Homepage Article Let A Thousand Flowers Bloom

[allezlesbleus]

@catcherintherye now known as @MaoTse Tung. Good read.

I wondered if anyone would get the reference!

Although I think strictly speaking the original quote was 100!!! That’s inflation for you haha!
Chinese proverb about thousand mile journey starting with one step and Mao maybe (?) saying “The Long March began with one step” all gets in the mix!! It is a great quote and a really good article! Ancelotti is absolutely our most important card but his value is his ability to get better players in AND get more out of the ones we had already!! He is clearly doing this.

 

[canuckblue]

Good read catcher you truly are the "independent variable" that makes GOT have class.

Just something I've always wanted to ask you..

Do you think love can bloom on the battlefield?

Ask Pat Benetar.

 

[Death]

Ask Pat Benetar.

She's biased

 

[MrGrumpy]

Very good read and hard to disagree about the other sides in the league

 

[LEONARD]

If we beat the RS at Analfield next month, it will be 'The Great Leap Forward'.

 

[catcherintherye]

Although I think strictly speaking the original quote was 100!!! That’s inflation for you haha!
Chinese proverb about thousand mile journey starting with one step and Mao maybe (?) saying “The Long March began with one step” all gets in the mix!! It is a great quote and a really good article! Ancelotti is absolutely our most important card but his value is his ability to get better players in AND get more out of the ones we had already!! He is clearly doing this.

I'll be honest, I got the lyric from a Portishead song many years ago. It was only years later I find out it was a Mao quote (or misquote).

 

[brieverton]

Things look more promising, but I think we have to finish in the Top Six for the season to be deemed a success.

We are in contention, but have to get over the line in that respect.

If we finish outside it, then we can be accused again of a lot of brouhaha over nothing.

We are in a transitory position I think between needing to have expectation and being somewhat fearful of that same thing, and being let down again with a whimper.

There is improvement across the team and if we can build on the good work done last summer and through the season to date, then the next couple of years offer a lot of encouragement and hope.

I don't want us to become a one-season wonder, everything that is done needs to be to ensure and maintain success. We absolutely must regain that association with the big clubs, as Spurs have done.

The more Ancelotti can quietly weave his wisdom across all levels of the club, and the longer he does it, the better placed we will be.

 

[catcherintherye]

Good interesting read. I think all in all, it highlights how important it is to have a manager like Ancelotti managing us, when you consider the improvement in players who had been average at best, along with a couple of players that we signed, who almost certainly wouldn’t come here had we had a different manager. Obviously the pandemic helps and may well help us more in the future depending on how badly hit the ’top six’ get and how they cope with it in future, which you could probably say about us to a certain extent. However a different manager and it’s very likely we’d be writing this season off at this point.

Thanks mate.

I agree with you really, that probably like Klopp for them, Ancelotti has been the key man to knit a lot of things together. In fairness to Brands, I think he probably did quite well, but suffered from having a poor manager. Ancelotti is making everyone look better now.

He's done what took Moyes 4 or 5 years in 12 months.

 

[catcherintherye]

Things look more promising, but I think we have to finish in the Top Six for the season to be deemed a success.

We are in contention, but have to get over the line in that respect.

If we finish outside it, then we can be accused again of a lot of brouhaha over nothing.

We are in a transitory position I think between needing to have expectation and being somewhat fearful of that same thing, and being let down again with a whimper.

There is improvement across the team and if we can build on the good work done last summer and through the season to date, then the next couple of years offer a lot of encouragement and hope.

I don't want us to become a one-season wonder, everything that is done needs to be to ensure and maintain success. We absolutely must regain that association with the big clubs, as Spurs have done.

The more Ancelotti can quietly weave his wisdom across all levels of the club, and the longer he does it, the better placed we will be.

Yes really thoughtful post mate.

Unless we win the FA Cup I would agree with you. It would be underwhelming and a real missed opportunity.

I do think there is more sustainability to what we are doing now though. I know I touched upon it a bit in the post, but that is important. Under Moyes we didnt have the backing, or if we're honest the manager who was able to get us much beyond where we are now, which was competing for the top 4 and one of the top 6-7 best teams. That was his and the clubs ceiling and by the end you could see it was the law of diminishing returns.

On Martinez, he hit a sweet spot, but again he didn't have the consistency, nor did the club have the money/resource to kick us on. 4 of the back 5 (which it was built upon) and Gareth Barry in front were all the wrong side of 30. Coleman was approaching it. There wasn't the sustainability there.

We now have an owner who will back us, and a DOF with hit "foot under the door" 3 years into the job. We also have a good group of players 21-25 and quite a few below that who look promising. Some of the key players (Keane, Mina, Digne, Doucoure) are also the right side of 30 which helps. They shouldn't fall off the same cliff.

European football is really important next year. It ticks up a level of player we can attract. If we can hang in, I do think other sides will fall away further.

 

[kev]

Nice article @catcherintherye
Hopefully we will be able to revisit it and reflect on it in a positive light at the end of the season.

 

[Alanbileysfeathercut]

Definitely be interesting if we dont Everton it in the latter stages.

 

[BNJ1878]

My concern is we have lost £250m in the past 2 years which falls foul of the FFP.

If we qualify for Europe, we may have to sell the players that we bought to help us qualify.

FFP was mentioned during the AGM Broadcast.

The club are in regular contact with both the PL and UEFA regarding spends and basically, they're not worried.

(why they are not worried is a whole other question. Have they been told it will be ignored again?)

Good read @catcherintherye . Thanks.

 

[Armaghtoffee]

Great article @catcherintherye

Carlo’s ability to take DCL and Keane in particular up several levels has been as key to our progression as the new signings. If he can replicate this with Godfrey, Holgate, Branthwaite, Nkounkou, Davies and Iwobi then we really could be in business.

 

[BornBlue76]

Enjoyed those musings @catcherintherye ..

you speak of improved players like new signings.. I’ve felt for many years in fact going back to DM that we have underperformed based on the individual quality of the players we had. We have had sporadic periods where it appears to have knitted together and the basics all of a sudden came together to resemble decent football... even now I’m not convinced we are close to the finished article, but amazingly Carlo has us winning points in spite of ourselves ..

Given the state of the league we will kick ourselves if we don’t get top 6.. even less than top 4 would now come with a twinge of regret as we pick apart the season... with players returning to health we really have as good a chance as we have had for many years! Much will depend on the first 11 giving us a good run of games and not breaking down again