Frankie often speaks about how the team should be playing or that he only sees the team playing how he wants (expects) in patches and not the full 90 minutes.
Imho, this demonstrates that the team is not playing to the game plan/ideals/philosophy that he wants. This is also evident from when he has often mentioned the wrongs of the team in his post match briefings.
The questions that need to be asked are; Does the team/players have an issue with understanding or moreso executing the game plan ? Does he himself have an issue with how he implements his game plan to the players whereby they simply don't understand it ?
To me, it's clear what the team are 'trying' to do. We see it work in patches. Is it the players mentality ? In terms of confidence in sticking to the game plan/instructions ?
I'm confident that Frankie isn't happy with our showing because his ideas on how we want to be playing isn't being transferred onto the park, but is it his ability to get the message across the failure ? Or is it the ability of our players to execute the game plan ?? Our brainfart defending and inability to take a lead & maintain it makes me believe it's the latter.
I'm not convinced that Frankie is the one to blame, as I'm not convinced that our players (majority of) have the smarts to execute what they've been coached/instructed to do.
I don't think we've found a happy medium. We may have some fantastic players as individuals, but that doesn't necessarily make them 'coachable' or any easier to bring together as a 'team' and execute game plans.
I think you make some really good points there I4E, but I'd look to MOurinho 08/09 as inspiration. When things were failing in his system, he quickly reverted to what Inter oculd do and dropped his expensive shiny toys in Mancini and Quaresma
The thing that worries me is the inability to change. We've seen several poor games, enough to the point where our players come out in the press and say 'We can win ugly', and he still (apparently) tries to get this silk out of us.
At the same time, we also have to question the suitability. We can say we want Icardi to play like Ibra, Medel to play like Xavi, and Candreva to be a modern Beckham, but it doesnt mean its going to happen. Being a good manager is about using your tools to accomplish what you can, rather than setting an inflexible direction
I don't know if the Mourinho comparison is an apt one. Mourinho had a reliable system to fall back on. Imo FdB does not (no, I don't consider Mancini's system a reliable one).
I can sort of see I4E's point. I think in midfield his efforts haven't been bad at all. Yes, there have been wrong turns, like we found out with Joao Mario just now, but you can see the logic behind what he's tried. I can appreciate that he's tried different things (within reason) toward a certain goal.
I can't really say the same with the attack. The attack is too one-dimensional and illogical. Why only cross when Icardi is your lone striker? But maybe the more worrying thing is that his in-game fix is always the same: sub in Palacio frustratingly late. And the next game it's back to the same plan. When it comes to the attack, it seems he can't correct his mistakes and doesn't know how to prevent them from happening again.
I guess I'm indifferent about FdB staying or leaving. With managers like Mancini and Mazzarri I saw little hope that things would improve. With FdB I can see (just about) enough positives for him to go on but also reason enough to believe he won't lead us anywhere.
One more thing I want to note: I see FdB as a manager whose actions are very influenced by pressure. It explains why he went completely defensive against Southampton and why he's been so loyal to 'hard-working' players like Eder or Medel and also to Icardi, who has bailed him out multiple times. But while I realize it's easy for me to say from my armchair, he really needs to experiment more. Clearly his 'safe' option isn't that safe when it's causing us to hemorrhage points.
10 years of FIF
