Here's a theory: Farke massively over achieved

[Petriix 2,847]

I really don't think it's as black and white as @chicken is making out. Ultimately we're just guessing based on incomplete information. But these things are never binary.

Obviously Webber (and maybe Farke, but again just a guess) thought he was making the best decision at the time. That's evident based on a balance of factors. However, we're now in a position where we can reflect on those factors and assess what the impacts were.

Webber clearly thought that we would end up with a stronger squad by selling Buendia and spending the money across several players than either keeping him (against his will, maybe downing tools and running down his contract or whatever) or buying a direct replacement (if that was even possible).

There's obviously a degree of choice, but the balance of attempting to keep a player who wants away against the benefits of the enormous transfer fee made the sale pretty compelling.

But there were other reasons for Webber to make the sale outside of the immediately obvious:

1) as Webber implied himself, the idea of presenting the club as a willing stepping-stone for ambitious players; saying "we won't stand in your way" helps us attract more talented young players and continue the model.

2) by moving on the key cog in the Farkeball engine, he forced the change of system and made sure there was no going back.

Whether 2 was by chance or design is unknown but it very much burnt the bridges of any prospective return to the previous plan. Ultimately, Farke's inability to make the new plan work led to his sacking. Again, we'll never really know how invested Farke was in the change. 

For me at least the bigger factor in all of this wasn't selling Buendia so much as the recruitment that followed. The new players cemented the change of system. By failing to replace Skipp, we were wedded to sharing the defensive midfield role amongst the team.

[chicken 2,640]

7 minutes ago, Petriix said:

I really don't think it's as black and white as @chicken is making out. Ultimately we're just guessing based on incomplete information. But these things are never binary.

Obviously Webber (and maybe Farke, but again just a guess) thought he was making the best decision at the time. That's evident based on a balance of factors. However, we're now in a position where we can reflect on those factors and assess what the impacts were.

Yup, but I wasn't commenting on the "impact". I was criticising the lack of any evidence that supported the idea that the club sought to sell Buendia, or "chose to" in the sense that they were under no pressure to from the player, that they could ignore his demands, lock him in a cupboard and bring him out again when the window was shut.

Whether or not the money was spent wisely etc is not the original point I was questioning.

The debate about whether the money was well spent, whether we should have forced a player, for a second season, to stay against their will is endless. You can argue there are examples of it, there are more examples against it, ultimately, supporting one of the other side of that comes down largely on how you view the signings of last summer... which in a sense is another argument too, as in, the Buendia factor of it can be left out entirely if you wanted.

Were last summers signings good enough?

History is funny like that. For example, there are two sides of the debate about Neville Chamberlain, some saw him as weak and gave in to the demands of Hitler too easily, that he should have been harder, that he should have threatened war etc sooner. Others argue that he was on a hiding to nothing, that Britain was bankrupt and in no fit state to go to war. We are 77 years on and yet historians can still debate both sides.

The ONLY reason to enforce that it was the club choice to sell Buendia, that it was an easy and legitimate decision to force him to stay (or persuade him) assumes too many factors we have zero evidence for. For example, that he wasn't that serious about leaving, a bit of strong authority would have had him step into line and stay. We just don't know that. We do know that the player was serious about leaving as he said so in interviews and has no reason to lie about that.

As for black and white... if the evidence fits... and there is no evidence to the contrary? I'm not sure it is black and white though, it would appear a lot of things went on somewhere between that chat between Farker and Buendia in August 2020 to Feb-May 2021. Especially if you genuinely consider that they were surprised that made it clear he didn't want to be with us the following season. It's not often complicated in football is it? 

[Petriix 2,847]

It's obviously somewhere in between choosing and being forced. There is always a choice, but sometimes the choice is so compelling that it's difficult to see an alternative. We don't (and won't) fully know the reasons which made the choice so compelling, although we can appreciate some of the many factors.

Choosing to accept the public line from the club is arguably pretty naive. But making up an alternative is equally unrealistic. We have to accept that we cannot possibly know.

