Neil Harris - Long ball merchant or quality footballing manager with wrong squad?
It has been argued on here that Harris wants to play more football but hasn't got the players to do it.
He made no attempt to change his style at Millwall and some of their fans joked that you'd still be able to see large parts of our games from the Den given Harris' aerial style.
What I want to know is do you think Harris is genuinely a man who wants to play football and has not got the tools at his disposal to do this, or as his record at Millwall and here suggests up to this point that he is indeed a direct, long ball style of manager who is most comfortable playing a bullying style of football?
If you do think Harris is more of a footballing manager who wants to play a more attractive style then what evidence can you give to suggest that?
Re: Neil Harris - Long ball merchant or quality footballing manager with wrong squad?
Hard working, honest, get the ball wide or hit channels, absolutely no attempt to play through the middle or create pockets of space in the final third, although the argument is that those type of players aren't available to him. I don't think that he would play that way anyway. He's about the width and keeping the shape through the middle.
Re: Neil Harris - Long ball merchant or quality footballing manager with wrong squad?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Tuerto
Hard working, honest, get the ball wide or hit channels, absolutely no attempt to play through the middle or create pockets of space in the final third, although the argument is that those type of players aren't available to him. I don't think that he would play that way anyway. He's about the width and keeping the shape through the middle.
That is how I see it. I'm just hoping to get some other views on this from some quarters.
He has a big emphasis on stopping other teams playing also. See his comments about being excellent in the first half against Brentford very recently while not registering a shot until Vaulks wonder goal. It is good to reduce other teams to very little but can your performance as a whole be viewed as excellent if you do nothing going forward?
Re: Neil Harris - Long ball merchant or quality footballing manager with wrong squad?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
blue lewj
That is how I see it. I'm just hoping to get some other views on this from some quarters.
He has a big emphasis on stopping other teams playing also. See his comments about being excellent in the first half against Brentford very recently while not registering a shot until Vaulks wonder goal. It is good to reduce other teams to very little but can your performance as a whole be viewed as excellent if you do nothing going forward?
You know that it's going to turn into an argument, Lewj :hehe:
Re: Neil Harris - Long ball merchant or quality footballing manager with wrong squad?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Tuerto
You know that it's going to turn into an argument, Lewj :hehe:
:xmashehe:
This is my last post on the thread. Just want to know why some are so convinced in their line of thinking that Harris definitely wants to play more football.
Re: Neil Harris - Long ball merchant or quality footballing manager with wrong squad?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
blue lewj
:xmashehe:
This is my last post on the thread. Just want to know why some are so convinced in their line of thinking that Harris definitely wants to play more football.
There is nothing whatsoever in Harris' past to suggest he is anything other than a long ball merchant. That's why the club were wrong to appoint him in the first place, and wrong to persevere with him now. Given our limited income streams, I'd prefer to see us pay him off today and find a new manager, rather than invest additional resources in the team this transfer window. We can then give a new manager the rest of this season to fully assess the shortcomings of the current squad.
Re: Neil Harris - Long ball merchant or quality footballing manager with wrong squad?
We all know the squad has limitations, and we all assume that there's not much that can be done about it. We also don't know how much credit Harris deserves for Keiffer Moore or any of the loan signings. But we do know that he's besides Moore he's not really getting much out of them and we've seen that after a slight initial improvement in the quality of the football the side plays, there has been a regression this season. Leading some to ask what was the point of even bringing Wilson in. For me, Harris's limitations are more of a factor than those of the squad at the moment. And my gut feeling is that I don't really trust him to a) bring the right players in and b) get the best out of them.
Re: Neil Harris - Long ball merchant or quality footballing manager with wrong squad?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
NYCBlue
We all know the squad has limitations, and we all assume that there's not much that can be done about it. We also don't know how much credit Harris deserves for Keiffer Moore or any of the loan signings. But we do know that he's besides Moore he's not really getting much out of them and we've seen that after a slight initial improvement in the quality of the football the side plays, there has been a regression this season. Leading some to ask what was the point of even bringing Wilson in. For me, Harris's limitations are more of a factor than those of the squad at the moment. And my gut feeling is that I don't really trust him to a) bring the right players in and b) get the best out of them.
Harris rebuilt the recruitment team, and he deserves credit for hitting a lot of his transfer targets in. Look at the last 3 seasons transfer misses compared to his. Harris deserves an awful lot of credit for bringing in people like Moore as it certainly wasn't anyone at the club who was here before him :hehe:. Harris is here to be cheap, so I don't really understand why we brought someone in like Wilson on a wedge either but there we go! I think the best thing about the club now, is we are actually trusted to get loanees here. We wanted Ampadu and Abraham in the PL, Chelsea didn't want to know.
