Could Farke have turned it around?

[Number9 272]

4 minutes ago, Thirsty Lizard said:

Just a little tip on life. If you'd come back and said "Oh yeah, my mistake, I'd forgotten that Wagner did a fantastic job in keeping Huddersfield up in the Premier League in their first season" everybody would have forgotten about it and moved on.

When you're in a hole, stop digging.

Hahaha, oh yeah, my mistake, what I've seen from Wagner over the past year was clearly an optical illusion.

And Uddersfield are in the Premier League 

[lake district canary 4,533]

Farke was much more important to this club than some people realise. The football he brought was at times breathtakingly good. Even without Buendia in the team we were capable of fluent and purringly beautiful football, even if we didn't always win. It wasn't like that all the time of course and the PL was always going to be a difficult task, but even then we were described in glowing terms in that first season up there. Then came covid which ruined things for us. But even then he turned it round the following season, producing the best ever of our championship teams......only to be sacked 11 games later in favour of......well......nothing in particular. 

Should simply have been kept on, rode out that season, whatever it brought and rebuilt again in similar style - much as Burnley will do with Kompany. We would be in a better place now if he had stayed. Sacked because of other people's failings, that is the real truth - and he's showing that at Leeds now. Yes they've got a good squad, but they still need to be led and he is a good leader - and the Leeds fans are besotted with him. 

Smith, meh, Wagner - under the criteria of sacking Farke, should have gone months ago. Farke was a man for all seasons and Webber sacked him for nothing, or rather the vain hope that someone else could do better, without realising that the best bet was probably to remain strong and keep the man that helped give him his reputation in the first place. 

 

[Ulfotto 635]

53 minutes ago, king canary said:

The most comparable clubs to us are, in my view, Brentford and Bournemouth

I would take a gander at https://www.soccerbase.com/teams/team.sd?team_id=359&teamTabs=transfers

before saying we are similar to Bournemouth eye watering some of money spend and Nathan Ake apart little coming in.

[Google Bot 3,278]

I think Farke would've improved things but not to the level of keeping us up which was the aim.

Comparing it to Wagner is completely different though, as both of Wagner's poor runs have come where we have suffered major injuries.  And we're not talking having one key player out, we're talking 3-4.

It's no coincidence that we're back in form as players are returning.  If Farke was missing so many key players then he would've been given more time (imo).

[Barham Blitz 653]

In a sense the wrong question is being asked - If you are asking if Farke could have kept that team up, with the quality we let go and the (largely) dross that we signed, playing to a largely alien set of footballing principles, then even as a Farke fan I'd have to say no.  IMO that was a summer of terrible recruitment decisions to follow a flawed tactical approach that was more about pandering to Webbers' self-image as some form of footballing King Midas than anything rooted in reality.  It just wasn't necessary.

Could he have kept them up with Emi and Skipp and a couple of judicious recruitments instead ?  Probably not, but possibly.  There were signs of a far more pragmatic approach - albeit one within the wider context of Farkeball - that 2nd promotion season.  Would he have done any worse than Smith ended up doing that season ?  I'd say probably not given the fixtures we'd already got out of the way.  Would he have done better than the combination of Smith and Wagner last season ?  Probably.

All hypothetical examples of confirmation bias anyway.  But I suspect that whatever the outcome it would probably have been more fun than life under Smith and Wagner has been and we wouldn't have signed Shane Duffy ... 

[Barham Blitz 653]

2 hours ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

If, by 'it', you mean could Daniel Farke have arrested our absolutely dire performance in the Premier League that were on course to surpass the disastrous whole season in the Premier League with what most people view as a better squad, then definitely not.

Spot on.  If by most people you mean you and Stu Webber ...

 

[Rolf Harris 31]

1 hour ago, lake district canary said:

Farke was much more important to this club than some people realise. The football he brought was at times breathtakingly good. Even without Buendia in the team we were capable of fluent and purringly beautiful football, even if we didn't always win. It wasn't like that all the time of course and the PL was always going to be a difficult task, but even then we were described in glowing terms in that first season up there. Then came covid which ruined things for us. But even then he turned it round the following season, producing the best ever of our championship teams......only to be sacked 11 games later in favour of......well......nothing in particular. 

Should simply have been kept on, rode out that season, whatever it brought and rebuilt again in similar style - much as Burnley will do with Kompany. We would be in a better place now if he had stayed. Sacked because of other people's failings, that is the real truth - and he's showing that at Leeds now. Yes they've got a good squad, but they still need to be led and he is a good leader - and the Leeds fans are besotted with him. 

