VP - Stick Or Twist?

[Basha73]

I accept that if the only way he could have been exceptional to your eyes would have been winning the Europa League / winning almost every league game, then OK, that’s your prerogative.

But personally, yes I see it differently.

When he came in morale was on the floor on and off the pitch (reports of staff at the training ground etc being miserable too). He lifted everyone, brought bomb squad players back into the fold, and got us scoring more goals than we had all season.

His remit was to keep us up and win the Europa League.

He kept us with aplomb and took us all the way to a memorable semi-final first leg win against Villa, only to fall when half the starting XI were injured at a rowdy Villa park.

It feels extremely unfair to blame almost any manager for losing that one? We could have had Pep in charge and I would have still felt we were really up against it with MGW, Sangaré et al out of the fixture.

I don’t really understand your fascination with home wins. He got the wins he needed to get. And you have to really strain here to find fault in his stats.

It’s as if you’re saying ‘OK how can I discount his total wins somehow, and how can I make him look as bad as possible.’

You took umbrage when posters would point to decline under Dyche - eg ‘look at this patch of fixtures where we didn’t win in 5’ - as missing the bigger picture.

I think you are doing the same here.

I mean, Dyche’s wins were front-loaded weren’t they? We did ok at the start then broadly descended to the point players wanted him out.

Pereira was kind of the reverse. After an indifferent start in the league we built momentum right up until we were safe, scoring a lot of goals along the way.

But he was also playing these games at the most high pressure point of the season? Week after week where it really was a case of, if we don’t get the points, WH or Spurs will overtake us. An absolute crucible.

It feels a bit unfair to dismiss Spurs and Chelsea as basket cases or Burnley as an easy win.

Winning those games 3-0, 3-1 and 4-1 is very impressive in any season?

We were safe in the league and out of the Europa League? We also had injuries to CHO, Murillo? His side performed really well at crunch time. Again it feels like you’re looking for excuses to criticise him here because the job was already done by the time we faced Man U, Bournemouth etc.

And even in those games, we were robbed against Man U by a goal that shouldn’t have stood and we drew against a Bournemouth side chasing Europe in Iraola’s last game with key players out. That to me is a great result?

Villa away we’ve covered. Brighton away was low point.

As for those Europa games, I mean I don’t really think it matters because we got the job done against both sides?

This is one area where we’ll never agree I guess because for me, the Dyche performance against Braga was one of the worst I’ve ever seen. Whereas for you that was just an unlucky defeat.

I think you’ll probably find more supporters who share my view on that but OK, we were both watching the same games and your opinion is your opinion.

No I wouldn’t. But again, I feel you’re stretching really hard to criticise the guy here. In what world does a poorer half of football even matter if you win the game 4-1 or 5-0?

It’s very, very normal for sides to take their foot off the gas after battering the opposition in one half because the game is already won.

Look at the number of times a City or a Chelsea will be 4-0 up first half. They don’t tend to go onto win 8-0. They tend to just see out the game professionally, as we did.

It feels like a lot of mental gymnastics to argue that results where we actively thrashed the other side were not in fact that great because we scored 4 goals in one half and only 1 the next.

Winning the EL would certainly have been exceptional, but he didn't.

But it wouldn't have taken all that much to have an "exceptional" end to the season

Don't lose to Liverpool +1
Beat Fulham +2
Beat Newcastle +2
Beat Bournemouth +2

That would have taken us to 12th/13th. None of those results are outrageous. Achieving something like that would have been "staying up with aplomb"

I don't dispute any of that. I am not sure where you have gotten this idea that I blame him for not winning the Europa League. I have never said that. Getting to the semi was far better than I ever expected and I applaud him for that. Not sure Marinakis does though.

Yes, he lifted some players psychologically and that is important. If you look at what I'm saying though- my concern is that this is often a short term impact. New players will come in who don't need to be lifted, players who didn't hate the previous manager and so won't bounce a bit at his leaving.