However, I still think that focusing on the Buendia sale is a red herring. The overriding issue is the abandoning of Farkeball and the decision to recruit for a different system and the ultimate sacking of Farke himself.

At the time it looked wrong. In hindsight it was suicide. 

[chicken 2,640]

3 minutes ago, Petriix said:

Choosing to accept the public line from the club is arguably pretty naive. But making up an alternative is equally unrealistic. We have to accept that we cannot possibly know.

Not just the line from the club though is it? It's the line from Buendia too. In this instance it "adds up". I get that it still doesn't mean it 100% happened. However, if the club line is "spin" there is truth to it, unless you subscribe to it being an outright lie. Making up an alternative is surely more unrealistic as there simply isn't any evidence to support it?

We can accept we won't know, we can also accept there are parameters in which the truth lies.

I 100% agree with you about it being a red herring. As I say, the reason to "make up an alternative" usually is to add fuel to the fire of other issues that arose after.

I think in that sense, Webber is actually quite candid. He pretty much agrees with you it would seem. I think it was abandoned too readily, and too soon. I would have stuck with it for the first 4-5 games minimum. It was difficult enough a start to the season, add in that several of our signings didn't arrive until the dawn of the new season itself you are left with trying to transition to a new formation and approach against the top sides in the division with new players bedding in.

I've said elsewhere, it felt like a reset to zero. That is 100% on Farke. Easy to say in hindsight I know, but I said it at the time too. I would have stuck with the tried and tested 4-2-3-1. At least the players already here would have been more comfortable with it, more used to it and could help bed in the new players with it. We could then try to transition further into the season perhaps with more confidence to do so.

I think the evidence is that Smith did so a couple of times with formation after his arrival to varying degrees of success, such as with Idah and Sargent appearing to pick up in form. 

[Monty13 2,240]

50 minutes ago, Petriix said:

It's obviously somewhere in between choosing and being forced. There is always a choice, but sometimes the choice is so compelling that it's difficult to see an alternative. We don't (and won't) fully know the reasons which made the choice so compelling, although we can appreciate some of the many factors.

Choosing to accept the public line from the club is arguably pretty naive. But making up an alternative is equally unrealistic. We have to accept that we cannot possibly know.

However, I still think that focusing on the Buendia sale is a red herring. The overriding issue is the abandoning of Farkeball and the decision to recruit for a different system and the ultimate sacking of Farke himself.

At the time it looked wrong. In hindsight it was suicide. 

I don’t agree with you Petriix around the importance of the Buendia sale, but I think you’ve made a mostly fair assessment of the ambiguity around it.

However I’ll just say…good luck with that 👍

[Petriix 2,847]

@chicken whereas I'd say the change in system is at most 50% on Farke and probably significantly lower than that. But again, we don't really know. My suspicion is that Webber was the main driver of the change and Farke was a reluctant participant.

Farke rejected the change and reverted to 4-2-3-1 before he was sacked. Webber arrogantly believed that the recruitment was good enough and blamed Farke for failing to get the team winning. He was pretty objectively wrong. 

[Parma Ham's gone mouldy 2,227]

1. We sold Buendia

2. We sold Buendia at the point of promotion (not after relegation or during a season)

3. Buendia was our best player

4. Buendia was our only weapon (as defined by a player another coach cannot ignore in their own tactical plan. They must adjust their preferred modus operandi).

5. Buendia was under contract. 

None of that is assumption. 
 

Parma 

post script: what I could have added - that I chose not to at the time- is that all players ‘want to leave’ all the time. Or their agents do. Or the club wants to move them. Anyone would move to Real Madrid for triple money at any time. 
 

Thus the commonly-used club statement ‘he wanted to leave’ can be applied to any transfer any time, under any circumstances. And indeed is. 

It does not ‘prove’ that Buendia wanted to leave any more than at any other time, or place. It is a compete football red herring. 

