A bit OTT, don’t you think? FWIW the abuse is stupid and I hate it whether it’s players, managers or whatever. Human beings ffs.
Anyway, he did the job asked of him in the first season and did it effectively with enthusiasm and professionalism. He got the plaudits accordingly. This achievement got him the Leicester job, no question, and nobody is taking away from that.
Second season, however, excuses aside, he brought a bitterness to the job that without doubt contributed to our results in multiple ways and I can see it in his tone with Leicester already. There will always be an argument he was shafted and I’m the first to point that out, but I don’t think the way he held himself as the manager this year was good at all. He didn’t rise, he dragged the ship down. When all was said and done in the summer, he still had 25-odd players to whip in to shape and didn’t do it over months. We barely looked any better in December than we did on the opening day. That’s on him.
He’s not that impressive. He’s stubborn and won’t adapt. There’s a calling for that in clubs that get wedded to “playing the right way” and actually just need to do the basics for a bit. But there’s managers doing more with less out there and now he’s got the riches of players he cried for and can’t produce there either.
I’ll say it again, our biggest mistake of all this season (among may) was keeping a checked-out manager as long as we did. We shouldn’t have rocked the boat with him at all, but once we did we should’ve seen the red flags and moved on.