Smith, meh, Wagner - under the criteria of sacking Farke, should have gone months ago. Farke was a man for all seasons and Webber sacked him for nothing, or rather the vain hope that someone else could do better, without realising that the best bet was probably to remain strong and keep the man that helped give him his reputation in the first place. 

 

We were cr@p without Buendia.

[komakino 272]

Given the situation at the time, NO. 

If he had been backed financially and had his player targets met, YES. 

 

 

[Christoph Stiepermann 1,138]

Have any team who plays possession football survived after being promoted since Swansea in 2011? Farke is a good manager, a great coach and he was fantastic for us, but his style of football does not work if you're one of the weakest teams in whatever league you're in. So no, I don't think he'd have turned it around. I think in the next game Southampton would have pressed us off the park and stopped us playing and in the next game Wolves would have just sat back and ripped us apart on the counter like most teams did against us under Farke in that league. We only got results in those two games because Smith changed things and I don't think they were expecting us to do what we did in those games but under Farke we would have been really predictable and with their better quality and pragmatic approach they would have beaten us easily and fans would have been calling for him to be sacked like they were before the Brentford game. 

Don't get me wrong I think if we stuck with him we'd be in a much better place now, but there was no way that was going to happen, things would have gotten really toxic as we limped into another dour, soul destroying relegation and fans would have been totally against him so it's a moot point, the club would have had to sack him at some point. We had to try something different, it didn't work but we had to give survival that year a go. We know now that the players weren't good enough and that the new signings were awful but at the time I think it was pretty reasonable to say that even with our lack of quality our slow build up play, lack of counter attacking/set piece threat and poor defensive structure really wasn't helping things and we had to do something about it even if longer term it's put us in a worse position. 

Edited December 15, 2023 by Christoph Stiepermann

[littleyellowbirdie 2,551]

13 minutes ago, Rolf Harris said:

We were cr@p without Buendia.

At Premier League level, we were crap with Buendia as well.

 

[Worthy Nigelton 1,051]

3 hours ago, Number9 said:

Farke = Wagner in that neither of them can see a way to build & set up a team for the Premier League 

Wagner kept Huddersfield up and Farke had one and a quarter seasons, with only £750k spent in that first season. We'll see how he does with Leeds if/when he gets them up. I have a feeling many on here will have to eat their words regarding Farke and the Premier League.

[nutty nigel 7,537]

There was a poll at the time. 

Most of the posts said he couldn't turn it around. 

I would have kept him. But I'm a clapper. Haven't changed my mind though.

 

Edited December 15, 2023 by nutty nigel

[repman 635]

The one consistent thing under Farke was that we were never good defensively. In the championship this was ok as we had better quality players compared to the rest of the division which meant we could still win games. In the PL that wasn't the case and I'm not sure ever will be. There's no way we could get promoted and then have a set of players good enough to play Farke's style at that level in one season, it's something that might be achievable over time but it's certainly a fine balance to strike. Good example is Brighton, who after sacking Hughton finished 15th and 16th under Potter with 41 points both times. They just about managed to keep themselves afloat while developing a more progressive style of play. 

As has already been said on this thread, Farke's Leeds team already look better than we ever did off the ball. I haven't seen much of them but against Leicester they were superb in their pressing. After being sacked from his last 2 jobs I think it's likely he may have reflected on what went wrong and where to improve. It's a shame he didn't do that at Norwich, and it's easy to speculate as to why but I doubt we'll never know. I remember at the time the reports coming out suggesting that Webber felt everyone was a bit too comfortable and accepting of us getting relegated again. I'm not sure the decision that Webber made was the right one but I can certainly understand the logic of it. In isolation it made perfect sense, but if you view it as sack Farke to appoint Dean Smith then it becomes less so.

[Capt. Pants 4,246]

Highly unlikely given the 19pt gap between us and 17th.

Wagner's Huddersfield survived with 37pts, but would still have been relegated in 2021/22 with that points tally as Leeds finished 17th with 42.

I still find it a bit odd that some like to stick the boot in on Farke. Perhaps they feel they are being more supportive to the current set up by doing that?

 

[nutty nigel 7,537]

1 minute ago, Capt. Pants said:

Highly unlikely given the 19pt gap between us and 17th.

Wagner's Huddersfield survived with 37pts, but would still have been relegated in 2021/22 with that points tally as Leeds finished 17th with 42.

I still find it a bit odd that some like to stick the boot in on Farke. Perhaps they feel they are being more supportive to the current set up by doing that?

