Monday Feb 12:
Reports today say Postecoglu won't be joining us at the end of the season. In other news, I can confirm that I won't be taking up a membership at Augusta National. Seriously, how the fuck is he even being linked with the job? Because he's a fan? So are all of you reading this and you won't be getting the job either. Ok, I'm being flippant as he's clearly got something about him, but that's not anywhere near enough to be qualified for this job. If we appointed him I'd be fucking livid. I don't care for that guy.
I've been watching loads of tactical analysis videos of Alonso's Leverkusen and I'm all in on this. I was even before I'd seen all the tactical stuff, but that was based on the fact he's Xabi Alonso, he's top of the Bundesliga and he's taken a team from 2nd bottom to being unbeaten in all comps this season. I knew very little about how he'd done it.
Now that I've seen what he's actually doing, fucking hell. It's proper high end, ahead of the game shit. He's not unbeaten because he's got the best players, it's because he's got the best tactics and motivational skills. Some of his key players were free transfers like Xhaka and Grimaldo. He's got another lad who was at Southampton and Burnley and pulled up no trees. He hasn't done this by buying boss players, he's done it by coaching.
There was another team that took it to Bayern Munich in similar fashion in recent times. You might be familiar with their manager.... This is the biggest no brainer decision any club could ever make. Don't overthink it, this is just so obvious.
Of course there's risk involved and none of us can know how it would turn out, but there's risk with any appointment as there are never any guarantees. You just have to make the decision that gives you the best chance of success, that's all you can do. And if it doesn't work, there's no regrets because you made what was the best decision you could have made at that time with all of the information available to you.
It's almost like the NFL draft in some ways. The Bears have the number one pick this year and there are a lot of arguments going on about what they should do. There's a quarterback available who is being touted as a generational talent and half the teams in the league would kill to get him. He might turn out to be a flop, but if you don't take him you'll always be kicking yourself in case he becomes what the experts are saying he could be.
We're in that unique situation this summer. We've basically got the number one pick in the draft as we're in a position where we can choose ANY manager we want (nobody is turning down this job, it's the most attractive available job in the world other than maybe Real Madrid, but I just don't see Xabi wanting to join them over us at this point in his career). Alonso is the clear stand out star of the draft, yet you've got people suggesting we pass on him and take De Zerbi, the Sporting fella or even Eddie fucking Howe (ok, that was Agbonlahor who said that so it doesn't count).
If we took anybody else other than Alonso the risk would be much bigger than giving it to him and it's a decision we might live to regret forever. Like when the Bears traded up to draft Mitch Trubisky instead of Patrick Mahomes. It takes years to recover from mistakes like that.
Recommended Comments