Made my post about DF before seeing yours.
Great minds etc. etc.
1 Like
Just read this, so sorry to hear about the loss of your wife.
You’re absolutely right of course, we should all be hugely grateful to share our lives with those we love and cherish.
1 Like
Thanks Jamie.
My 68th birthday today & should have been Julie’s 65th. Yes, we shared the same birthday. Basically that is how we met in 1975.
So not the best of days. Then I heard the Norwich result this afternoon.
Happy birthday to me…
1 Like
Another second-rate, but cheap, manager with a second-rate, but cheap, team.
Perhaps we’ll get to play Pompey next season……unless of course, Pompey get promotion 
2 Likes
Just back from the game. Watford had no ambition, we on the other hand played some beautiful football & thoroughly deserved our 3:0 victory. 4 clean sheets on the bounce is living the dream for me. All signings look great & Rutter’s transformation into Pele is a joy to behold. All credit to Farke whose football is slightly less exciting than Bielsa’s but more measured/controlled. A great day out. Still early days but it’s a pleasure to be in the ground again.
2 Likes
Er, let’s keep it in perspective!! But he certainly has potential if he looks up and passes it a lot more 
2 Likes
He shoots like he’s taking a penalty v Salford and has much to do to justify his fee but after 2 barren years it’s great to get carried away a bit 
As I said above, 4 clean sheets on the bounce is the real story. Always been my holy grail since Revie.
2 Likes
Sounds like they are following the Norwich model.
I hope your supporters are less patient than ours have been.
1 Like
You’ve done it again.
I was just about to pen the same reply when I saw yours, fortunately before I did so.
1 Like
Lovely Squires ‘tribute’ to Colin - the man we all love to hate (but rather admire)
Treasured moment - Ipswich losing 2-0 to Sheff U and down to 10 men (Counago bitch slapped (I think) Wes Morgan after being kicked from pillar to post). Went on to win 3-2 - the inevitable ‘Colin Colin what’s the score’ chants and him cheerily waving and conducting the crowd.
2 Likes
I always liked him bar the crimes against Botox. Bottom line is that he was/is an above average manager for whom the Premier League was simply a step too far. I feel the same way about Farke. Interesting to see Leeds calmly reassemble themselves but if they get up he’ll have to go and then the shenanigans start all over again.
The way we’re going he could end up at Norwich.
At least he’d brighten up the press conference!
Given financial backing Farke will be ok in the premier league.
He was never given a chance at Norwich.
1 Like
There doesn’t appear to be any evidence base for that assertion that I can locate.
Minimal spending on obscure & mediocre players, not once but twice.
Board expecting DF to be a miracle worker. He wasn’t, just a manager always giving 100% to the club & forced to work with half a squad that wouldn’t have been out of place in League 1.
Look at what he was given by our sporting director.
When they spent it was on three or four player like Tzolis who we can’t now give away.
He lost Maddison, Buendia and Godfrey. Pep would have struggled with what Farke was given.
Worse still the disastrous buys left a £60 million black hole in the accounts despite parachute payments. Not helped by Delia’s lack of investment.
He’s already turning Leeds around and I’m sure they’ll be in the top six at least and go on to hold their own in the premiership if he is backed.
1 Like
From my perspective I’ve learned that how we think a manager will do when “backed” and how they actually do are often miles apart and often dictated by things entirely out of their control.
Parkinson came to Wrexham with a reputation for dour football and tactical rigidity. He did have multiple promotions and cup successes to back him up. If there were concerns they were around
- there being a huge difference between managing in divisions where three or four teams can go up to managing in the most competitive division in Europe where only one goes up automatically.
- he’d never had the opportunity to manage a club with money.
It turned out his tactics/teams aren’t dour at all. He simply turns teams out with several ways of playing which the players need to work through in order to figure out how to beat the opposition. So if you talk to some opposing supporters then we’re a simplistic long ball hoofing team but if you talk to others then they were shocked to see us playing with the swagger of early 1970s Brazil. Hello Sheffield United. Love ya 
Money wise he spent well and built a team in his first season but didn’t have time to build squad depth. The team was good enough to go up but fell short of first and lost in the play off semi because of the lack of squad depth. That was fixed over last Summer and we all know what happened next.