@Monty13

 

Edited August 20, 2022 by Parma Ham's gone mouldy

[Taiwan Canary 144]

I could understand the relinquishment of Emi if it guaranteed the security of a ”Skipp” to go into the season with neither was/is unforgivable. 

[Monty13 2,240]

19 minutes ago, Parma Ham's gone mouldy said:

1. We sold Buendia

2. We sold Buendia at the point of promotion (not after relegation or during a season)

3. Buendia was our best player

4. Buendia was our only weapon (as defined by a player another coach cannot ignore in their own tactical plan. They must adjust their preferred modus operandi).

5. Buendia was under contract. 

None of that is assumption. 
 

Parma 

post script: what I could have added - that I chose not to at the time- is that all players ‘want to leave’ all the time. Or their agents do. Or the club wants to move them. Anyone would move to Real Madrid for triple money at any time. 
 

Thus the commonly-used club statement ‘he wanted to leave’ can be applied to any transfer any time, under any circumstances. And indeed is. 

It does not ‘prove’ that Buendia wanted to leave any more than at any other time, or place. It is a compete football red herring. 

@Monty13

 

Quite. What’s more telling to me is the timings. The idea that the only reason we sold Buendia is because he wanted to leave doesn’t quite fit the timings.

8 May we draw with Barnsley to end the season.

13 May Webber gives his infamous interview basically telling the world our best players are for sale.

End of May (according to Bailey) Norwich start a bidding process for Buendia.

During that bidding Process Buendia makes it clear he wants to move to Villa (again according to Bailey)

So did Buendia between the last game and Webbers clearly pre planned interview (5 days) tell Webber he’d never play for the club?

He said Buendia let them know that at the “end of the season” in his October interview, that doesn’t mean directly on final whistle, we don’t know when that means.

Given Norwich apparently started a bidding process for him more than 3 weeks after the season ended and over 2 weeks after that interview, why did we wait if he already gave us an ultimatum and we accepted it?

Also Bailey says he made it clear to the club during the bidding process he wanted to go to Villa. Brave player to tell the club he’s never going to play again without a solid suitor and that seems like it occurred sometime in June.

I don’t see any reason with what we know to believe Buendia had given the club an ultimatum before Webbers interview, therefore the easy read for me is we unsettled our own player and ultimately we got the sale we intended to even if we’d preferred another player.

Despite protestations I don’t see any evidence that counters that.

[Parma Ham's gone mouldy 2,227]

The timing is the point. We chose to sell an under contract player. At the point of promotion. Our best player. Our only weapon. Everything else is window dressing.

As @Petriix has said it is material because it didn’t work. 

That is material because it was a huge gamble that didn’t have to be made. Given the pivotal nature of events proctor and post-hoc, the ‘why’ we chose to do so IS of historical import.

That gamble is material because it led to Farke’s sacking (not Webber’s)

That is material because @Petriix is proposing that Farke ‘massively over-achieved’ 

That is material because there is further implication that we had an excellent set of circumstances, powerful momentum, weapons.

That is material because we (Webber-Farke..he cannot be absolved) chose to disrupt that against football logic, received wisdom and a cacophony of football voices saying it was a bad idea. 

It didn’t have to be. 

It was. 

These are the business choices we succeed or fail by. No guesses. It didn’t work. 

Buendia went. Pukki was neutered. Skipp wasn’t replaced. 

We bought Tzolis-Rashica-Sargent for £30m. They weren’t good enough at the top level. 

It was a massive season for us. It concretised that our lack of finances was a material hindrance to top flight competitiveness. 

Others may not see correlation, cause-and-effect, football-speak, self-justification. 

Others may make a judgment from the outside. Others may have information from the inside. 

Then Attanasio came. 

Parma 
 

 

 

 

Edited August 20, 2022 by Parma Ham's gone mouldy

[Robert N. LiM 4,457]

5 minutes ago, Parma Ham's gone mouldy said:

Then Attanasio came

🍿

[kirku 1,334]

Good thread, guys - an enjoyable read

[Petriix 2,847]

And yet here we are with 3 Sargent goals in 4 days... Maybe he is becoming a weapon after all?

