out camp, but not shouting for a fire fighter manager. I’ve got confidence that Bloom has a plan b list of managers that are aligned to how he wants to take the club forward. He took a gamble with Potter and unlike a lot of his decisions, this one hasn’t worked. Hopefully he will fix it before we go down.

 

[NooBHA]

Who has the time to write, read and ingest all this shite? Long rambling posts are so yesterday, so is reading them. Shut down NSC until our next victory. The thread count is getting out of hand, as is all the same regurgitative bollox.

I agree. Posts that are too long. I can't be bothered. It is too much like work for me to read and try and digest or uncover the true meaning or Agenda behind them.

Football Forums should be fun so keeping stuff short I like. Although I do concede some of the Political Topics often need to be expanded upon.

 

[Lenny Rider]

My biggest fears of relegation are the exodus of the real quality players at the club and the fact of going back into the most competitive league on the planet and fighting to get out of it. How long will it take to get back into the EPL?

 

[Jim in the West]

I know Roberts is on loan, I'm not just referring to yesterday. Not sure about what the case is with Alzate, maybe you know more than I do about why he has basically disappeared after being one of our best performers last season.



As if Potter had a choice but to play White after his season at Leeds and the subsequent transfer speculation/new contract, he can't take much credit for that. Webster and Maupay obviously don't fit a so-called Ajax model considering we paid c£20m for them both in their 20s when they both already had a few full seasons at Championship level under their belts. On Molumby- he went to the press saying 'play me or loan me out' in the summer, so would have presumably been given assurances of chances in the first team. Bet he is massively pissed off with how it's played out. He made his debut under Hughton FWIW, as did White and Connolly.

The only signing we've made that fits that bill is Lamptey, which was obviously a great piece of business.

I know they haven't played yet, but Moder and Karbownik are good examples of the direction of travel - Moder is 21 and Karbownik is 19. As far as I understand, Karbownik is reasonably pacy (and a Left Back!!). Moder is strong and physical.

 

[Clive Walker]

Some people are just desperate for potter to be the right man that they look past the facts and our recent record over the last 18 months. I see nothing that will change if given another 18 months.

The boo boys annoy the long term project fans and visa versa.

The difference is that some are guessing while others focus on the crap that’s been served up already.

 

[The Clown of Pevensey Bay]

I do agree with this but I just want the long term to start NOW.

It's like this: the Albion are like a team bowling in the final innings of a test match. The track is flat, and the opposition are brilliant.

Needing 350 to win, the opposition are 250/3. The two middle order batsmen have put on a hundred partnership. We can all see where it's going.

Potter is like the wicket keeper constantly chirping: "Lovely ball" "Almost had him there!" "One brings two!"