I can't see Harris getting sacked this season, unless we get absolutely pulled apart by Norwich. The time looks to have been and gone. I think he's absolutely certain to go in the summer barring a turn around even better than the one he conjured up last season.
We're "functional", if that's a thing and we just hit the channels. It works quite well in a 4-4-2 but we got found out and man for man, we can't compete with Norwich, Brentford etc. They just won't give us the ball enough and will pass through us.
Conversely, I think Harris would be better off actually trying to play football. We'll lose more than we would in the short term but long term, we might actually do something. He might actually keep his job if the club recognised this. In reality there is no chance Tan or Harris will do anything other than short-termism. The teams that will come down will be good, again. COVID has meant the transfer fees have plummeted, so the relegated sides are going to be good as they'll hold onto most of their players and we'll get outclassed by the sides than can pass and move effectively. We even struggled in our promotion season against sides like that. We beat Villa and Wolves early but then lost to both, losing and drawing with Fulham. We unsurprisingly beat 5th place Bobo twice as they had Monk and Pulis, and nobody was better at doing what we did than us.
Re: Neil Harris - Long ball merchant or quality footballing manager with wrong squad?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Pedro de la Rosa
Harris rebuilt the recruitment team, and he deserves credit for hitting a lot of his transfer targets in. Look at the last 3 seasons transfer misses compared to his. Harris deserves an awful lot of credit for bringing in people like Moore as it certainly wasn't anyone at the club who was here before him :hehe:. Harris is here to be cheap, so I don't really understand why we brought someone in like Wilson on a wedge either but there we go! I think the best thing about the club now, is we are actually trusted to get loanees here. We wanted Ampadu and Abraham in the PL, Chelsea didn't want to know.
I can't see Harris getting sacked this season, unless we get absolutely pulled apart by Norwich. The time looks to have been and gone. I think he's absolutely certain to go in the summer barring a turn around even better than the one he conjured up last season.
We're "functional", if that's a thing and we just hit the channels. It works quite well in a 4-4-2 but we got found out and man for man, we can't compete with Norwich, Brentford etc. They just won't give us the ball enough and will pass through us.
Conversely, I think Harris would be better off actually trying to play football. We'll lose more than we would in the short term but long term, we might actually do something. He might actually keep his job if the club recognised this. In reality there is no chance Tan or Harris will do anything other than short-termism. The teams that will come down will be good, again. COVID has meant the transfer fees have plummeted, so the relegated sides are going to be good as they'll hold onto most of their players and we'll get outclassed by the sides than can pass and move effectively. We even struggled in our promotion season against sides like that. We beat Villa and Wolves early but then lost to both, losing and drawing with Fulham. We unsurprisingly beat 5th place Bobo twice as they had Monk and Pulis, and nobody was better at doing what we did than us.
I have a suspicion that Wilson was brought in by the higher-ups because he's Welsh and he's a "name". I still don't really understand why Liverpool would let any of their players come to us if they were really interested in developing them. For all we know, the club could have been keen on Moore for similar reasons. Same with Vaulks. I think that Moore is good signing. The others, who knows?
Re: Neil Harris - Long ball merchant or quality footballing manager with wrong squad?
Wilson was brought in partly to tee Moore up for those headers, and partly because he wants to play regular football. He's never worth what Liverpool want for him (£20m? really?) but he's good at this level, if he's protected.
Re: Neil Harris - Long ball merchant or quality footballing manager with wrong squad?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
tforturton
Wilson was brought in partly to tee Moore up for those headers, and partly because he wants to play regular football. He's never worth what Liverpool want for him (£20m? really?) but he's good at this level, if he's protected.
Burnley offered 12/15m for him in the summer. He isn't worth 20m but I wouldn't be at all surprised if someone paid it.
Re: Neil Harris - Long ball merchant or quality footballing manager with wrong squad?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Pedro de la Rosa
Burnley offered 12/15m for him in the summer. He isn't worth 20m but I wouldn't be at all surprised if someone paid it.
He's going to have to do something special in the Euros for an EPL club to offer £15M again.
Re: Neil Harris - Long ball merchant or quality footballing manager with wrong squad?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
NYCBlue
He's going to have to do something special in the Euros for an EPL club to offer £15M again.
Maybe this is all part of Tan and Harris' plan. Play poorly, get Wilson down to our level for a season to sign him at a cut price. :hehe:
Re: Neil Harris - Long ball merchant or quality footballing manager with wrong squad?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Pedro de la Rosa
Maybe this is all part of Tan and Harris' plan. Play poorly, get Wilson down to our level for a season to sign him at a cut price. :hehe:
Makes sense. After all, Tan is a billionaire genius.