On paper then, if backed, he’s brilliant. Now FF to this season. Terrible decisions. Having to apologise to Harrogate for screwing up our deadline day purchase of Armstrong, a journeyman striker panic buy to replace the injured Mullin who would have done no such thing. The purchase and playing of James McLean for no good reason, which has weakened us in the left wing back position. Boyle at centre back is an old fashioned hoofer and repeatedly gifts the opposition the ball. Fletcher up front aged 36. Pretty to look at but there are no goals in him. Ally this to Parky’s refusal to see that Lee and O’Connor in midfield doesn’t work unless one of them plays the defensive role that neither of them want and the continued picking of O’Connor when his form is wretched. All of a sudden Parky doesn’t look quite so good with money when we decided we needed to act under pressure re: Mullin. The other purchases look like random flailing. It’s obvious Parky is capable of building teams/squads to get us to Championship level but almost certainly not beyond. His tactical and purchasing limits are being exposed.
I say all this because with regard to Farke we really don’t know what he’ll be like when “backed”. None of us have any idea. What we do know is that, regardless of that, all his teams have the same tactical flaw. He likes two attacking mids and doesn’t like either of them to fall back. He’s done that at every club he’s managed and whilst it works when you have the ball it means that when you don’t there is always a thrashing around the corner. More than anything else in the EPL I believe that’s what cost Norwich relegation. Yes of course money played a part and you may have gone down anyway but how many times did different MOTD pundits have ro say this very thing? It literally never changed and the outcome to that extent was entirely predictable. If you do the same thing you expect the same
outcome.
In this context it’s been fascinating to watch Leeds develop. Ampadu is a much better defender than midfielder but Leeds are employing him in front of the defence rather than in it. When he’s on the ball he makes things happen with simple pssses to players in space. When he’s not then the defence are exposed. Leeds, bar the exception of the Ipswich game, have stopped leaking goals but that exception was interesting. Up against teams who like the ball they will struggle because Ampadu doesnt chase back when he doesn’t have the ball. With 7 places available to make it a decent season Leeds should be there or thereabouts because there aren’t too many possession based teams in the Championship or at least not enough to push them below 7th. In the EPL though no amount of backing will fix those tactics. Teams will do what they did to Norwich and walk through the middle.
To some extent it’s a moot point as bar a change of owner Leeds likely won’t have enough money to back him of they go up… That’s when the tactics become crucial and that’s where I think he falls down repeatedly.
Interesting times.
2 Likes
Fantastic analysis. If I had a hat, it would now be doffed.
2 Likes
I would say that Norwich’s two seasons were blighted by the quality of player rather than the system.
I’ll admit the first time we arrived in the premiership we were too open with too many attacking midfielders rather than those with a more defensive mindset.
No matter who we played we came up against better athletes and were out muscled every time.
Farke tried a more defensive approach during our second attempt but it merely resulted in us being overwhelmed nearer to our own goal.
I think it was Roy Keane who said “playing the ball out from the back was fine but you require better players than Norwich have.”
Looking at teams like Brighton and Brentford they played a similar system to Norwich but used better and bigger athletes. I watched every home game, when permitted, and every time we looked like boys against men.
I’m not sure I’m allowed to post a link but there’s an excellent article in The Athletic dated the 12th of July this year on Farke; his Norwich tactics and how that might translate to his Leeds tenure. It’s a lovely long read and well worth your time @JohnF.
What really stood out for me, aside from his refusal to use long passes, was a very stark observation about his use of 4-2-3-1. I thought it was very astutely observed that the purpose of the 2 was not as a defensive shield albeit that it’s not overtly stated. When Norwich attacked from midfield the 2 joined in to create overloads. When they attacked from the back the 2 full backs created the overloads and the 2 dropped to become an alternate 4.
As per my previous post, this can work in the Championship if you dominate possession. In the EPL it’s far too simplistic. Thus my assertion that financial backing may not actually make any difference.
The preponderance of high pressing teams means that if you get turned over when your 2 have either dropped into the 4 (rather pointlessly in my view if you’re attacking) then the opposition can break in numbers against either a wholly exposed flat, deep 4 or bypassing a deep 2 trying to protect a deeper 2.
Yes of course it doesn’t help when you try to build from the back and get pressed to death but that more defensive Norwich you talk about must have conceded more goals from attacking deep in the opponents half than any other team in the division last time out. Now, go look at those goals Ipswich scored against Leeds. There’s something uncannily familiar about them.