Nunez. He's got all the attributes of a potential weapon.

It's a funny old game. 

[littleyellowbirdie 2,570]

5 hours ago, Parma Ham's gone mouldy said:

The timing is the point. We chose to sell an under contract player. At the point of promotion. Our best player. Our only weapon. Everything else is window dressing.

As @Petriix has said it is material because it didn’t work. 

That is material because it was a huge gamble that didn’t have to be made. Given the pivotal nature of events proctor and post-hoc, the ‘why’ we chose to do so IS of historical import.

That gamble is material because it led to Farke’s sacking (not Webber’s)

That is material because @Petriix is proposing that Farke ‘massively over-achieved’ 

That is material because there is further implication that we had an excellent set of circumstances, powerful momentum, weapons.

That is material because we (Webber-Farke..he cannot be absolved) chose to disrupt that against football logic, received wisdom and a cacophony of football voices saying it was a bad idea. 

It didn’t have to be. 

It was. 

These are the business choices we succeed or fail by. No guesses. It didn’t work. 

Buendia went. Pukki was neutered. Skipp wasn’t replaced. 

We bought Tzolis-Rashica-Sargent for £30m. They weren’t good enough at the top level. 

It was a massive season for us. It concretised that our lack of finances was a material hindrance to top flight competitiveness. 

Others may not see correlation, cause-and-effect, football-speak, self-justification. 

Others may make a judgment from the outside. Others may have information from the inside. 

Then Attanasio came. 

Parma 
 

 

 

 

No evidence to support that point given that the first Premier League season with Buendia was no more successful than the second Premier League season without Buendia. 

Also, we've no way of knowing what Farke's personal view on the sale was, but we know he will have been consulted and he made no public objections. 

Edited August 20, 2022 by littleyellowbirdie

[AJ 1,224]

9 hours ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

No evidence to support that point given that the first Premier League season with Buendia was no more successful than the second Premier League season without Buendia. 

Also, we've no way of knowing what Farke's personal view on the sale was, but we know he will have been consulted and he made no public objections. 

In fairness Farke had no need to air his opinion in public, Farke’s job was to do the best with he squad he was given. I highly doubt he would have been pleased to lose his best player but equally would probably have been rubbing his hands at the prospect of reinvesting the money into 3 or 4 PL quality players instead of having just one (Pukki). Unfortunately Webber had other ideas….

[littleyellowbirdie 2,570]

1 hour ago, AJ said:

In fairness Farke had no need to air his opinion in public, Farke’s job was to do the best with he squad he was given. I highly doubt he would have been pleased to lose his best player but equally would probably have been rubbing his hands at the prospect of reinvesting the money into 3 or 4 PL quality players instead of having just one (Pukki). Unfortunately Webber had other ideas….

I do wish people would stop trying to sneak in rewrites of history. The club reinvested the money from the sale into the squad; those players were disappointing. That's not having 'other ideas', that's simply having recruitment staff poached at the worst possible moment and not having access to a crystal ball. 

Edited August 21, 2022 by littleyellowbirdie

[AJ 1,224]

28 minutes ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

I do wish people would stop trying to sneak in rewrites of history. The club reinvested the money from the sale into the squad; those players were disappointing. That's not having 'other ideas', that's simply having recruitment staff poached at the worst possible moment and not having access to a crystal ball. 

I'm not trying to sneak rewrites of history. I've openly and consistently criticised that summers recruitment on here in multiple threads. We went for quantity over quality, assumably because we got burned the PL season before by being light on numbers. A decent CDM and a right winger to replace Emi and Skipp were the only positions we needed to recruit top players for and we failed to fill either position. I fully believe spending the entire budget replacing Buendia and Skipp would have been far more productive. Instead the lack of CDM meant we changed system into one which failed to play to our core players strengths, and the rest is history...

