Should Ryan be a serious contender? | Page 4 | Vital Football

Should Ryan be a serious contender?

What I do find a little unfair is how people perceive Mason's coaching career as starting now. The facts are that he started his Spurs coaching career in April 2018. So that's 3 years and counting.

Compare that to Gerrard. Started his Liverpool coaching in Jan 2017. Started the Rangers job in June 2018 and has now done 3 seasons. He had about half the experience Mason has now when he took the big job.

I'm not sure Mason is the right candidate, because the Spurs job is a much harder. It's not a 2 horse race and the stakes are so much higher in the Prem.

We do need to acknowledge Mason is more than just a rookie though.
 
What I do find a little unfair is how people perceive Mason's coaching career as starting now. The facts are that he started his Spurs coaching career in April 2018. So that's 3 years and counting.

Compare that to Gerrard. Started his Liverpool coaching in Jan 2017. Started the Rangers job in June 2018 and has now done 3 seasons. He had about half the experience Mason has now when he took the big job.

I'm not sure Mason is the right candidate, because the Spurs job is a much harder. It's not a 2 horse race and the stakes are so much higher in the Prem.

We do need to acknowledge Mason is more than just a rookie though.

It would be nice for him to give Levy a problem i.e. winning all the games between now and the end of the season.

IF and it's a big IF we got the right DOF to oversee/assist his coaching team, who knows it may well be worth a gamble - but let's be honest, it would still be a gamble.
 
It would be nice for him to give Levy a problem i.e. winning all the games between now and the end of the season.

IF and it's a big IF we got the right DOF to oversee/assist his coaching team, who knows it may well be worth a gamble - but let's be honest, it would still be a gamble.
A Super League club shouldn't need to gamble on its managerial appointments.
 
A Super League club shouldn't need to gamble on its managerial appointments.

And it doesn't, we have a plenty beating path to our door, the question is do we go that route after the debacle that was the 'sure-thing' Jose or rethink our strategy? If we do, then Ryan must be in that thinking IF he succeeds in this very pressured few games.
 
And it doesn't, we have a plenty beating path to our door, the question is do we go that route after the debacle that was the 'sure-thing' Jose or rethink our strategy? If we do, then Ryan must be in that thinking IF he succeeds in this very pressured few games.
Are these games really that pressurised? We've still only got an outside chance of Champions League. Perhaps if it was all riding on the Leicester game. But even then I don't many would be too harsh on Ryan if we had it in our grasp but failed to qualify. It seems to me he's in a no-lose situation.

I'd like to see the current list of applicants and interested parties though.
 
Are these games really that pressurised? We've still only got an outside chance of Champions League. Perhaps if it was all riding on the Leicester game. But even then I don't many would be too harsh on Ryan if we had it in our grasp but failed to qualify. It seems to me he's in a no-lose situation.

I'd like to see the current list of applicants and interested parties though.

I was with one of our top sports writers in the country yesterday for a pint, pie and catch-up after a game of golf yesterday and he was of the opinion that there aren't many managers who aren't looking at the job - (apart from those at the top clubs) who will all have their agents putting their cases forward - we discussed what he knew for certain, and I have to say, I'm pretty relaxed about the situation now, although I have no idea what way the Spurs board will jump, but safe to say the list of interested parties is extensive.
 
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I was with one of our top sports writers in the country yesterday for a pint, pie and catch-up after a game of golf yesterday and he was of the opinion that there isn't many managers in Europe - (apart from those at the top clubs) who will all have their agents putting their cases forward - we discussed what he knew for certain, and I have to say, I'm pretty relaxed about the situation now, although I have no idea what way the Spurs board will jump, but safe to say the list of interested parties is extensive.
Aren't you even going to drop a hint?
 
Poch showed in a 2 year period what his philosophy was. He took the saints to another level in a short time period.

He liked to promote youth and buy young talent. There was a lot of evidence he had something different to other young coaches.

