Enzo Maresca New Leicester Manager

[sacreblueits442]

2 hours ago, PAPA LAZAROU said:

I've often wondered what a goal-keeping coach does anyway? I mean how hard can it be? Yes I understand teaching young kids on the books the basics but what could you be teaching a senior pro keeper he doesn't already know?

.. you see top tennis players take their coach around with them, athletes take their coaches with them when going to major championships!!!

  Yes these well seasoned pros knows their job, but the coach is there to drive them, spot bad characteristics creeping into their games and addresses the issues.

Edited 17 June 2023 by sacreblueits442
Spelling error.

[Pliskin]

1 hour ago, Bilo said:

Just a thought, but Guardiola is apparently a big admirer of Alex Scott at Bristol City.

 

What chance of Manchester City buying him and then loaning him to us as part of his development?

Or maybe we buy him? We’re going to be throwing cash around like a coked up middle class sheltered farmer’s son this summer. 
 

#ALLABOARDTHEHMSPISSTHELEAGUE.

[Ian S]

15 hours ago, kingcarr21 said:

First thing I would like to see Enzo do is do away with the intro video before every home game showing all our recent success. Can't keep living off the miracle Title win. Needs to be left to history and start a complete new chapter 

Top post, couldn’t agree more.

[sacreblueits442]

1 hour ago, ALC Fox said:

Finally, we may start to see the standard of the academy suiting the facilities available at Seagrave.

...it always seems as if we view Seagrave as a place of miracles a Disney Land or Xanadu!!!

  It has always and will always be bricks and mortar, it is how you use the facilities and the coaches entrusted to teach there that is going to make the difference,  Seagrave is not a mystical place, just bricks and mortar.

[Vazman]

1 minute ago, The Horse's Mouth said:

What are you on about , the keeper position is the most locked in position on the training pitch, especially when he was trying to displace a club legend, him saving 1 on 1s in training isn’t going to get him to displace Kasper. Ward was never at that level to displace him and he never had a loan move, it was natural that if he had the potential it wasn’t going to be fulfilled spending 4 years on the sidelines but getting to play in carabao cup games. Putting this on Stowell is just bizarre mental gymnastics to me, if you’re agreeing that ward should be moved on then you’re surely conceding he’s a busted flush and even with a new goalkeeping coach he’s not worth retaining despite being at a lower level next season.

I never mentioned anything about Stowell, read the post properly, I merely stated off the back off a post that suggested he'd become a couch potato. Ward is dogs, the only thing I agree on and never said anything different to suggest otherwise is that he was never going to dislodge Kasper.

 

[inckley fox]

26 minutes ago, Vazman said:

I think everyone wants a bit of positivity to be honest, you would like to think having worked with Pep he will have learned a thing or 2, which is purely what I'm basing my positive spin on, I dont know the guy or have any knowledge about him, so am definitely in the let's see what he can do bracket.

Completely. I have the same hopes as you, and the guy could well turn out to be a revelation. Somebody has seen something in him, even if I haven't yet. He'll certainly get my full support, and I've rarely been the type to get on a manager's back (until, more often than not, it's getting a bit late in the day!) I'm no prophet on these matters either. You could probably find what I said when Ranieri was appointed if you looked hard enough!

[Guest Col city fan]

16 minutes ago, Ian S said:

Top post, couldn’t agree more.

Very much agree with this.

If it’s ‘a new dawn’ at LCFC it needs to be so completely.

With fresh ideas comes fresh ways of working. We now have the manager, what I’d like to see is a change in direction, and especially a better DofF. Top’s loyalty to Rudkin apparently knows no bounds and this is SO frustrating after last season’s hopeless effort.

We need out with the old, in with the new, including the track played before games.

 

[An Sionnach]

5 minutes ago, inckley fox said:

Completely. I have the same hopes as you, and the guy could well turn out to be a revelation. Somebody has seen something in him, even if I haven't yet. He'll certainly get my full support, and I've rarely been the type to get on a manager's back (until, more often than not, it's getting a bit late in the day!) I'm no prophet on these matters either. You could probably find what I said when Ranieri was appointed if you looked hard enough!

Trouble is reality has got little to do with a football forum. I pointed out that our little run of wins before Christmas was no turning point in our overall decline and got panned on here by Rodgers's blinkered fan club. A couple of defeats and the match day thread nutters will be at Maresca's throat even if the overall trajectory is upward.

[inckley fox]

1 hour ago, sm1 said:

Kasper likes Stowell because Stowell gave him Carte blanche to do whatever he wanted. At Nice,  one of the issues they had with Kasper was his attitude to training, where he did what he wanted when he wanted.