 

 

Edited August 21, 2022 by AJ

[littleyellowbirdie 2,570]

Just now, AJ said:

I'm not trying to sneak rewrites of history. I've openly and consistently criticised that summers recruitment on here in multiple threads. We went for quantity over quality, assumably because we got burned the season before by being light on numbers. A decent CDM and a right winger to replace Emi were the only positions we needed to recruit top players for and we failed to fill either position. I fully believe spending the entire budget replacing Buendia and Skipp would have been far more productive. Instead the lack of CDM meant we changed system into one which failed to play to our core players strengths, and the rest is history...

 

 

Two seasons before, we were relegated from the Premier League by a huge margin with Pukki and Buendia in the squad. We needed upgrades across the whole squad to have a chance of Premier League survival.

[Monty13 2,240]

1 hour ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

Two seasons before, we were relegated from the Premier League by a huge margin with Pukki and Buendia in the squad. We needed upgrades across the whole squad to have a chance of Premier League survival.

Upgrades not downgrades, selling Buendia was a massive downgrade however you want to spin it. 

There was very little chance 3x10 million players were going to be collectively better than 1x30+ million one and that proved correct. The idea we needed lots of (cheap) upgrades to give us a better chance is exactly what people are contesting.

We did probably marginally upgrade the quality of the squad last year IMO, but we downgraded the first 11.

[littleyellowbirdie 2,570]

19 minutes ago, Monty13 said:

Upgrades not downgrades, selling Buendia was a massive downgrade however you want to spin it. 

There was very little chance 3x10 million players were going to be collectively better than 1x30+ million one and that proved correct. The idea we needed lots of (cheap) upgrades to give us a better chance is exactly what people are contesting.

We did probably marginally upgrade the quality of the squad last year IMO, but we downgraded the first 11.

We purchased Buendia for £1.35m as one of several prospective players we hoped would turn good, and he did. The massive income generated was used to buy new players who, given that we were generally recruiting for more money individually than we bought Buendia for, should have reasonably been expected to come up with something. It didn't, but that's sometimes how it can work out especially when the recruitment process is holed by key personnel in the recruitment process being poached at the worst possible moment; the criticism you persist with is all very easy to make with the benefit of hindsight. 

In the meantime, we've since recruited more players for far less than we sold Buendia for, some of whom, like Nunez, look very promising indeed. 

Edited August 21, 2022 by littleyellowbirdie

[Monty13 2,240]

Just now, littleyellowbirdie said:

We purchased Buendia for £1.35m as one of several prospective players we hoped would turn good, and he did. The massive income generated was used to buy new players who, given that we were generally recruiting for more than we bought Buendia for, should have reasonably been expected to come up with something. It didn't, but that's sometimes how it can work out; the criticism you persist with is all very easy to make with the benefit of hindsight. 

I criticised the sale at the time and once he’d gone I had the hope of a fan (like most I imagine) that what we bought would work out, it didn’t. People criticising the Buendia sale aren’t doing so only through hindsight and it’s disingenuous to suggest it.

No one’s really criticising about the money, they are criticising the timing and what we did with it.

 

[Parma Ham's gone mouldy 2,227]

A phrase I used at the time was ‘We have traded our weapons (the peaks) for a higher overall player average’. 

We also went against the ‘quality over quantity’ mantra that Webber espoused himself and decided on a very large squad.

I did not believe at the time that this was a good, logical strategy, nor that it fitted our finances, modus operandi, pattern of play or the challenges of the level we were facing. 

£20m on two wingers (when even the very top asides consider themselves too open playing its wingers) and no CDM was extremely jarring proctor hoc. It looked a bad tactical approach. And it was. 

Nobody needs hindsight. Though forecasting correctly is not a crime either. 

It was not ‘right twice a day like a stopped clock’ Trumpianism. It was an historically high material investment that is likely to be a rare opportunity for a self-funding model.

That matters. Getting it right matters. We didn’t. Learning is all about reviewing actions, motivations, tendencies and evaluating choices made.