This could well be why he lasts such a short time at most clubs - perhaps the psychological impact he has is short-lived?



My fascination is because I have a season ticket and go to home games.

I think it's ludicrous that there are people on this forum who don't think that's important

You have to send your home fans happy. That's number 1.

I heavily criticised Nuno for exactly the same in his first half season here.

I have not seen us win a Premier League game at home since December. I have seen us win 3 home PL games since March 2025.

So yeah, it's important to me. Your home games are your bread and butter. You can potentially beat a good spurs or Chelsea side at home- you can't keep hoping those clubs will be basket cases when you happen to play them away.


I don't think I am even trying to make Pereira look bad. I'm not having a go at him.

I am merely responding to people who are, in my opinion, exaggerating his record with us. You can feel as sad at his sacking as you like, I won't tell you that you're wrong to feel that way.



Not really?

We had one really bad spell around Christmas, but apart from that it was regular one win in three, pretty much. He was sacked not all that long after beating West Ham and Brentford away. I think he was sacked within about 3 games of the latter


A lot of goals in two games. Two halves, to be fair.


Fair point, I don't deny that. But how is that exceptional?

Had De Zerbi been exceptional? He won 3 games I think, one of which the other team threw, one against a dismal relegated side, one against a team that didn't give a toss.

Very similar over a smaller number of games. Would you call him exceptional?


There are always times when it is good to play a team and when it is bad to play a team

Play Chelsea away in September and does Forest, even with Pereira, take a 3-0 lead? I doubt it. We came up to that game at a perfect time.

Go to Spurs under De Zerbi when they are fighting for their lives, and do forest win 3-0? I doubt it. We played them at the perfect time.

That is not to say the results don't deserve praise- of course they do. But luck was on our side with timing.


We were not safe for the Newcastle game. Not at all.


What is this mentality? The job already done?

Do you really think that just keeping this team up, which finished 7th last year, is an exceptional achievement? A team that hadn't been in the relegation zone since October?


Yes, but we never looked like winning the game. We deserved a draw, fully agree. But no shock was on the cards.


But we were 1-0 up at home, and to be honest lucky to leave that game with the draw.


It matters if you are in the ground and paid for your ticket mate

That Fenerbahce game was the fucking pits


Have I actually said it was an unlucky defeat?

I wasn't there so generally don't comment. I have commented on the games I attended.


Yeah, I get that. I have said that myself. But that works if you are talking about performances, when I was answering a point about goalscoring.

When someone is saying "we scored more goals than Man City" or something like that, context is important. About half of those goals were in two half game blitzes. It wasn't the norm and it wasn't typical. We were scoring more, yeah- but the hyperbole on stats is based on two outlier halves.

Have to admit I am on the same page as Pope on this one.

Pereira kept us up and did it well. Better than I thought he would but it wasn’t exceptional, fantastic or any of the other hyperbolic comments. For that to have been true we would have needed to overtake Leeds and possibly Palace. Instead we were one point further away from relegation than when he started albeit with a better goal difference.

Let’s not forget that when Dyche came in we effectively had no defence. He fixed that and gave Pereira something to build on. Those ‘hard yards’ certainly paid off at the back.

Dyche was never going to have us free-scoring but he also never had a fit Chris Wood. Pereira did and that was huge.

Given that they both ended with the same win rate it’s interesting how opinions differ so much.

For me there is far more that could be said about why Pereira was sacked but we will probably never know. One thing is for sure - I won’t be pining for either manager but they both go with my thanks and no hard feelings (certainly no hatred) for keeping us up in what must have been really tough and demanding circumstances.

 

[Apollyon]

I accept that if the only way he could have been exceptional to your eyes would have been winning the Europa League / winning almost every league game, then OK, that’s your prerogative.

But personally, yes I see it differently.

When he came in morale was on the floor on and off the pitch (reports of staff at the training ground etc being miserable too). He lifted everyone, brought bomb squad players back into the fold, and got us scoring more goals than we had all season.

