Supporters and unrealistic expectations

[D4Life 2,516]

This isn’t aimed at Demon supporters just a general observation!

Aussie Ang P manager of Spurs is getting hammered in the press recently about his job under threat!

Out of a squad of circa 25 senior players, he is supposedly missing 10. 1st choice players in keeper, Vicario, Van de Ven. , Romero, ( Davies backup) Odobert, Richarlson, Bentacaur suspended, Udogie.

They win 4-3 against United and he is getting hammered because Goalkeeper makes two errors!

They lose 4-3 against Chelsea where two of his players give away two dumb penalties- almost equivalent of player 70 meters out in AFL, I’ll push him over to give him a 50 meters penalty!

Supporters and press hammer the manager, whenever team loses, rarely is a pragmatic view taken. More hysterical few loses sack the manager versus:

- missing 5-6 starters from the team

- playing kids and bench super thin

- don’t blame the manager, keeper gifted two goals, otherwise it’s a shutout against MU

- don’t blame the manager, two dumb penalties against Chelsea

The Treatment of Ang provides an example of how supporters and the press all too often ignore facts, for sensationalistic headlines or overly dramatic conclusions!

18 teams in AFL, only win flag winner, last year for the Demons:

- Oliver not fully fit all season

- Trac gone half season

- May ribs carried most of season

- Fritsch and Petty foot/leg injuries carried from 2023

- Lever & Bowey injured in season 6 plus weeks

- Salem preseason interrupted likely never fit

- Brayshaw lost before season started

- plus more

- Club board & management seemingly a number of dumb things

Add up all of the above and 11 wins a reasonable result! Destruction by Dockers twice and poor efforts against Pies are the results that made me want to puke!

I would be much more upset if I was a supporter of Giants (choke in QF), Dogs (heartless finals performance against Hawks), and Dockers (not making finals)!

Demons looking at 2025, fingers crossed for luck with injuries, a few lucky breaks during the year and a finals spot is ours for the taking!

 

[chook fowler 19,531]

Unrealistic expectations and being a fan is part of the deal - always has been and always will be. 

[Lucifers Hero 40,356]

Fans including dee's fans need to move on from using injuires to explain unsatisfactory results. 

Perhaps valid in 2019 and 2022. 

But in 2023 we kicked ourselves out of a Prelim and probably a flag.  Yes, I know there were some injuries and other factors but we kicked 16.28 in two finals!  The second semi was 9.17 with leaders having collective brain fades in the last minute and we lost by two points!!!  A waste of a season imv.  

For 2024 injuries might've contributed to missing finals.  But not 14th !!! 

To summarise our 2024, Goodwin: "... right now we aren't great at any phase of the game which means we haven't got an identity..." 

Believe him folks !!  14th wasn't injuries !!

Anyway, lets move on to 2025 where I'm optimistic of making finals and going deep into Sept.

Edited 5 hours ago by Lucifers Hero

[binman 43,746]

1 hour ago, D4Life said:

This isn’t aimed at Demon supporters just a general observation!

Aussie Ang P manager of Spurs is getting hammered in the press recently about his job under threat!

Out of a squad of circa 25 senior players, he is supposedly missing 10. 1st choice players in keeper, Vicario, Van de Ven. , Romero, ( Davies backup) Odobert, Richarlson, Bentacaur suspended, Udogie.

They win 4-3 against United and he is getting hammered because Goalkeeper makes two errors!

They lose 4-3 against Chelsea where two of his players give away two dumb penalties- almost equivalent of player 70 meters out in AFL, I’ll push him over to give him a 50 meters penalty!

Supporters and press hammer the manager, whenever team loses, rarely is a pragmatic view taken. More hysterical few loses sack the manager versus:

- missing 5-6 starters from the team

- playing kids and bench super thin

- don’t blame the manager, keeper gifted two goals, otherwise it’s a shutout against MU

- don’t blame the manager, two dumb penalties against Chelsea

The Treatment of Ang provides an example of how supporters and the press all too often ignore facts, for sensationalistic headlines or overly dramatic conclusions!

18 teams in AFL, only win flag winner, last year for the Demons:

- Oliver not fully fit all season

- Trac gone half season

- May ribs carried most of season

- Fritsch and Petty foot/leg injuries carried from 2023

- Lever & Bowey injured in season 6 plus weeks

- Salem preseason interrupted likely never fit

- Brayshaw lost before season started

- plus more

- Club board & management seemingly a number of dumb things

Add up all of the above and 11 wins a reasonable result! Destruction by Dockers twice and poor efforts against Pies are the results that made me want to puke!

I would be much more upset if I was a supporter of Giants (choke in QF), Dogs (heartless finals performance against Hawks), and Dockers (not making finals)!

Demons looking at 2025, fingers crossed for luck with injuries, a few lucky breaks during the year and a finals spot is ours for the taking!

 

It's really interesting you should highlight this.

As a kid in the 70s soccer was a foreign sport, at least for me and my Anglo mates, and I never got into it.

I have enjoyed it as a sport since the so called golden era for the socceroos - and have enjoyed watching the Australian mens and women's teams since.

But I've never been able to get into epl, serie a etc ' or the A league as i haven't had  a team to follow.

But I've been following spurs since Ange became manager - not forensically, but watch the highlights and listen to his pressers.

I subscribed to bein sports last Friday so I could watch the spurs man up cup game.

Super entertaining.