Football is all about results and outcomes. It is capitalist and red in tooth and claw.

I would be surprised if Webber didn’t agree with every word. He will move on, as he must.
 

Such is professional football. 

Parma 

 

Edited August 21, 2022 by Parma Ham's gone mouldy

[RichardB 0]

You are all, of course, aware that Borussia MG (and Farke) were top of the Bundesliga last night! Or is that another over achievement?

[TheGunnShow 5,983]

15 minutes ago, RichardB said:

You are all, of course, aware that Borussia MG (and Farke) were top of the Bundesliga last night! Or is that another over achievement?

To be fair, they're three games in. Let's look at them again at the end of the season. Bayern away next up, by the way.

[Parma Ham's gone mouldy 2,227]

4 hours ago, Parma Ham's gone mouldy said:

A phrase I used at the time was ‘We have traded our weapons (the peaks) for a higher overall player average’. 

We also went against the ‘quality over quantity’ mantra that Webber espoused himself and decided on a very large squad.

I did not believe at the time that this was a good, logical strategy, nor that it fitted our finances, modus operandi, pattern of play or the challenges of the level we were facing. 

£20m on two wingers (when even the very top asides consider themselves too open playing its wingers) and no CDM was extremely jarring proctor hoc. It looked a bad tactical approach. And it was. 

Nobody needs hindsight. Though forecasting correctly is not a crime either. 

It was not ‘right twice a day like a stopped clock’ Trumpianism. It was an historically high material investment that is likely to be a rare opportunity for a self-funding model.

That matters. Getting it right matters. We didn’t. Learning is all about reviewing actions, motivations, tendencies and evaluating choices made.

Football is all about results and outcomes. It is capitalist and red in tooth and claw.

I would be surprised if Webber didn’t agree with every word. He will move on, as he must.
 

Such is professional football. 

Parma 

 

In assessing @Petriix ‘s premise that ‘Farke over-achieved’ we must of course evaluate the parameters he worked under, his part in the successes and equally his collaboration-culpability levels for the mistakes and failures. 

Something that may be implied through this thread, though is somewhat unsaid, is that it is very, very hard to believe that Farke - or any Manager - would want to sell his best player, only weapon, key creator and facilitator to his striker half-weapon at the point of promotion.  
 

The negative psychological impact on other players, the reaction of agents, families and wider insider football ‘chat’, would be a seismic factor (say versus orthopaedic mattresses, cushions, particular kinds of gym equipment that are all worthy micro-gains). 

I would suggest that ‘football’ broadly delineates wins to head coaches and big sell-successes to sporting directors (we can argue about that assumption of course).

I have stated previously that a less collegiate - one might suggest more wily - Head Coach (say like Smith and Shakespeare) would have made the timing of the Buendia sale a ‘Back-me-or-sack-me’ moment. 

This is because - crudely - Head Coaches get fired on results and Sporting Directors get praised on profits. 

Seliing a Buendia for £35m vs £3.5m outlay rings bells, tills and polishes badges.

(Nota bene: Buendia does actually have to be sold to concretise this win and the brilliance of his finding)

For a Head Coach it just hastens the journey to the exit door. 

What is true is that squaring the circle of willing seller- willing buyer-willing player-willing agent(s)-correct money-agreed payment terms (very different thing)-correct timing is actually quite rare. Thus such an opportunity must and should be carefully considered. The benefits weighed against the risks. 

If all the above are ticked, selling clubs make sure they use the ‘player wanted to leave’ narrative. And of course it is true. Sort of. In that the player does leave, so ‘wanted to’. Note all my caveats above about how this particular factor is almost universally, constantly and permanently true. So ultimately not ever ‘the reason’ for a transfer unless someone is catastrophically appalling (and professional football has spectacularly low standards, massive hypocrisy, deception and half-truths and a fantastically short, pragmatic and Machiavellian memory whenever required. Which is often).

