The dude understands football mate, his recruitment bar McNeill is very good, right blend of combos youth and experience, in the right areas, football 101, get solid and and play the margins. Box ticked.
Coaching Wise he’s improved a lot of the players, how he turned Iwobi into a player is staggering, young Flash has kicked on and almost everyone else.
Man management, the team has desire and wants to play for him, we haven’t had that since Bobertos first season. He’s won the crowd over as well and everyone is pulling in the same direction.
To my mind, its the manager peice, recognising when the game needs an intervention, when you need to change to control a game and when you need to take the sting out of it to get a result. He seems to keep the foot on the throttle or over trusts players when a change seems it would change the dynamic.
We won the game today by luck and the seat of our pants, we lost control of the game after the second goal, other teams won’t be so kind. His approach will I think prove to be a bit boom and bust as we go on, just my take and all that said it’s part of his development.
Today is an example we lost control of the game after the second goal, much could have been done from the bench to regain a foot hold, thats the area he needs to improve. Say it was Moyes we know what he would have done. Another day against different opposition, we loose or draw today given how the game unfolded.
Also agree we need a central playmaker or really any playmaker who can mix it up, we weren’t going to do all in one window and Garner may be that solider also, so it’s not a dead Mouse I’d leave at his door just yet. But what we do will be worked out in short order and going direct or banging in crosses will get you so far only as teams work us out and adjust.