If we sack him in my view the cycle will just repeat. This is where I think we are fundamentally different and why there’s no agreement in this debate.
I don’t think any manager would get anything decent out of these players. Ancelotti was trying everything and even he had ended up playing a horrible 5 at the back and hoping to nick a point and by the end even that wasn’t working.
So for me the manager at the moment is a complete irrelevance. If we fire him, that’s just a stay of execution for these rubbish players and less money for us to replace them.
I am convinced this group isn’t capable of getting European football, so for me the difference between us limping into 9th with a fake new manager bounce or disinhibition 12-15th retaining the current manager is neither here nor there this season. If we get a new manager then Coleman Keane and co will have him under a bus before the Jan window next season anyway.
So for me my main concern is to get these players out. Arguably not firing Benitez prior to this window has allowed us to close on Mykolenko and Patterson early on and will hopefully see some exits. Had we fired him then in the uncertainty some players who need to go will have survived. Perked up the second half of the season to ensure they don’t go over the summer, then go about getting another manager fired next year.
Time to break the cycle. There’s no dreamworld where a Kovac or similar comes in mid season and gets the useless lard arses in our team doing anything, they can barely pass a ball this lot. They’re like no other squad in the league I know of, just a bunch of apathetic cowards happy to cower behind successive sacked managers. Get them out.
Well, i worry the cycle will continue as well. But that doesn't mean we should stick with this man, does it? Just because the owner has made previous bad choices (with this one being the worst) doesn't mean we can alleviate Benitez of blame, and say he should be here. He shouldn't be. The owner needs to take accountability and a strong DoF who knows the British footballing system/culture (I don't think Brands did, I think he was too relaxed, I said that from the start, I think he thought he could get away with cutting the squad/leaving it short and that we'd be fine like you would be in the Netherlands, and also found his hands tied too).
Then, Moshiri needs to leave that DoF to it. The board need to instruct said DoF what type of football is needed, and the DoF needs to go out and hire people and players to bring that model to life.
I don't think this team is capable of European football either although we were extremely close last season and if not for some ludicrously bad results in the last few weeks, we'd have got it. How have we gone from that to now being in real danger of a relegation scrap? The squad is largely the same.
The manager is not an irrelevance. We sacked the DoF because of results ON the pitch. For Brands' faults, he is not responsible for setting the team up, he is not responsible for persisting with systems that don't work, or playing Seamus Coleman at LWB out of stubbornness to play the only available LB in the squad, for example.
I and others are not asking for Man City or Liverpool quality or style. We expect better than what has been served up this season, which has been dross.
I hope the 2nd half of the season is better. But the argument of the club needing stability does not stand up when Benitez is not a manager that has ever been at a 'stable' club, because he isn't a manager who has ever had or encouraged stability. He falls out with players, owners, medical staff, DoFs.... That's not based on his time here btw (though he has done 2 of the 4 already), but over the course of his career. Why do you think a man who famously likes to rock the boat (which people who laud over him or back him have actually said btw - I know for certain posters on here have said that's exactly what we need in a manager in this situation) is the man to be here and be 'stable'?
