What I've liked about Guy is that when things get difficult he's still saying the right things. Powell always maintained the dignity of the club, and even if you didn't like his style he represented the club well even in the toughest of times. Peeters started off saying all the right things; big club, want to play good football, want to beat Millwall, but when the performances declined he started slating players by name in press conferences. That's when the rumours about his antics and poor man-management came out as well. Luzon has been the opposite of Peeters. He started out shrugging off the silly abuse he got at Watford, told us what his methods were and then maintained them. He's not been over the top with his love for the club but he's not pretended to be anything other than honest either. When players have made mistakes he's said we win as a team and lose as a team and moved on. I can get behind a manager that doesn't play games in the media
The players certainly don't look like they are even reading the same book, let being on the same page as him right now.
Personally, I've tried to reserve judgment, even up until now. I've wanted to see how he performs with 'his squad' (as much as it can be with the current setup) and how he handles a bad run.
His start last season wasn't great, but I think it was the fans he had to initially win over rather than the players. Now he needs to lift the players and he's struggling.
I think a lot of the things we were told by the Liege fans are starting to show through now. Initially he was able to motivate and lift the players but that initial impact has worn off and now he is struggling. I think 6 months ago, we'd have seen a second half reaction, at least for 5 or 10 mins but today we got nothing. All the touch line shenanigans are all shits and giggles when we're winning, but when we're losing and the players look like they are taking absolutely no notice of him whatsoever, it doesn't look so great for him.
Unfortunately all our managers can't be Curbs, but when we got on a bad run under him he would always talk about stopping the rot. In a game like today, where we were clearly getting outnumbered in midfield (that is what was killing us today), good old pragmatic Curbs would've gone like for like even if it compromised the way we wanted to play and even if it frustrated the fans. More often than not it'd keep us in the game and we'd get something from it. Pardew who, no matter how well he may or may not be doing now, was a bloody disaster here, would throw another striker on and hope for the best. That's what Luzon did today. That worried me.
He has had bad luck with injuries, and he is a bit limited for options by the shallow nature of our squad, but we seem to be getting deeper into the rut.We were torn apart at times today by Brentford who were nothing special, but that's kind of the point. You don't have to be anything special at this level to get results. What Brentford were is organised, committed and competent. It's all well and good having ambitions to play good 'technical' football, but the reality is to play that way in the English Championship you have to be a bit special. Not to say you have to play like Joe Kinnear's Wimbledon, but Brentford today moved the ball quickly and efficiently from back to front, they used the width of the pitch and they had wingers who could go down the outside and put decent crosses into the box (imagine that, the revolutionary maniacs). We, on the other hand, moved the ball 10 yards at a time from side to side, cut inside into traffic everytime we got wide, moved it slowly across to the other wing, where we did the same again and eventually lost possession. Big Mak probably would've had a hatrick playing for the other side today, instead I'm not sure he had a cross worth the name to attack.
I'm not quite ready to call for Luzon's head yet, but I'm a long way from confident he will turn this around. He probably deserves a couple more games with more senior pros fit. Not sure he'll get them though.
Yeah he's been dealt a sh*t hand, there is no denying that. But first, as many have mentioned early since Tuesday, he's worked with Roland before and he knew what he was signing up for. And when Roland isn't prepared to loosen the purse strings for a proper squad, you need a miracle worker in charge to get anywhere near mounting a play-off push.
Luzon quite clearly isn't that miracle worker judging by today's performance. He was near enough to clueless with his approach to today's game. From the start to the finish.
He's clearly lost the players. Today he lost me. Ridiculous insistence with staying 4-4-2 when we are being outnumbered in midfield (again). All the changes are like for like, nothing to try and turn it round.
His position is pretty much untenable.
Whilst it is right to criticise his lack of tactical flexibility, the players have to shoulder some of the blame.
Senior players earning big money have gone missing. Cousins, Solly, Fox, JBG and Watt were horrendous today.
Got to go - the team look clueless - formation and tactics all over the place. We need someone with experience of English football - fat chance of that with our idiot owner
He had bad luck with injuries sure, but that doesn't excuse some of the laughable personnel decisions he has made. I'm not going to completely blame him and ignore Roland etc but especially today with Watt/Makienok upfront to not be able to do anything threatening is pretty terrible. Doesn't seem tactically that strong either and we've never really played to our main players strengths in Watt and JBG.
I'm happy to stick with managers through tough times if the team is working hard but not quite scoring, or making simple defensive mistakes which can be adjusted. When it is as toxic as it is today though I think it is pretty hard to see how Luzon can possibly turn it around as it just seems the dressing room is gone.
I don't think he'd want the job but I'd be disappointed if we didn't get in touch with Pearson incase some Prem teams are concerned about the image issue with what happened in Thailand...
Lambert could be another option but after seeing how much better he looks on TV since the end of his Villa days he may fancy a longer break.
Or we could bring in Club Brugge's assistant of course...