His remit was to keep us up and win the Europa League.

He kept us with aplomb and took us all the way to a memorable semi-final first leg win against Villa, only to fall when half the starting XI were injured at a rowdy Villa park.

It feels extremely unfair to blame almost any manager for losing that one? We could have had Pep in charge and I would have still felt we were really up against it with MGW, Sangaré et al out of the fixture.

I don’t really understand your fascination with home wins. He got the wins he needed to get. And you have to really strain here to find fault in his stats.

It’s as if you’re saying ‘OK how can I discount his total wins somehow, and how can I make him look as bad as possible.’

You took umbrage when posters would point to decline under Dyche - eg ‘look at this patch of fixtures where we didn’t win in 5’ - as missing the bigger picture.

I think you are doing the same here.

I mean, Dyche’s wins were front-loaded weren’t they? We did ok at the start then broadly descended to the point players wanted him out.

Pereira was kind of the reverse. After an indifferent start in the league we built momentum right up until we were safe, scoring a lot of goals along the way.

But he was also playing these games at the most high pressure point of the season? Week after week where it really was a case of, if we don’t get the points, WH or Spurs will overtake us. An absolute crucible.

It feels a bit unfair to dismiss Spurs and Chelsea as basket cases or Burnley as an easy win.

Winning those games 3-0, 3-1 and 4-1 is very impressive in any season?

We were safe in the league and out of the Europa League? We also had injuries to CHO, Murillo? His side performed really well at crunch time. Again it feels like you’re looking for excuses to criticise him here because the job was already done by the time we faced Man U, Bournemouth etc.

And even in those games, we were robbed against Man U by a goal that shouldn’t have stood and we drew against a Bournemouth side chasing Europe in Iraola’s last game with key players out. That to me is a great result?

Villa away we’ve covered. Brighton away was low point.

As for those Europa games, I mean I don’t really think it matters because we got the job done against both sides?

This is one area where we’ll never agree I guess because for me, the Dyche performance against Braga was one of the worst I’ve ever seen. Whereas for you that was just an unlucky defeat.

I think you’ll probably find more supporters who share my view on that but OK, we were both watching the same games and your opinion is your opinion.

No I wouldn’t. But again, I feel you’re stretching really hard to criticise the guy here. In what world does a poorer half of football even matter if you win the game 4-1 or 5-0?

It’s very, very normal for sides to take their foot off the gas after battering the opposition in one half because the game is already won.

Look at the number of times a City or a Chelsea will be 4-0 up first half. They don’t tend to go onto win 8-0. They tend to just see out the game professionally, as we did.

It feels like a lot of mental gymnastics to argue that results where we actively thrashed the other side were not in fact that great because we scored 4 goals in one half and only 1 the next.

Oh look, its Dr Longpost


Pathetic

 

[AdebolaCornflakes]

Oh look, its Dr Longpost


Pathetic

Lovely use of 'aplomb' though in amongst all that codswallop

 

[Will.NFFC]

Its not embarrassing at all

They have exactly the same win rate, yet you say one did an incredible job and the other is a ginger fraud. 33% win rate for each.

What was incredible about the job he did?

We hadn't been in the relegation zone since Postecoglou

Our squad should never in a million years have been fighting relegation. It's the same players who finished 7th, but with both MGW and Anderson stepping up significantly and a bunch of exciting young players.

It's not like we pulled away and into mid table.

That's the basic thing for me- we are actually a really good side. How many times did we look it? And yet the results?

Incredible job for me would have been pulling us into mid table, which would only have taken 6-8 points. Instead we finished 3 points shy of Leeds

The point around not having been in the relegation zone is distorting the fact that it was inevitable we were going to be in it soon enough.