Mate I know we are nothing special but we are not bottom of the barrel yet. Lol

Agree about Potter and Dyche. If we are going English then they should be on the list. At least we have seen over a period of time what these two are about.
RD we do agree then, esp your 3rd para lol!
Plus the Potter n Dyche scenario, I am all for it, but who am I, only a measly long term fan that's who Lol!
 
Mason heads into the match at Elland Road tomorrow having won both of his opening two Premier League fixtures against Southampton and Sheffield United, with his only defeat coming in the Carabao Cup final.



He told Football.London: “That’s all hypothetical and if we win or don’t. I’m just thinking about the next game. I’m not silly enough to start thinking ahead to certain situations and that’s all I have to say on the matter.”
 
Southampton's decline explained: Tired legs, less pressing and goalkeeping problems

Football Nerd: Ralph Hasenhuttl's stock has fallen but Southampton's thin squad has plenty of its own problems

By Daniel Zeqiri 7 May 2021 • 10:29am

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What has changed at Southampton since Christmas? Credit: AP

Tottenham Hotspur's search for a new manager has seen them linked with more than 20 names, but one coach who has slipped off the radar is Southampton's Ralph Hasenhuttl. How short memories are in football.
Had Spurs been recruiting before Christmas, the Austrian will surely have been a serious candidate with Southampton punching above their weight on the strength of his high-octane, pressing style with its characteristically narrow midfield.
Hasenhuttl is still that same coach and an impressive figure but Southampton have been in an alarming trough since then. No team has won fewer Premier League points since the turn of the year with Southampton losing 13 of their last 18 and conceding a league-high 40 goals in 2021.

How to explain their regression? The obvious place to start, especially in this condensed and draining season, is whether the physical demands of Hasenhuttl's football have caught up with a small squad.

They have certainly had a rough time with injuries, and the stats also show the intensity without the ball has declined. There is a chicken and egg element to this; are tired legs the cause or have Southampton dialled down their pressing to preserve those tired legs?

Passes per defensive action is a good indicator of the ferocity of a team's pressing. The fewer passes they allow before making a tackle, interception, foul or winning a duel, the more intense the pressing. So the lower the number, the better.

Before the turn of the year, Southampton ranked third in the Premier League with a PPDA average of 10.4. That number has increased to 12.4 since January, ranking them 10th in the league. Given this aspect of football is the cornerstone of their philosophy under Hasenhuttl, it is a significant reduction.

Another long-running issue for Southampton is the quality of their goalkeeping. One way to measure the quality of shot-stopping is using According to Opta's Expected Goals on Target metric. XGoT, unlike expected goals, is a post-shot model. That means it takes into account not just the location and quality of the shot, but the goalmouth location where the shot finishes, throwing out all those that are off target.

Subtract goals conceded from XGoT faced, and you get a strong sense of which goalkeepers are conceding more than they should from the quality of shots faced. As a club, whether Alex McCarthy or Fraser Forster start, Southampton rank bottom of this metric.

As individuals, McCarthy has conceded 50 goals from an XGoT faced of just 41.96. Only Crystal Palace's Vicente Guaita has a bigger negative differential in the league. Southampton should be in the market for a new No 1 this summer.
 

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He and Nuno have both had really high stock a couple seasons back and now people scoff at the possibility.

I appreciate you're only as good as your last season, unless you're Jose, but there's enough evidence that basing someone's managerial suitability on their last job is wrong more often than it's right.
 
What I do find a little unfair is how people perceive Mason's coaching career as starting now. The facts are that he started his Spurs coaching career in April 2018. So that's 3 years and counting.

Compare that to Gerrard. Started his Liverpool coaching in Jan 2017. Started the Rangers job in June 2018 and has now done 3 seasons. He had about half the experience Mason has now when he took the big job.

I'm not sure Mason is the right candidate, because the Spurs job is a much harder. It's not a 2 horse race and the stakes are so much higher in the Prem.

We do need to acknowledge Mason is more than just a rookie though.

Coaching the kids and managing the big boys is a different animal. He is a rookie at this level.