Post by ingham on Sept 1, 2014 18:09:19 GMT
Interested to see whether someone can impose an identifiable pattern on our games, and especially on their outcomes. It might serve as a half-way house for as long as we lack the quality to impose ourselves on the opposition by simply beating them. And instead showing we have a framework in place that more impressive player resources might be slotted into if and when they become available, while it provides a measure of satisfaction for as long as that isn't yet the case.
Perhaps it will encourage a more realistic approach, as until now we've tended to chop and change coaching and management teams merely on the basis that they weren't winning.
The difficulty in developing a plausible style of play that impresses supporters enough for them to accept bad results and even bad losing runs without entirely losing patience seems to be that style is often sacrificed out of desperation to get a hard-to-come-by goal or win.
Wenger seems to be attempting something of the kind at Arsenal, though with vastly more abundant resources, and perhaps that is because he and the Club - though not always the supporters - are prepared to accept that it will only take them so far.
And that if they are comprehensively hammered by teams with more accomplished individual talents (of the kind Arsenal had when they were winning titles themselves), well, that is only to be expected, and can't be helped.
The belief in management wonder-workers who arrive and turn a Club round almost overnight, however fleeting the effect is, tends to frustrate those who have what it takes to make more patient approach bear fruit.
The other awkward business is knowing quickly enough when you do have someone of the right calibre, so the more or less inevitable ups and downs in form don't lead in turn to the more or less inevitable sacking.
One game won't tell us either way. But the next few dozen might give us an idea. Performances fluctuate so dramatically, even over a few games, and judgements vary considerably as to what those performances mean, that it is something of a miracle for a Club to know when it is well off, and settle for that while it tries to work out whether it has what it takes to do even better.
Most of them have no idea. Or maybe it is more correct to say that the game is so unpredictable, even if they do, it is almost impossible to guess right.
I'd like to think that he'd get the chance, and that we have the nous to know whether he is capable of taking it.
Perhaps it will encourage a more realistic approach, as until now we've tended to chop and change coaching and management teams merely on the basis that they weren't winning.
The difficulty in developing a plausible style of play that impresses supporters enough for them to accept bad results and even bad losing runs without entirely losing patience seems to be that style is often sacrificed out of desperation to get a hard-to-come-by goal or win.
Wenger seems to be attempting something of the kind at Arsenal, though with vastly more abundant resources, and perhaps that is because he and the Club - though not always the supporters - are prepared to accept that it will only take them so far.
And that if they are comprehensively hammered by teams with more accomplished individual talents (of the kind Arsenal had when they were winning titles themselves), well, that is only to be expected, and can't be helped.
The belief in management wonder-workers who arrive and turn a Club round almost overnight, however fleeting the effect is, tends to frustrate those who have what it takes to make more patient approach bear fruit.
The other awkward business is knowing quickly enough when you do have someone of the right calibre, so the more or less inevitable ups and downs in form don't lead in turn to the more or less inevitable sacking.
One game won't tell us either way. But the next few dozen might give us an idea. Performances fluctuate so dramatically, even over a few games, and judgements vary considerably as to what those performances mean, that it is something of a miracle for a Club to know when it is well off, and settle for that while it tries to work out whether it has what it takes to do even better.
Most of them have no idea. Or maybe it is more correct to say that the game is so unpredictable, even if they do, it is almost impossible to guess right.
I'd like to think that he'd get the chance, and that we have the nous to know whether he is capable of taking it.