 

Totally agree with that. Same thing happened with Worthy.

What's wrong with showing a bit more patience. Especially to a manager that's had success.

The truth is there was only a season and a half where Farke was loved. Plus the non season behind closed doors.

[norfolkngood 1,087]

We will never Know but the Recruitment that summer has proved to be poor  it was reported Farke wanted a couple of quality signings  Webber went for quantity ,

how close were we from doing a Brentford ?

i think maybe another season with a couple of quality signings each window ?

 

[Sufyellow 222]

4 hours ago, king canary said:

The question is nonsense though- Farke was given loads of faith! He got a whole season to get his system in place and then the chance to bounce back after losing 10 on the spin to finish the season.

The idea Wagner has been shown more faith than Farke doesn't make any sense.

What season was that? Was that the season before his 2 best players left ?

[Wings of a Sparrow 1,418]

If ifs and buts were candy and nuts...

[Fen Canary 829]

10 hours ago, lake district canary said:

Farke was much more important to this club than some people realise. The football he brought was at times breathtakingly good. Even without Buendia in the team we were capable of fluent and purringly beautiful football, even if we didn't always win. It wasn't like that all the time of course and the PL was always going to be a difficult task, but even then we were described in glowing terms in that first season up there. Then came covid which ruined things for us. But even then he turned it round the following season, producing the best ever of our championship teams......only to be sacked 11 games later in favour of......well......nothing in particular. 

Should simply have been kept on, rode out that season, whatever it brought and rebuilt again in similar style - much as Burnley will do with Kompany. We would be in a better place now if he had stayed. Sacked because of other people's failings, that is the real truth - and he's showing that at Leeds now. Yes they've got a good squad, but they still need to be led and he is a good leader - and the Leeds fans are besotted with him. 

Smith, meh, Wagner - under the criteria of sacking Farke, should have gone months ago. Farke was a man for all seasons and Webber sacked him for nothing, or rather the vain hope that someone else could do better, without realising that the best bet was probably to remain strong and keep the man that helped give him his reputation in the first place. 

 

https://theathletic.com/2374414/2021/02/09/analysed-norwich-city-without-emi-buendia/?amp=1
 

We were atrocious without Buendia. Even in the 2nd tier (albeit from a small sample size) our form without him was relegation material 

[Mason 47 1,382]

The fanbase was starting to turn, the win against Brentford wouldn't have put that off for long. There's always a chance of things clicking but even then I think by the end of the season having inevitably dropped we'd have parted ways regardless. 

I would have liked to see the end of that story, even still. Wagner is different as the club is at a very different stage of the cycle currently. 

[Sufyellow 222]

11 hours ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

If, by 'it', you mean could Daniel Farke have arrested our absolutely dire performance in the Premier League that were on course to surpass the disastrous whole season in the Premier League with what most people view as a better squad, then definitely not.

If you mean could he have got us another promotion, possibly, but thuat misses the point of why he was sacked. Too many were not content to be a yoyo club, which is why he had to go while there was still a chance that someone could have turned it around. It was a situation where there was nothing to lose by trying a different manager.

And, it has to be said that Dean Smith did better for us in the Premier League in terms of points per game for us than Farke did, not to mention his history elsewhere or having achieved Premier League promotion and Premier League survival that Farke doesn't have.

Yep he only got a hundred million plus to farkes 3 million.  Then someone had to forget to turn on the goal line technology to save them. Smith was brought in to keep us up he failed to do that and he failed to make us into a team.  

[Sufyellow 222]

11 hours ago, The Great Mass Debater said:

A characteristic of many a great team, to play until the final whistle

Amazing isn't it , considering he apparently didn't have a plan b.

[Sufyellow 222]

11 hours ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

I've got to be honest, much as I like him, I'm hoping Farke fails, just to shut people up about him. Fair play to him if he succeeds though.

It still won't prove you right. 

[Petriix 2,839]

It's a ridiculous question because no manager in the world could have got that rabble to stay up. People love to convince themselves that Farke deserved to be sacked due to his poor Premier League record but I think it's a ridiculous stance to take. As far as I'm concerned, the squad which won the Championship twice was really only an upper mid-table team which massively over performed thanks in no small part to Farke's coaching. 

Farke was never the problem. The real issue was that the players (collectively) weren't ever up to Premier League survival. Unfortunately they were rewarded for promotion with excessive contracts and supplemented by journeymen. Our (Webber's) squad management in the Premier League seasons was awful.

