Phil McNulty Q&A: Have Man Utd turned a corner? Is Slot under pressure? Will McKenna replace Rodgers?
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‘Clubs can sometimes panic – and quickly’published at 15:10 GMT
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Dan: Hi Phil, there was a time in football (barely one or two
seasons ago) where everyone including managers said, “judge the team after
ten games”. With the situation at Forest and everyone having meltdowns
over Liverpool that seems to have gone out of the window. Why?
Hello, Dan. The days of managers getting two or three seasons
before their work is assessed went out of the window a long time ago. The fear
of relegation, and the financial implications, holds clubs in its icy grip so
decisions are taken much more quickly.
The penalties for failure are so high these days, that clubs can
sometimes panic – and quickly.
I think Forest was a situation where the relationship between the
owner, Evangelos Marinakis, and manager Nuno Espirito Santo had broken down
irretrievably, such a shame after getting into Europe.
Marinakis then made a mistake in going for Ange Postecoglou,
simply because it meant Forest going straight from A to Z in terms of
approach. You could not get a more different style than Postecoglou’s
all-out attack from Nuno’s counter-attacking approach, although Postecoglou was
hardly given a chance to instigate his changes before Forest fans decided he
was not for them.
Now Forest are back to the more conservative, pragmatic approach
of Sean Dyche so let’s see how that works.
As for Liverpool, I think it is a shock to most people’s systems
to see the Premier League champions spend almost £450m then look much worse
than they did last season.
There will be no panic at Liverpool, although head coach Arne Slot
needs to get the team looking more balanced and competitive quickly.
