danhirons wrote: ↑Tue Aug 13, 2024 6:41 pm
Unpopular opinion, but the same thing for me happened with Bielsa. He rarely made any changes apart from enforced ones and so only ever made changes really when he was forced to and stumbled across some gems that way
It was inevitable with Bielsa that there would be enforced changes, small squad, tough training regime, man to man marking system that requires quality players that we generally didn't have, injuries.
It would be interesting to see if our frequency of injuries has lessened since Bielsa departed? Cos my gut feeling is that it has.
Bielsa did try different things e.g. KP as a CB, which was swiftly jettisoned and then he molded him into a great DCM.
He did try James and Harrison as strikers, and that was never gonna work in the memory of man. Persistence with Tyler Roberts, nice kid, but zero improvement under Bielsa.
Farke was convinced Georginio is a number 9, and went on a 15 monologue, Bielsa style, to put to bed the idea that Georgi would be playing elsewhere and Piroe was not a striker. His hand was forced cos it didn't work and he had to change things to get Georgi out of the firing line.
So yeah, similarities in a stubborn outlook and refusal to adapt. During the run in last season Daniel refused to change things and failed to turn out fortunes around.
I'm the Prem, during our second season we were well and truly sussed under Bielsa and we had teams and coaches rolling up to ER and basically taking the piss out of us. So for me he 100% had to go. I loved him as a person and what he did for us, but you can't sit reminiscing about the past when you're falling apart on the pitch.
When Russell Martin was asked would he change tactics before the play off final he said "No need, we will continue with what has succeeded against Leeds United". Now that's confidence, and he justified it by having his team stroll around Wembley and pick up an easy win.
And yet Daniel has stated "We're not predictable". Maybe not to himself and some of our fans, but opposition coaches have recognised our predictably and adjusted to it.