Ooooh, Rene! The View From South Texas

Yep.
It will happen.
But not this year, if he has any managing capability at all.

Perhaps, or rather .. likely; at the end of season it will be 'Don't walk away Rene!'

 

Looking at the difference in advanced stats for Southampton last season under their two different managers gives me hope that we can still turn this thing around.

 

We're only 3 pts adrift, so if we do all the things you're asking for, we won't be relegated.

 

A couple years ago Timmy posted a study on what happens when a new manager is appointed. If I remember correctly, there is usually a spike in performance in first 5-10 matches then a leveling off to where it was before. Getting rid of MJ was essential, but what the club does or does not do in Jan. is just as important. This can't be a wait until the final day of Jan. and spend 2 million pounds window. Here is the schedule for the next 10 matches thru end of Jan.

Home v Spurs; a draw would be fantastic, but a loss is realistic
Home v Villa; a MUST win
Away to Everton; a loss at Fulham's house of horrors is a guarantee.
Home v Citeh; see Spurs
Away to Norwich; need to get at a result here or at Hull
Away to Hull; see Norwich
Home v Spam: a MUST win
Home v Sunderland; ditto to Spam
Away to Arse; try not to get embarrassed
Away to Swansea; hope Swansea has a Europa game that week

If the lads can get 10-14 points combined w/a good window there will be hope.

 

awesome - nicely done, sir.

and a fine write up, however, I don't think we're quite to 75% down at the moment.

 

For a while there, I didn't understand Don's hatred of Jol. I still don't know if it was actually his tactics, but regardless, he hasn't been able to inspire the squad whatsoever this year and so the last month I have understood the hate and am happy to see him replaced by Rene. The thing is Rene's tactics are fairly similar, it's just a matter of Jol having lost the dressing room. Jol's first two years as our manager were fine and our Whites were actually watchable. We were incredibly Fulhamish and we never knew whether we'd get a 3-0 win or a 3-0 defeat, but at least they had the ability to describe. This year they've been predictable and dull. Even the Swansea game which was far from our poorest performance this season looked pretty bleak. A combination of focusing on my three college football teams being 35-1 and constantly being busy on weekends with either training workshops or out of town have not left me much time to watch Fulham matches and I guess I haven't been missing much.

The head scratcher to me is that we're THIS bad. On paper we should be in our usual safely mediocre 9th-12th range. Yeah, I know we're old and slow- but we do have players with class in them- it's just been seriously lacking this year.

I still don't think we can talk seriously about relegation until February- but we definitely need to shed some of these contracts at the window and get the younger guys on the pitch more. Why not start Kaca and give Dembele some run outs at the end of games, especially when Bent and Berbatov aren't contributing much? I'm just rambling, but I'm glad we have a new manager.... I've got plenty to be excited about now sports-wise, but I miss being excited about Fulham...

~ Steve

 

Welcome back Steve!

Rich over at CCN has wondered the same too. Sure, we're bad on a pts level; and the advanced stats bear out an even bleaker tale. But there's something key missing as to why. Teams of this experience and talent-level (regardless of how depleted or "past it" or whatnot we may be) do not perform as awful as Fulham have without some major elephant in the room. There are certainly anecdotes available, but James Grayson summed it up best on a tweet the other day: "Fulham simply had no control over what happened on the pitch."

 

Players play faster when they are in the right position, know where they're supposed to go and what to do. It's very simple, but it likely speaks to the dropoff in actual v perceived quality so far. It's why the sum of Roy's Fulham teams was greater than it's parts. I do think they live on past laurels to an extent, but they shouldn't be this bad.

That write up Tim mentioned by Rich is one of his better ones. Here's the link:

http://cravencottagenewsround.wordpress.com/2013/12/02/martin-jol-sacked-reaction/