Nope. The mistakes are still criticised, regardless of overall performance. It also depends on the field in question. A soldier shooting 55% of the right people? Not great...
That's an outcome not a decision measure. Most of the time, I hope, the soldier doesn't have to make a decision on who to shoot as the enemy will be obvious. Whatever anyone might think it isn't obvious to select Doherty over Royal. The outcome of all Conte's decisions is that we got more points in the PL than I was expecting and won our CL group. Was it perfect, no. Was it better than any other coach could manage, probably.
To think that he should be exempt from criticism is frankly ridiculous. Especially when some of his decisions are 'proved' to be failing, game in, game out.
The fact that our three previous managers have fared much worse. I think there is a fear among many fans, perhaps bordering on paranoia, that the booing and criticism will get to Conte and he'll just walk before the end of the season. And then what? We're up the proverbial creek without a paddle. Other than Zidane who to my mind represents another huge risk, who do we turn to if Conte goes? I can't see anyone gettable out there who would interest me. Chances are we'd go back to Poch, cap in hand and it would be a sentimental car crash. This doesn't mean we should stand by Conte no matter how bad things get, nor does it mean he is immune to criticism. But it does mean as long as things are at least marginally better than they have been for the previous 4-5 years (which they are), it makes more sense to back the manager and get behind the team.
In the case of Bissouma it does seem that Conte has chosen to try and make him a Kante-type midfielder, in much the same way there was talk back in January of him wanting to make Adama Traore a RWB It does have to be asked why we never seem to be in for a DM, though - and it's hardly recent either, as in the summer of 2019 we weren't linked with a DM even though we were rebuilding our midfield, like Poch realised we needed to replace Dembele and Eriksen but forgot that Wanyama was also broken down by then, as with the exception of Joao Palhinha there hasn't been a single DM linked with us in the three years since then
Pochettino fared much worse? Only in the last year or so of his tenure. Ok, Paul Coyte! I'm not saying that Conte should go, just that it's alright to criticise him. Booing and jeering our own players is a load of crap though and that needs to stop.
Yeah I don’t understand why they haven’t gone for a DM if that what is needed to maximise the system Conte plays.
Palhinha? This is clearly going to be a matter of opinion and neither side can prove they're right. I'm surprised that you wouldn't see room for improvement on Hojbjerg though, given your view of him.
I think we have the fifth best squad and are outperforming. So our manager is probably doing better than he ought to. I really don't mind critical comments, it's when they cross the line into booing or barracks players that gets me. It's all a matter of opinion anyway. Hojbjerg gave away the first goal yesterday and did exactly nothing positive. Royal made 3 very bad passes and missed a sitter. But he was the initiator of our second goal and otherwise did a lot of routine stuff very effectively. But I don't call for Conte's head because he keeps picking Hojbjerg.
I think Skipp and Bissouma are both upgrades on Hojbjerg but if Conte disagrees he is more likely to be right than I am.
Tielemans is the obvious name to suggest, given Hitchens alerted Poch to his availability in early 2019 only for Poch to reject his suggestion The other notable one is Stanislav Lobotka, who we had reasonably strong links to in the summer of 2018 before he joined Napoli in January 2020, and he's looked pretty tidy this season in particularly Florian Grillitsch is the other name routinely linked, who joined Ajax in the summer and has been solid (even if Hoffenheim to Ajax is a sideways move)
Steve Hitchen certainly alerted Poch to the availability of one, only to be given the brushoff There certainly is a "What if...?" about how we would have looked at the start of the 2019-20 season with a Tielemans/Ndombele pivot and Lo Celso in front of them, not least because we likely wouldn't have had lined up in the Rhombus of Death system that Poch had us playing
Agree. Really hope Skipp can stay fit and get plenty of game time after the break and make one of those midfield spots his own. Bissouma is a good player and again will hopefully feature more as the season progresses
I think you’re undervaluing and under appreciating the quality we have in the squad. Ours still needs work but I don’t think there’s 4 teams with better squads, in fact in terms of outright squad, only City is substantially better. In terms of first choice XI, I’d say City and Liverpool are stronger despite the latter’s form. Even most pundits predict us to finish 3rd this season: https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/62354857.amp So right now we’re probably performing one spot lower then we should be, playing well below our capabilities as a team despite some individual standouts and that’s also not forgetting embarrassingly crashing out of the cup to Forest. It’d look a bit silly though if you criticised Conte for picking Hojbjerg, seeing as Hojbjerg has been one of our best players this season, alongside Bentancur and Kane. Dread to think where we’d be if those three weren’t overcompensating for poor tactics and poor performances from others.