So the question that I think remains unanswered  - and which relates directly to the question of Farke over-achieving or otherwise - is to what degree Farke ‘wanted’ to sell Buendia. 

And to what degree Webber ‘wanted’ to sell Buendia.

And who made the case most fervently that - at that point - it was ‘the best thing for the club’. 

Was it?

Parma 

Edited August 21, 2022 by Parma Ham's gone mouldy

[Petriix 2,847]

I suppose my theory hinges around the notion that Farke's success was more than simply bringing the best out of one player or one partnership but in creating a system which could allow average players to exceed their natural limitations.

By creating an overriding culture of discipline and determination while drilling the players day in, day out to follow the plan with impeccable diligence, Farke allowed the individuals to flourish while mitigating their shortcomings.

While it's obviously fair to say that Buendia was the biggest individual weapon, and indeed half of the Pukki weapon too, there were plenty of other goals in that team. In my mind the bigger weapon was the overall philosophy which was so thoroughly embedded through the club.

A significant (and fair) criticism of Farke was his lack of a 'plan B' and his inability to react to adversity by shaking things up. This is consistent with the theory that 'plan A' was successful precisely because it was so rigidly adhered to.

Now this obviously caused problems when attempting to take it to a higher level. The players were already close to their collective ceiling. Opponents in the top flight were harder to beat: less likely to make the positional errors we exploited so well and more likely to punish our weaknesses. 

It is, therefore, unsurprising that the loss of fans during Covid was a bigger issue for Norwich than for other teams. Confidence and belief were crucial to the continued attempts to 'punch above our weight'.

Selling Buendia is one thing, but you have to consider it as part of a bigger paradigm shift. There was obviously an awareness of the limitations of the squad and that 'plan A' was unlikely to keep us up with that group.

However, here's where the fatal choices were made. There was an opportunity to improve the squad with some key additions while maintaining the overriding philosophy. Instead the system was fundamental changed and this was hardwired by the accompanying recruitment. It was never going to work; at least not immediately.

It's fair to say that Dean Smith has not offered any improvement over Farke's tenure. There are some signs that we're on a path to taking two steps forward after one step back, but nothing that Farke couldn't have done in the same time frame. 

This summer's recruitment appears to be more balanced and more immediately helpful. And some of last summer's recruitment is bearing a little fruit. I still see some gaping holes in key areas of our midfield, although the cracks are beginning to be glossed over as we find our scoring boots.

So how complicit was Farke in the paradigm shift: unknown. But I'm fairly confident that he was pushing back against it by the time he was sacked.

[Robert N. LiM 4,457]

41 minutes ago, Petriix said:

It's fair to say that Dean Smith has not offered any improvement over Farke's tenure. There are some signs that we're on a path to taking two steps forward after one step back, but nothing that Farke couldn't have done in the same time frame.

Agree that any signs of improvement are only very faint at the moment.

But one area where I suspect Smith might end up being an improvement over Farke in terms of making us more competitive in the PL is prioritising effectiveness over possession. DF seemed obsessed with possession. I remember one game near the end of his tenure where despite a poor result he was focusing on the fact we had narrowly dominated possession. It seemed to me to have become a mania. Obviously it worked for us in the Championship, where we could aspire to 70% possession, and be confident that our dominance would lead to wins most of the time. But it wasn't something that was going to be sustainable in the PL where (a) you simply can't expect to dominate possession against the top-half teams and (b) the link between possession and goals is less explicit (by which I mean, it's not how many half-chances you create, it's how many good ones, whether they're from set-pieces, counter-attacks or counter-pressing).

The thing that has seemed most promising to me from the highlights of our games this season (and from watching the whole of the Wigan game) is that we seem to have upped the tempo under Smith, and especially to be counter-pressing more. 

There are obviously loads of caveats to this. It's early days. It's only the championship. We have quite a lot of clear weaknesses. Maybe I'm only seeing what I want to see. Etc etc. But perhaps, perhaps, there are some green shoots of us developing a style that might be more productive for us at a higher level.