Dyche came in and got us 8 clear - great job and you’ll find at the time I was very pro Dyche. Nuno had a poor start and we all felt we could start to look up the table. Nuno then got West Ham playing well and winning, whilst Dyche started to go in the opposite direction, and by the time Dyche left, we were only 2/3 points clear and were without a doubt heading for the relegation zone under his tenure following that horrid 0-0 draw with Wolves.

All around us, teams were starting to get their act together - Leeds and West Ham. Spurs would eventually through sacking Tudor and appointing De Zerbi.

Vitor came in and got some great wins that were the catalyst for surviving - Chelsea, spurs and Sunderland away.

Can you honestly say hand on heart that you genuinely think Dyche gets the same number of points Vitor does, or the wins I’ve referenced above and we stay up?

 

[Peter Baxendale Thomas]

Oh look, its Dr Longpost


Pathetic

@Mods I blocked @Apollyon months ago and yet I am STILL seeing his vile, vile comments.

Can you advise how the HELL this is possible??

SA.

 

[Pope John XXIII]

The point around not having been in the relegation zone is distorting the fact that it was inevitable we were going to be in it soon enough.

Dyche came in and got us 8 clear - great job and you’ll find at the time I was very pro Dyche. Nuno had a poor start and we all felt we could start to look up the table. Nuno then got West Ham playing well and winning, whilst Dyche started to go in the opposite direction, and by the time Dyche left, we were only 2/3 points clear and were without a doubt heading for the relegation zone under his tenure following that horrid 0-0 draw with Wolves.

Says who?

I don't want to re-litigate Sean Dyche, but at the point he was sacked we had lost 1 game of the last 6 in the league, winning two of them- starting with the West Ham win.

It was 9 points from 18 available.

On what planet is that "inevitable" that we were going to go into the relegation zone?

West Ham in that same spell managed 10 points- 1 point more- in by far their best spell of the season

You have continually said this same thing as a fact and it simply is not. West Ham went on their best run of the season and were only able to pull a point back

All around us, teams were starting to get their act together - Leeds and West Ham. Spurs would eventually through sacking Tudor and appointing De Zerbi.

West Ham we have dealt with

Leeds in that same 6 game run scored 8 points- one fewer than we did. We were actually pulling away from them.

Spurs scored 2 points in the same 6 games. We gained 7 on them at that time- hence why they were in range of us when we played them under Pereira.

Vitor came in and got some great wins that were the catalyst for surviving - Chelsea, spurs and Sunderland away.

Can you honestly say hand on heart that you genuinely think Dyche gets the same number of points Vitor does, or the wins I’ve referenced above and we stay up?

Just looking at the results, yeah- Dyche probably gets the same number of wins that Pereira did because they had the same win %, but probably slightly fewer draws based on the comparative records.

We may have been looking over our shoulder for longer, so I thank Pereira for that.

But you are completely and utterly misrepresenting what things were like at the end of Dyche's time to set up this false context to heap praise on Pereira.

Pereira had a great 6 game run where he got 14 out of 18 points

But earlier in the season, Dyche had taken 12 out of 18- not dissimilar, just losing games that Pereira was drawing.

This idea you keep claiming that we were absolutely inevitably heading for the relegation zone is absolutely false. It's not even about stats- just count the points of everyone in those games at the time

 

[Apollyon]

Im petitioning the club to rename the Trent End the Vitor Pereira End (VPE)

 

[seasider red]

Most of the debate understandably centres around Peiera v Dyche, but IMO there is no doubt that most of the season's problems revolved around Ange. If he had picked a lowly one PPG (there it again0 we would have been around mid table. He also presided over a miserable home defeat to Midjeland whatever they were called in the Europa league which put us on the back foot & playing catch up n that competition

 

[Peter Baxendale Thomas]

Have to admit I am on the same page as Pope on this one.

Pereira kept us up and did it well. Better than I thought he would but it wasn’t exceptional, fantastic or any of the other hyperbolic comments. For that to have been true we would have needed to overtake Leeds and possibly Palace. Instead we were one point further away from relegation than when he started albeit with a better goal difference.