What are you basing that on?! And it wouldn't really be in the goalkeeping coach's remit to let a player do what he wants. That'd be from higher up. Stowell was a valued cog in our set-up in the most successful period in our history. Why is it that letting, say, Rennie go was an aberration and considered symbolic of us losing our identity after so many years of service and success, but getting rid of Stowell is the right thing to do? It just seems to be based on people's imagination.

[mozartfox]

1 hour ago, Babylon said:

And? Trained Kasper as well, he get the credit for him being at the top of his game when we won loads of cups and made loads of amazing saves. No, it gets put down to the player being good and not him. Works both ways. 

Are you related to Stowell by chance??

[Ryy]

Don’t know what it is about this video but I love him 

 

 

[Gamble92]

9 minutes ago, inckley fox said:

What are you basing that on?! And it wouldn't really be in the goalkeeping coach's remit to let a player do what he wants. That'd be from higher up. Stowell was a valued cog in our set-up in the most successful period in our history. Why is it that letting, say, Rennie go was an aberration and considered symbolic of us losing our identity after so many years of service and success, but getting rid of Stowell is the right thing to do? It just seems to be based on people's imagination.

So is Rudkin, by the club.

 

I'd argue Ward this season was that much of a disaster and that much of a reason for us going down that it outweighs anything good he's done. Including coaching Schmeichel. 

 

If all these "cogs in the wheel" during our successful era, incuding the owners parading the Trophies around, can take so much credit then they sure as hell need to take all the responsibility for this disaster. Yet not one person has taken any accountability. I tell you who will end up suffering, those on £11 an hour who will struggle to get another job and pay their bills. 

[KingsX]

6 hours ago, Leicesterpool said:

This could go same way as Pearson as prior to his first appointment he'd mainly just been a coach with occasional spells as caretaker. 

 

An interesting observation.  The two had nearly identical - and minimal - second division managerial records upon arrival here.*

Pearson at Southampton  (14 games)  W3  D7  L4

Maresca at Parma  (14 games)  W4  D5  L5

 

* (albeit NGP also had a poor stint with Carlisle at the very bottom of the EFL)

[ALC Fox]

35 minutes ago, sacreblueits442 said:

...it always seems as if we view Seagrave as a place of miracles a Disney Land or Xanadu!!!

  It has always and will always be bricks and mortar, it is how you use the facilities and the coaches entrusted to teach there that is going to make the difference,  Seagrave is not a mystical place, just bricks and mortar.

That's my point really. The facilities there are incredible but with Maresca, there is the possibility that we'll see them being used in a way that brings the standard of the academy up to meet the standard of the facilities.

[ALC Fox]

40 minutes ago, sacreblueits442 said:

 

 

Edited 17 June 2023 by ALC Fox
Double post

[KingsX]

Just a week ago, the Glasgow Herald was bigging Maresca up as Celtic’s ideal Postecoglou replacement.  (Any chance he was their man, too, but we got there first with an offer Celtic couldn’t match??   So the best they can do is our mutual ex.)

 

Whatever.  The article gives a view of Maresca’s time at Parma you may find worth reading.

 

Maresca has had one job as a first-team manager, and it lasted for just 14 matches. Shortly before Postecoglou arrived in Glasgow, Maresca departed the Etihad for a return to his homeland in May 2021.

His task: elevate a once proud club back to Serie A, and quickly. I Crociati had suffered through a thoroughly miserable 2020/21 season, plummeting out of Italy’s top-flight at rock bottom having won a paltry three league matches all season.

They were comparative heavyweights in the second tier, but Maresca did not meet the brief of producing instant results and he was brutally sacked a month before Christmas. He faced criticism for using players out of position, and of adopting a tactical approach that did not align with the profile of player at his disposal.

At face value, it is a considerable blot on his CV, and one which has raised questions as to his suitability for managing Celtic, where he would be expected to win every single domestic fixture.

Conor Clancy, co-founder of Total Italian Football, was among the journalists covering Maresca’s brief tenure up close, and believes there was more to how things unfolded than the unflattering numbers.

“I was impressed by his ideas,” said Clancy. “He was very keen to play football the way you’d expect anybody who’s worked with Pep to play football. Adrian Bernabe, for example, came to Parma from City and it was obviously because Maresca was there.

“He came in as this tricky little number 10 and Maresca played him, basically, between centre-backs when in possession. Valentin Mihaila, who was somewhere between a striker and a winger, he played him as a full-back.

“There was very much this approach of ‘everybody on the pitch is a footballer, first and foremost’. It wasn’t always that well-received. But to be fair to him, that Parma job was difficult when he took it.

“They’d just gone down to Serie B and nobody really knew what was happening. The squad was thrown together with mostly young kids who had never played first-team football before, Bernabe being one of them. He’s still here and loved by the fans.

