Wagner and Huddersfield

[BroadstairsR 2,195]

2 hours ago, Capt. Pants said:

Smith was hired to keep us in the EPL and if that didn't work he was best placed to get us back up. It didn't work, the football was terrible.

Wagner was hired to improve the football and consolidate a play-off position. We're only broadly competitive at the top end of the table, the football is terrible.

Yes, a poison chalice to follow Farke but crikey are we making a mess of it. Time for change. 

Exactly, which is why I think we should follow the Binner lead (just the once) and appoint a young unknown with new and up-to-date approach. The thinking presumably behind the Knapper appointment.

Might as well go the whole hog, distance ourselves from being "Jurassic Road" (manager, players, owners) and become Carrow Road again.

We have a training ground with advance facilities on an equal to most and a superb Academy One based youth system in place.

Let us replicate this in the boardroom, the management team and the playing staff. Not forgetting the embarrassing and out datedly expensive Main Stand.

It might be easier than it would seem as Annatasio clearly accepts the mantra of the need to speculate to accumulate, bringing in new investors and knows and accepts the principle that calculated borrowing may be necessary for a successful business (massive support for a start) to expand even though he probably doesn't even know how to boil an egg or bake a cake.

Edited January 9 by BroadstairsR

[Ulfotto 641]

34 minutes ago, Thirsty Lizard said:

Scoring more goals than the opposition is the object of the game. Bit weird to call that 'luck'. 

Spot on I remember a very similar statistic about single goal victories did the rounds when we won the championship in 21/22. 
 

I don’t think many parallel can be drawn between Wagner then and Wagner now. When he pitched up at Huddersfield he had fresh ideas and was able by having a better plan and coaching beat teams with better individual players. For whatever reason he has lost his spark or teams are able to combat his ideas better.

Wagner is on a hiding to nothing. Clearly after he failed to gain promotion last season and Webber resigned both should have been replaced before this season started so the rebuild could start in earnest. We didn’t appoint a new sporting director until November and now are stuck in a holding pattern until the end of the year with the season all but written off. I’m actually quite confused what would happen if by some miracle Wagner got us promoted. 

[king canary 7,653]

51 minutes ago, Thirsty Lizard said:

Scoring more goals than the opposition is the object of the game. Bit weird to call that 'luck'. 

I'm not saying it's all luck but lets be honest- they finished 5th, with a negative goal difference, didn't actually win a game in the playoffs (three draws, semi-final and final decided on penalties, their only goal in those 3 games was on own goal) and nearly 90% of their wins were by a single goal. For all that to fall into place in one season there is clearly an element of luck involved, more so than most other promotions.

[BobLoz3 494]

23 hours ago, Ulfotto said:

I can’t believe that after the last 2 and a half seasons people expect more from this squad. We are a mid table championship squad end of.

 

You could have said that when Farke was here, when we bought all the "second rate Germans" as many put it. We managed to get promoted because we had a clinical striker and some creative midfielders and attacking players. But nobody thought we'd go up and lots of people got fed up of the "sideways and backwards" game that Farke employed. We won a bunch of games though and the squad turned out to be better than many had thought.

Right now I don't think our squad looks that bad on paper. But we're massively underperforming. 

[Ulfotto 641]

36 minutes ago, king canary said:

I'm not saying it's all luck but lets be honest- they finished 5th, with a negative goal difference, didn't actually win a game in the playoffs (three draws, semi-final and final decided on penalties, their only goal in those 3 games was on own goal) and nearly 90% of their wins were by a single goal. For all that to fall into place in one season there is clearly an element of luck involved, more so than most other promotions.

And again kept them up the following season, It was clearly more than just things falling into place.

[Ulfotto 641]

7 minutes ago, BobLoz3 said:

You could have said that when Farke was here, when we bought all the "second rate Germans" as many put it. We managed to get promoted because we had a clinical striker and some creative midfielders and attacking players. But nobody thought we'd go up and lots of people got fed up of the "sideways and backwards" game that Farke employed. We won a bunch of games though and the squad turned out to be better than many had thought.

Right now I don't think our squad looks that bad on paper. But we're massively underperforming. 

100 times no, by and large this squad bombed in the premier league, then finished the very definition of mid table in the championship and are on course to repeat that feat. The level is mid table championship.

We have some good individual players but I look at the majority of the squad and wonder would they really want to return to the premier league.

[Faded Jaded Semi Plastic SOB 1,036]

23 hours ago, Robert N. LiM said:

NCFC finished 3rd in the inaugural Premier League with a negative goal difference, so it's definitely possible.

The 7-1 defeat at Blackburn probably had a lot to do with that..........

[Thirsty Lizard 3,171]

2 hours ago, king canary said:

I'm not saying it's all luck but lets be honest- they finished 5th, with a negative goal difference, didn't actually win a game in the playoffs (three draws, semi-final and final decided on penalties, their only goal in those 3 games was on own goal) and nearly 90% of their wins were by a single goal. For all that to fall into place in one season there is clearly an element of luck involved, more so than most other promotions.

What about staying in the Premier League the following season when everybody just assumed that they would be relegated? Was that luck too?

I'm conflicted on Wagner - on the one hand I find a number of his decisions strange - on the other it has to be admitted that we were flying at the beginning of the season when we had most of the squad fit and that since then we've been crucified by injuries. But all this going back and rewriting his past like something in the 1930's Soviet Union seems perverse - even for this message board. 

[Capt. Pants 4,271]

The year Huddersfield survived in the EPL Burnley and Everton were top 10. Probably tells you all you need to know about the quality of the league then.

Huddersfield and Wagner were right place right time. The following season they were shocking and Wagner's career has pretty much nose dived ever since.

[Google Bot 3,298]

Webber was a big part of Wagner's success at Huddersfield, just as Farke was blessed with that initial recruitment drive that bought us Pukki, Buendia etc.

We know Webber is a disrupter, and somewhat self destructs longer term.  Question is, are Wagner's recent failings more down to taking jobs at clubs that are on the spiral vs a team like Huddersfield who were bouncing around lower/mid-table with little expectations?

We're a decent club to come manage, but also a very tough ask for any coach walking into this club right now.

In fact, Knapper is already getting it from certain angles and he's barely stepped foot in the door and we know he's got a lot of learning to do.   But there seems to be no allowance for change or transition, even despite the injury woes we've had.

I don't doubt Wagner's a good coach, but in this environment he struggles, and this is why you hear Delia calling out the 20% because they know with the right mindset it can turn things around - trouble is, we're all a little too weathered now.

[king canary 7,653]

2 hours ago, Thirsty Lizard said:

What about staying in the Premier League the following season when everybody just assumed that they would be relegated? Was that luck too?

I'm conflicted on Wagner - on the one hand I find a number of his decisions strange - on the other it has to be admitted that we were flying at the beginning of the season when we had most of the squad fit and that since then we've been crucified by injuries. But all this going back and rewriting his past like something in the 1930's Soviet Union seems perverse - even for this message board. 

I'm not rewriting anything, behave.

Everything I've posted is facts about their promotion season. There is a reason teams don't often go up with negative goal differences or win so many games by a single goal- because you need a lot of things to go right for you to make it happen. It isn't revisionist to point that out. I'm not saying it was all luck- he clearly did very well to take a team that had been struggling before his arrival to the Premier League in such a short time but it isn't unreasonable to point out the pretty unique set of circumstances he needed for it to happen. 

It is notable that in their Premier League season they actually won more games (4) by more than a single goal than they did the season before.