He's clearly lost the players. Today he lost me. Ridiculous insistence with staying 4-4-2 when we are being outnumbered in midfield (again). All the changes are like for like, nothing to try and turn it round.
His position is pretty much untenable.
Whilst it is right to criticise his lack of tactical flexibility, the players have to shoulder some of the blame.
Senior players earning big money have gone missing. Cousins, Solly, Fox, JBG and Watt were horrendous today.
Was Cousins playing? Only player to come out of that with any credit was Sarr who really impressed at the back in trying circumstances.
He's clearly lost the players. Today he lost me. Ridiculous insistence with staying 4-4-2 when we are being outnumbered in midfield (again). All the changes are like for like, nothing to try and turn it round.
His position is pretty much untenable.
Whilst it is right to criticise his lack of tactical flexibility, the players have to shoulder some of the blame.
Senior players earning big money have gone missing. Cousins, Solly, Fox, JBG and Watt were horrendous today.
Was Cousins playing? Only player to come out of that with any credit was Sarr who really impressed at the back in trying circumstances.
Agree, said on the match thread at HT that Sarr was a plus point.
He should resign - hopeless Network Chancer from day one. There is no defending that garbage today.
The bottom line is has he shown anything to suggest that he could get a job outside the network, or somewhere where a relative or his agent does not have influence?
Comments
The players certainly don't look like they are even reading the same book, let being on the same page as him right now.
Personally, I've tried to reserve judgment, even up until now. I've wanted to see how he performs with 'his squad' (as much as it can be with the current setup) and how he handles a bad run.
His start last season wasn't great, but I think it was the fans he had to initially win over rather than the players. Now he needs to lift the players and he's struggling.
I think a lot of the things we were told by the Liege fans are starting to show through now. Initially he was able to motivate and lift the players but that initial impact has worn off and now he is struggling. I think 6 months ago, we'd have seen a second half reaction, at least for 5 or 10 mins but today we got nothing. All the touch line shenanigans are all shits and giggles when we're winning, but when we're losing and the players look like they are taking absolutely no notice of him whatsoever, it doesn't look so great for him.
Unfortunately all our managers can't be Curbs, but when we got on a bad run under him he would always talk about stopping the rot. In a game like today, where we were clearly getting outnumbered in midfield (that is what was killing us today), good old pragmatic Curbs would've gone like for like even if it compromised the way we wanted to play and even if it frustrated the fans. More often than not it'd keep us in the game and we'd get something from it. Pardew who, no matter how well he may or may not be doing now, was a bloody disaster here, would throw another striker on and hope for the best. That's what Luzon did today. That worried me.
He has had bad luck with injuries, and he is a bit limited for options by the shallow nature of our squad, but we seem to be getting deeper into the rut.We were torn apart at times today by Brentford who were nothing special, but that's kind of the point. You don't have to be anything special at this level to get results. What Brentford were is organised, committed and competent. It's all well and good having ambitions to play good 'technical' football, but the reality is to play that way in the English Championship you have to be a bit special. Not to say you have to play like Joe Kinnear's Wimbledon, but Brentford today moved the ball quickly and efficiently from back to front, they used the width of the pitch and they had wingers who could go down the outside and put decent crosses into the box (imagine that, the revolutionary maniacs). We, on the other hand, moved the ball 10 yards at a time from side to side, cut inside into traffic everytime we got wide, moved it slowly across to the other wing, where we did the same again and eventually lost possession. Big Mak probably would've had a hatrick playing for the other side today, instead I'm not sure he had a cross worth the name to attack.
I'm not quite ready to call for Luzon's head yet, but I'm a long way from confident he will turn this around. He probably deserves a couple more games with more senior pros fit. Not sure he'll get them though.
Luzon quite clearly isn't that miracle worker judging by today's performance. He was near enough to clueless with his approach to today's game. From the start to the finish.
His position is pretty much untenable.
Whilst it is right to criticise his lack of tactical flexibility, the players have to shoulder some of the blame.
Senior players earning big money have gone missing. Cousins, Solly, Fox, JBG and Watt were horrendous today.
I'm happy to stick with managers through tough times if the team is working hard but not quite scoring, or making simple defensive mistakes which can be adjusted. When it is as toxic as it is today though I think it is pretty hard to see how Luzon can possibly turn it around as it just seems the dressing room is gone.
I don't think he'd want the job but I'd be disappointed if we didn't get in touch with Pearson incase some Prem teams are concerned about the image issue with what happened in Thailand...
Lambert could be another option but after seeing how much better he looks on TV since the end of his Villa days he may fancy a longer break.
Or we could bring in Club Brugge's assistant of course...
In the short term, all you end up with pages and pages of text such as "LgshshahjsbaggstwjowgfacabkskbDz" and a lot of chimp shit gets hurled around.
Guy Luzon may yet be our Alex Feguson, but in football you do not (and should not) get an infinite amount of time to make the breakthrough.