I’ve said that he should be getting more from them.
But my point stands; the board is far bigger issue than the manager in the long run
I agree they've made a mess of recruitment. I've disagreed from the outset with every managerial appointment except Silva. I didn't think any of them were the right fit for the club and in every case I thought better managers were available at the time.
With hindsight, the appointment of Walsh and Koeman together, and the subsequent massive overspending on midfielders was the big mistake that we've never really recovered from. Give the board a break - they appointed - in their view - the best people available. Almost everyone on here approved of Walsh when he was appointed and a majority were pleased with Koeman (I know there was loads of moaning afterwards - that's different). It didn't work, and everything since then has been either firefighting or an overreaction to previous mistakes.
I'm incredibly wary of all this blame the board. It's too easy and fans of all clubs do it. Spurs fans have been calling for Levy's head ffs. They've built one of the best stadiums in the world, got one of the top managers, a great squad. What more can he do without bankrupting the club?
In their defence, we're building an amazing stadium we've needed for decades. That's a huge achievement for a club with our finances.
I do based on a comment he made last season that benitez was sitting him down to improve him also and it hasn't seen any real improvement beyond a small patch of form. One thing I have learned watching this side these past several years is that without a footballing brain many players struggle no matter how much talent they have. We have signed a lot of players who have made up the bulk of the squad now that lack this brain , that they know how to play football but in a team game, play direct for themselves.
One improvement I've seen this season with lampard is that last year the wingers often didn't know where to be and played in each others space but how stay in their own lane so to speak. Without an end product to speak of though it's ineffective and renders the striker spending more time in midfield than having chances created for them. Even putting lewen in there the plan is to play crosses but without the quality to deliver them, or the knowhow to play that rather than directly on the ground.
We can't play deep as we have no outlet , have no set piece threat and no brain to play to a striker on the counter. The biggest thing that's an issue for lampard and whoever we replace him with is how often chances start against us around the opposition box. We don't have the players who look to keep attacking, a simple needless ball sidewards instead of forward seems to cost us more and more. No matter who the manager is you can't stop a player doing that or switching off for that moment in defence. So it's these issues that build up that are our biggest problem and away from a complete replacement of the forward line which we cannot do now, these issues won't go away. It will keep costing us and it comes back to that footballing brain that many of these players lack but the same one that managers such as pep look for to drill tactics into them.
Fair enough. I wasn't aware of that comment. It still surprises me that if these things are being coached why we don't see him giving these instructions during the match. Like why doesn't he shout at the players during the match not to punt it high into Maupay when they keep doing it? Why does he make like for like substitutions (no earlier than 70 minutes) even though we can all see after 15 that the game plan isn't working? Anyone who's working closely with players on their individual roles should be doing that. Why is it that players have regressed rather than progressed in the last year? How come the internationals tend to play better for their country than for us? Why do players who looked good for their previous club look clueless here?
Take Maupay, who gets a lot of flack on here for being the epitome of a useless transfer. Why did we buy someone who doesn't score goals? Except he does, or did. Over the four seasons before he came here, he averaged a goal every 2.4 x 90mins he played. That is not shabby, and 3 of those seasons were in the Prem. He's played almost 900 mins for us and scored once. We didn't buy a dud - we're just not getting near the average, let alone getting the most from the player.