So, in an alternative reality where Webber resigned after that Brentford win and Farke remained in place, we wouldn't be looking at survival but we would have returned to the joys of Farkeball and be in a far better place at this point in time.

I imagine we'd have at least made the playoffs last season and generally been in a more positive mindset. We wouldn't have seen those awful winless runs and we'd not be seeing the weird team selections.

I'm hoping that we've now turned a corner so it could be irrelevant anyway, but I'd massively prefer to have retained Farke for the long term. We gained nothing from sacking him other than to satisfy the whims of those with too little intelligence to value what we had. It's only a false sense of entitlement that makes people think that a new manager could have improved us. 

[Sufyellow 222]

9 hours ago, Christoph Stiepermann said:

Have any team who plays possession football survived after being promoted since Swansea in 2011? Farke is a good manager, a great coach and he was fantastic for us, but his style of football does not work if you're one of the weakest teams in whatever league you're in. So no, I don't think he'd have turned it around. I think in the next game Southampton would have pressed us off the park and stopped us playing and in the next game Wolves would have just sat back and ripped us apart on the counter like most teams did against us under Farke in that league. We only got results in those two games because Smith changed things and I don't think they were expecting us to do what we did in those games but under Farke we would have been really predictable and with their better quality and pragmatic approach they would have beaten us easily and fans would have been calling for him to be sacked like they were before the Brentford game. 

Don't get me wrong I think if we stuck with him we'd be in a much better place now, but there was no way that was going to happen, things would have gotten really toxic as we limped into another dour, soul destroying relegation and fans would have been totally against him so it's a moot point, the club would have had to sack him at some point. We had to try something different, it didn't work but we had to give survival that year a go. We know now that the players weren't good enough and that the new signings were awful but at the time I think it was pretty reasonable to say that even with our lack of quality our slow build up play, lack of counter attacking/set piece threat and poor defensive structure really wasn't helping things and we had to do something about it even if longer term it's put us in a worse position. 

I think you have forgotten what happened in the Southampton game . Smith started with Gilmour and Cantwell,  the 2 players the fans who wanted farke out ,wanted in the team.  Southampton should have been 3 or 4 up at half time , then smith went back to farkes team the week before in the second half.  

[Sufyellow 222]

9 hours ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

At Premier League level, we were crap with Buendia as well.

 

One season with a team of youngsters and a load of misfits who had no right to even win the league.  To play in a season where we stopped and started again without fans . With a 3 million investment. We are a mid championship club , that is it . 

[duke63 542]

Never quite sure why people want to live in the past. 
We were generally atrocious in the EPL under Farke. 

[Sufyellow 222]

15 minutes ago, Petriix said:

It's a ridiculous question because no manager in the world could have got that rabble to stay up. People love to convince themselves that Farke deserved to be sacked due to his poor Premier League record but I think it's a ridiculous stance to take. As far as I'm concerned, the squad which won the Championship twice was really only an upper mid-table team which massively over performed thanks in no small part to Farke's coaching. 

Farke was never the problem. The real issue was that the players (collectively) weren't ever up to Premier League survival. Unfortunately they were rewarded for promotion with excessive contracts and supplemented by journeymen. Our (Webber's) squad management in the Premier League seasons was awful.

So, in an alternative reality where Webber resigned after that Brentford win and Farke remained in place, we wouldn't be looking at survival but we would have returned to the joys of Farkeball and be in a far better place at this point in time.

I imagine we'd have at least made the playoffs last season and generally been in a more positive mindset. We wouldn't have seen those awful winless runs and we'd not be seeing the weird team selections.

I'm hoping that we've now turned a corner so it could be irrelevant anyway, but I'd massively prefer to have retained Farke for the long term. We gained nothing from sacking him other than to satisfy the whims of those with too little intelligence to value what we had. It's only a false sense of entitlement that makes people think that a new manager could have improved us. 

Thank you , summed it up perfectly.  

[lake district canary 4,533]

1 minute ago, duke63 said:

Never quite sure why people want to live in the past. 
We were generally atrocious in the EPL under Farke. 

We were atrocious in the PL because we didn't have good enough players or enough money to get them. So Farke, who was the manager that got us to the PL TWICE, was the scapegoat for the situation of the club as a whole. Webber was never going to sack himself and therein lies the problem. People in power nearly always find someone below them who can take the blame. 

[duke63 542]

49 EPL games, 6 wins, conceded over 100 goals and only scored 30ish? That would take a massive change in direction to turn it around. And a completely different playing style. 

Great manager in the Championship, not a clue at the highest level. 

It will be interesting to see what happens if he gets Leeds promoted.