Let’s not forget that when Dyche came in we effectively had no defence. He fixed that and gave Pereira something to build on. Those ‘hard yards’ certainly paid off at the back.

Dyche was never going to have us free-scoring but he also never had a fit Chris Wood. Pereira did and that was huge.

Given that they both ended with the same win rate it’s interesting how opinions differ so much.

For me there is far more that could be said about why Pereira was sacked but we will probably never know. One thing is for sure - I won’t be pining for either manager but they both go with my thanks and no hard feelings (certainly no hatred) for keeping us up in what must have been really tough and demanding circumstances.

It’s very fair to point out VP had Wood back available. And Aina I guess.

I suppose we differ on how highly we value the morale shift and perceived improvement on performances.

None of us will ever know what the mood was actually like behind the scenes but as nothing more than a fan I take reports of what VP inherited at face value - players bombed off, demoralised, in revolt. Even groundsmen and training staff feeling ostracised and devalued.

If you believe all that, then he came into an incredibly negative environment and brought everyone up with him, while getting the likes of MGW to hit scoring numbers they never had before.

Equally I’m not going to pretend I don’t feel more confident now that we’ll finish higher in the league with Glasner.

There was always a question mark about VP’s second season / long-term performance.

But I think VP did extremely well to get us to the semis in Europe and kept us up comfortably with IMO some of the best performances of the season towards the end.

Given all that to me, he did a fantastic job because the only thing of consequence he could’ve improved on would have been winning the Europa League - which feels pretty impossible given the players available for that second leg.

 

[Basha73]

It’s very fair to point out VP had Wood back available. And Aina I guess.

I suppose we differ on how highly we value the morale shift and perceived improvement on performances.

None of us will ever know what the mood was actually like behind the scenes but as nothing more than a fan I take reports of what VP inherited at face value - players bombed off, demoralised, in revolt. Even groundsmen and training staff feeling ostracised and devalued.

If you believe all that, then he came into an incredibly negative environment and brought everyone up with him, while getting the likes of MGW to hit scoring numbers they never had before.

Equally I’m not going to pretend I don’t feel more confident now that we’ll finish higher in the league with Glasner.

There was always a question mark about VP’s second season / long-term performance.

But I think VP did extremely well to get us to the semis in Europe and kept us up comfortably with IMO some of the best performances of the season towards the end.

Given all that to me, he did a fantastic job because the only thing of consequence he could’ve improved on would have been winning the Europa League - which feels pretty impossible given the players available for that second leg.

With regard to Dyche, I said at the time that if he had lost the dressing room then he had to go. I also said that just keeping us up wouldn’t be enough and later said that the same would apply to Pereira.

The problem was that players like Milo, MGW, Anderson, Sangare and Williams were all playing for him and working hard. MGW started scoring regularly under Dyche and Sangare played by far his best football under him.

The problem was the fringe players. They didn’t seem to put the effort in so Dyche treated them as useless and around we go. That was the big difference between him and Pereira. Pereira brought them back into the fold and it helped get us into the Europa League semi finals and to destroy Chelsea.

We have different views about Dyche’s time as I credit him with at the least fixing our defence which gave Pereira a platform. Similarly we will differ in our views to Pereira’s time to some extent.

Lots of people were talking about the Liverpool game as though it was some sort of second coming but I remember saying at the time that I wasn’t convinced we looked like scoring and as soon as Liverpool woke up there was only ever one winner. Obviously that wasn’t a popular opinion but nothing has changed my mind.

Between them though, they kept us up. We will never know whether Dyche would have kept us up and similarly we will never know how Pereira would have done next season.

I just hope we never have to experience that much chaos in a season again…

 

[in_the_top_one]

Lovely use of 'aplomb' though in amongst all that codswallop

Lovely use of a plomb but is it ever possible to get two plombs into the same post? I doubt it.