Ahem
Don’t be hard on yourself pal. This is TFK. The safest of safe spaces for being wrong on the Internet. Being right here too often could get you thrun out.
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It is simply great to see O’Neill back. He is inspirational. I would have liked to have seen him given 18 months.
It will be interesting to see who he brings in, in this transfer window. Any ideas? With O’Neill in charge it will be clear he will be making the decisions anyway. He will need to recruit beyond the English leagues for value.
From an Irish perspective it is good news that he has returned as Scales was favoured under O’Neill and looked devoid of confidence of late. Kenny was less favoured but he is unlikely to feature against Czecha. Unlike other TFK forum members I think Kenny has significant potential.
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Don’t beat yourself up too much over it. I wouldn’t be a great soccer man, but I’d have one general rule of thumb. Beware of hipsters and plenty of people get taken in by them. Look at how it worked out at Old Trafford with that hipster Amorim as well.
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Surely some decent 6 month loan signings available from the likes of City and Chelsea who are over stocked.
Villa are supposedly sending Liverpool back Harvey Elliott, be a brilliant 6 month signing.
I think you should apologise to me too. I was pro Nancy but I was emboldened by your support of my position. A more considered consigliere might have softened my enthusiasm a little, allowing me to save face.
There is a story in the xG stuff. It’s not all nonsense clearly. And there were positives. I don’t think it captures the space around players enough though. Like the Huns second goal on Saturday was a stroll through and calm finish. I don’t think xG accounts for the fact nobody is forcing the striker to rush or lose their balance or get distracted by players thundering across.
And so we were unlucky in conceding more than expected but our lack of numbers in defence and the lack of natural defensive instincts among those around our box meant we were giving up better chances than it seemed.
We definitely did create plenty of chances though. And we’ll struggle on that front without immediate reinforcements.
Ultimately as Nancy himself might say though xG is also an outcome and it’s not really how he should be judged. The style of play was attractive at times but it completely failed to control games. And he couldn’t or wouldn’t react to the game going on in front of him. It’s almost like the reaction to the tactics board in the first game embarrassed him so he stopped making any in game adjustments.
The experience / youth point is interesting. A guy like McKenna would be seen as lower risk even though he has less experience I think. But it’s the cultural stuff of MLs versus Europe that adds something there. Plus I don’t honestly think Nancy actually understood how he needed to win nearly every domestic game to meet the bar.
Finally think the comparisons to Deila are unfair on Deila.
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I’d say those teams have all got their maximum number of international loans out.
Elliott can’t play in a winter league again this season as far as I know because he played for Liverpool and Villa already. So he has to go to MLS or League of Ireland or somewhere I believe.
Kenny needs a lot of improving.
But he’s miles ahead of the likes of Shin. He has the right instincts. Said it on here recently but he needs to be able to move past his confidence issues and not get frustrated when he misses. Because he’ll continue to miss them.
But we’d have been miles off it without him in the first half against the Huns. His running in behind was a huge part of our 45 minutes of success.
Not sure what O’Neill will do now. He had dropped him and wasn’t even bringing him on but Maeda as a striker just isn’t working for anyone.
Thought this was a surprisingly good watch. (Brown was quite positive on Johnny Kenny too @RaymondCrotty). Covers Nancy and the Covid season.
Elliott is also on probably £70k a week.
More than that I’d say, but Liverpool will be eating a chunk of that for whoever takes him
I imagine Villa are paying all of it now, as would clubs like West Ham and teams trying to get promoted from the championship. I don’t think there is any realistic hope of Celtic bringing in players from England who are anyways useful and established
You can’t play for three clubs in one season. So I’d say Elliott is no good to Celtic.
Presume he’s a hardline loyalist anyway as he played for Liverpool
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Correct.
Not unlike united, it’s so easy to blame management, and rightly so in this case, along with the board etc…but you’d have to question the character of a squad who practically down tools if they don’t like a manager, or his initial methods. Player power I get, but downing tools is seemingly a growing virus which has always been there no doubt, but seems to have really gone largely unpunished, without stigma.
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Think He was initially favoured by O’Neill but I do remember him throwing his arms up in the air and acting a bit petulant in first half away to St. Mirren .he was taken off at halftime and never started again for O Neill IIRC.
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Noted and largely agree.
You have to maximise/ play to strengths of whatever you do have of course. Something that was alien to coach Nancy. I’d go as far as saying Schmeichel is a complete liability these days, Trusty needs to be babysat through a game and we haven’t replaced either of our two strikers sold for a combined £20m within the past twelve months
You are nothing but fair @Bandage , game respects game bro.
Let’s win this league now
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Astute observers had noted that the new manager bounce from MON was starting to wear upon his departure 30 odd days ago. It will be interesting to note where it goes from here. I hope it works. But I have concerns.