“It didn’t last long. But that he was dismissed and replaced by Giuseppe Iachini, who I’d call the Italian Tony Pulis, shows Parma didn’t really know what they were doing at the time.

“He felt like the right man at the wrong time. If he’d come to this job with the players there now – it’s not a perfect squad but they are more established in Italy – I think he’d do a much better job.”

Maresca’s arrival in Parma was brewed scepticism among sections of the football media. His reputation as a new-age ‘philosopher’ coach did not sit awfully well the more hardened members of the press.

“Some of the old guard of the press who have been going to games here for longer than I’ve been alive were a bit resistant to him being seen as one of ‘Pep’s disciples’, and the way they are spoken about,” Clancy explained. “Even the term ‘disciples’, it comes with a certain expectation, especially coming from Pep, and it’s often met with some resistance.

“Even now you can see it with Mikel Arteta, people talked about him as if he’s not a ‘proper football man’. There was that impression here with Maresca.”

But while he may not have curried much favour in the press box, he made an entirely different impression on the players.

“The players loved him,” Clancy said. “When Maresca was sacked, a lot of the players were annoyed, particularly the younger ones. It was a pretty international squad, and Maresca speaks French, Italian, Spanish, English and possibly a few others.

“On the training ground, he was communicating his ideas to all these kids in whatever language they preferred to speak in, while also encouraging Italian use. When he was replaced, a lot of players had these little secret meetings around Parma; they were driving to car parks to basically moan about how the club had f****d them over by replacing this really young guy that they all loved with someone who was the exact opposite.

“The Celtic fans would probably like him; he’d make an impression and communicate his ideas really well. I just think the timing was it – he needed more time. I really, really do think if he had been given more time last the year, the results would have come.

“You can’t just implement that within two months. They did get worse without him; Iacchini came in and went for a back-to-basics, ‘big Sam’ approach.

“He ended up leaving with a bit of credit because he was seen to have steadied the ship but the points-per-game ratio was worse under Iachini, and he didn’t really have any ideas. Maresca was trying to build towards something.”

If Postecoglou had not kept in touch with Rangers at the Premiership summit during a bumpy first few months, who knows if the Parkhead board’s trigger-finger would have grown as itchy as Parma’s. But Celtic are a club who now know the value of allowing a manager sufficient time to build, on the obvious proviso that results do not become completely unacceptable.

“Having heard the stories I have from players, I know they liked him – the young players did, at least. The players who were the right fit for him, liked him – even if they weren’t playing. I think that says a lot.”

 

https://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/23575009.enzo-maresca-celtic-parallel-ange-insider-lifts-lid-parma/

 

[RowlattsFox]

Like it or not we need to be in and around the top 6 from the word go. Anything less and fans will be all over him. Hopefully we can play nice football but it has to get results. Anyone that says they will give him time if we are playing good football is lying.

 

Yes I want to use his contacts wisely but we need to be looking at building our squad for the Premier league, signing players on permanent contracts that can grow with the team. Not just loan signings. 

[Lillehamring]

6 hours ago, The Doctor said:

We had two managers in-between that and Rodgers, we finished 12th under Shaky, 9th under Puel and were 12th when Puel was sacked. Hard to say we were relegation fodder on the basis of half a season 2 years earlier, we were a dull but comfortable midtable club when Rodgers arrived 

I said 'like' relegation fodder, not that we were 'relegation fodder - notwithstanding, the point is that, despite mid-table finishes, we were very poor and on a downward trajectory - regardless of how one describes it (relegation fodder, dismal, unconvincing, mid table mediocrity) the difference between that period and the first two years of BR are like night and day.

[inckley fox]

15 minutes ago, Gamble92 said:

So is Rudkin, by the club.

 

I'd argue Ward this season was that much of a disaster and that much of a reason for us going down that it outweighs anything good he's done. Including coaching Schmeichel. 

 

If all these "cogs in the wheel" during our successful era, incuding the owners parading the Trophies around, can take so much credit then they sure as hell need to take all the responsibility for this disaster. Yet not one person has taken any accountability. I tell you who will end up suffering, those on £11 an hour who will struggle to get another job and pay their bills. 

So would you say that a better goalkeeping coach will turn Ward into a PL keeper? Because Stowell neither signed nor selected him.

 

And you can say the same about Schmeichel (who wasn't anything like as effective a keeper before or after LCFC, and Stowell).

 

You'd need evidence that keepers signed (by people other than Stowell) for Leicester were routinely worse when we trained them than they were elsewhere, notwithstanding the natural decline of older players. Can you say that for Martin, Fulop, Henderson, Stockdale, Weale, Ward, Douglas, Iversen etc.? For me, the bad ones were bad wherever they went, some of the passable ones had among their best spells with us, and the best one was literally one of the greatest players in out history, and arguably the most successful.