And speaking of entertaining, I have listened to a couple of ange's post man u cup game pressers.

I was thinking of posting about those pressers, and the ones after the Chelsea loss, rangers draw, southhampton win and Bournemouth loss.

In particular I was interested in ange's repeated emphasis after both wins and losses, on how many of his best players were out injured and the impact it has had (and has in general - ie the impact of injury on performance).

None of the soldier out, soldier in, no excuses rubbish that AFL coaches fall into.

Ange just say it like it is and states the facts - having so many players injured makes it very, very difficult.

And not just once - repeatedly (he must have mentioned it 5 times in the presser the day after the man u game - linked below) across multiple interviews.

At the same time he has also pumped up the players who have stepped up, particularly the several 18 - 20 year olds he's playing.

So refreshing.

'If I lose anyone else I'll go nuts' - ange's last presser here:

https://youtu.be/4QFFF6vjEME?si=XSc68DHbiD-Nygx3

Edited 4 hours ago by binman

[rjay 25,084]

1 hour ago, D4Life said:

Aussie Ang P manager of Spurs is getting hammered in the press recently about his job under threat!

Love Ang...he's very much his own man.

The problem is the Brit pundits (and some of the Spurs stick in the mud fans) can't understand how an Aussie can come from out of nowhere and turn the competition on it's head with a different style of play.

As he asked one of them the other night "was it entertaining?"...

[binman 43,746]

 

13 minutes ago, rjay said:

Love Ang...he's very much his own man.

The problem is the Brit pundits (and some of the Spurs stick in the mud fans) can't understand how an Aussie can come from out of nowhere and turn the competition on it's head with a different style of play.

As he asked one of them the other night "was it entertaining?"...

I think he said 'are you not entertained'.

That made me laugh- quoting Russell crowe in the gladiator.

Edited 4 hours ago by binman

[rjay 25,084]

5 minutes ago, binman said:

 

I think he said 'are you not entertained'.

That made me laugh- quoting Russell crowe in the gladiator.

Thanks 'bin'...I found that whole press conference entertaining.

He really seems to enjoy poking fun at the pundits...what was his line about Carragher?, you can name him.
Or the Roy Keane not being a good guy one.

I really enjoy some of the stuff from Keane, Neville, Wright, Carragher and Scott on the overlap. Very entertaining but some of them struggle to get Ange.

[binman 43,746]

8 minutes ago, rjay said:

Thanks 'bin'...I found that whole press conference entertaining.

He really seems to enjoy poking fun at the pundits...what was his line about Carragher?, you can name him.

That made me laugh too - particularly his deadpan follow up that Carragher 'apparently' likes him and 'that's nice'.

The irony of caraaghers criticism (that ange ball causes them to almost lose a game they were 3 nil up in), one that was strangely not pointed out by ange or any of the journos, is they gave up those goals when they went defensive and had stopped attacking (perhaps because they were out on their feet).

The two brain fades from the keeper (forster) came after they passed back from the centre line instead of pressing forward.

Imagine ange at an AFL presser - he'd make bevo look like a peacenik.

[Dr. Gonzo 24,285]

As a Spurs supporter for the last few years my issue with them isn't the losses to Chelsea and the like, it's the losses to Crystal Palace, Leicester, Ipswich and Bournemouth.

Having said that I agree Ange should be given this season and into next to show what he can do with the squad, sacking him now would be idiotic.

Supporters have a right to demand success though, as an MFC supporter Goodwin has developed the squad for long enough, any failures are his. There are always extenuating circumstances but every club has them, it's how you overcome them that determines your greatness. 2022 and 2023 were wasted years for the MFC we should have come away with at least one flag from those two campaigns.

[reynolds46 1,266]

But is Ang the right guy?

[binman 43,746]

Another interesting thing about ange in terms of intersections with AFL is the coverage of his game style over there in terms of the gap between reality and perception.

That's well captured in this quote from the article linked below:

'It is instructive that only coaches who have a clearly defined and recognisable style seem to have that style blamed for every single shortcoming, even if the logic doesn’t always hold up to scrutiny.

Postecoglou’s football is, indeed, serving a secondary purpose: it is exposing just how much of modern football discourse is based on tired old tropes, flimsy premises and Colbert-style truthiness.

It feels right to say United’s second-half surge was because Postecoglou is stubborn and didn’t tell his players to “get hold of that game”, even though it only happened because of freak individual errors that had nothing to do with anything else.

It feels right to criticise Spurs for being “too open” and “chaotic”, even if their stats show they are one of the Premier League’s best defensive teams, and that they’ve not lost a single game this season by more than a one-goal margin.'

 

https://www.smh.com.au/sport/soccer/are-you-not-entertained-postecoglou-is-two-steps-away-from-vindication-with-spurs-20241220-p5kzwp.html

[Rab D Nesbitt 8,484]

Not so much a Spurs thing but one dynamic that is very different between football and Australian Rules, particularly in the English Premier League and the Championship is promotion and relegation as well as European football qualification for the elite clubs. The financial implications of which can make a massive difference to a manager's tenure. In AFL a club gets rewarded with the best young player in the country for finishing bottom. 

As an aside we really should have put Spurs away the other night at Ibrox. Ange can trot out all the all the injury soundbites he likes but his club has a transfer budget 100 times bigger than ours thanks to tv money and leveraged debt. 

[Sir Why You Little 37,124]

It’s a beautiful thing when Spurs lose..

Ange is far too good for that Rabble