 

So where's the proof that Stowell is a problem? Because someone else thought that Ward was good enough? Or someone else sold Schmeichel? Or is it just that people are grasping at straws, and got mighty annoyed that our board thought Stowell could pass muster as a long-term caretaker, when in truth the guy was just a well-respected goalkeeping coach? It feels like people want blood, and don't especially mind whose blood it is.

 

As for Rudkin, yes, I suspect he is part of our current problem. But if we surmise that Top is a good chairman, misled by his footballing people, then if we were to hold Rudkin ultimately responsible as the footballing mind behind the operation, we'd also have to give him far more credit than I'd give him for winning the league. Again, it's 'best-guesswork'.

 

And, while I'd like to see a bigger change of direction in the club than we're seeing, with Rudkin we have to remember that he's probably the only significant voice in our boardroom with a long-standing club association, and a footballing background. Imagine the nonsense he's having to straight bat every day of the week. Whether he needs to go or not - and I suspect he does - it's just weird to me that he's the guy we're singling out, and with such certainty.

[Gamble92]

2 minutes ago, inckley fox said:

So would you say that a better goalkeeping coach will turn Ward into a PL keeper? Because Stowell neither signed nor selected him.

 

And you can say the same about Schmeichel (who wasn't anything like as effective a keeper before or after LCFC, and Stowell).

 

You'd need evidence that keepers signed (by people other than Stowell) for Leicester were routinely worse when we trained them than they were elsewhere, notwithstanding the natural decline of older players. Can you say that for Martin, Fulop, Henderson, Stockdale, Weale, Ward, Douglas, Iversen etc.? For me, the bad ones were bad wherever they went, some of the passable ones had among their best spells with us, and the best one was literally one of the greatest players in out history, and arguably the most successful.

 

So where's the proof that Stowell is a problem? Because someone else thought that Ward was good enough? Or someone else sold Schmeichel? Or is it just that people are grasping at straws, and got mighty annoyed that our board thought Stowell could pass muster as a long-term caretaker, when in truth the guy was just a well-respected goalkeeping coach? It feels like people want blood, and don't especially mind whose blood it is.

 

As for Rudkin, yes, I suspect he is part of our current problem. But if we surmise that Top is a good chairman, misled by his footballing people, then if we were to hold Rudkin ultimately responsible as the footballing mind behind the operation, we'd also have to give him far more credit than I'd give him for winning the league. Again, it's 'best-guesswork'.

 

And, while I'd like to see a bigger change of direction in the club than we're seeing, with Rudkin we have to remember that he's probably the only significant voice in our boardroom with a long-standing club association, and a footballing background. Imagine the nonsense he's having to straight bat every day of the week. Whether he needs to go or not - and I suspect he does - it's just weird to me that he's the guy we're singling out, and with such certainty.

I just think it's a case of saying thanks to the likes of Stowell and Rudkin and moving on. Whether you blame them or not. I think they've both been lucky to have had great people around but like you say none of us know anything for sure. I just think this is the chance now to start anew. 

 

They'll stay though unfortunately. 

[RowlattsFox]

Are we looking into the role.of goalkeeping coach to much? Might offer the odd bit of advice but keepers should be able to know what need go do themselves. Goalkeeping coach is just someone who kicks balls at them.

Edited 17 June 2023 by RowlattsFox

[Phil Bowman]

6 minutes ago, RowlattsFox said:

Anyone that says they will give him time if we are playing good football is lying.

No, some of the people saying that will be telling the truth.

[Gamble92]

6 minutes ago, Lillehamring said:

I said 'like' relegation fodder, not that we were 'relegation fodder - notwithstanding, the point is that, despite mid-table finishes, we were very poor and on a downward trajectory - regardless of how one describes it (relegation fodder, dismal, unconvincing, mid table mediocrity) the difference between that period and the first two years of BR are like night and day.

I think them 12th and 9th finishes highlighted how utterly horrendous you need to be to be near the bottom or relegated. We were abysmal at times in them seasons and still finished half way up the league. 

[StanSP]

 

 

[AmarteyAndChill]

13 minutes ago, RowlattsFox said:

Like it or not we need to be in and around the top 6 from the word go. Anything less and fans will be all over him. Hopefully we can play nice football but it has to get results. Anyone that says they will give him time if we are playing good football is lying.

 

Yes I want to use his contacts wisely but we need to be looking at building our squad for the Premier league, signing players on permanent contracts that can grow with the team. Not just loan signings. 

6th? if we are hovering around 6th the fanbase will already be so toxic. With our resources we should be promoted automatically, anything else will be a total shambles imo.