I'm Red Till Dead
Stuart Pearce
It's a shame that it went so badly for Dyche. Whenever he was interviewed you could tell that being the manager of Forest made him so proud.
Sean Dyche
- Thread starter Gyros Peter
- Start date
chaospunx
Grenville Morris
Definitely mate once he was here I wanted it to work it just seemed after an initial bump in results he didn't know what to do and appears to be such a bad man manager which is one trait id of said he had looking at him from the outside
greatbowden_garibaldi
Viv Anderson
I don't even think we would have beaten Fener. Dyche would have set us up to play for a dour draw at their place, there is simply no way we would have attacked and pressed them as much as we did.
The 1st leg would have been followed by the usual nonsense about it being a tough place to go and how digging in has kept us in the tie, etc.
The bloke sucked the life out of me, the Braga game was the final straw. Braga basically played like Villa did against Spurs and we contrived to lose the game.
king_congo_red
Ale Ape
The Dyche 'era' (can an era really be called such, if it's so short) will always be a puzzle to me. A weird mish-mash of games where we played pretty well but couldn't score and games where we played abysmally and somehow got points.
Osiris
We HATE the Villa
It was the Everton game for me
Watching us aimlessly stick cross after cross after cross straight on to James Tarkowski's head with no plan B convinced me the man had absolutely no grasp of how to win a game of football in 2025 (as was)
Watching us aimlessly stick cross after cross after cross straight on to James Tarkowski's head with no plan B convinced me the man had absolutely no grasp of how to win a game of football in 2025 (as was)
MaxiRobriguez
Bob McKinlay
Yeah I think he lost me fully then too. Wasn't overly keen prior but willing to accept short term for survival but... yeah... that game.
king_congo_red
Ale Ape
Literally picked the worst possible opposition to try that against as well. I'd love to know the thinking behind that.
Monkman
John Robertson
Thinking is overrated. Running is where it's at.
This. Even worse considering that as their recent manager he should know their strengths and weaknesses; we spent the entire game playing to their strengths!
I bear no ill will to the bloke, I genuinely believe that he cares about the club and wanted to do well here, but I think we'd have been relegated if he had stayed.
Much like the likes of Allardyce and Pulis, his methods may have worked in the Premier League once upon a time but they don't work in 2026.
Statto
Free Kick Specialist
That's the thing. We won quite a few without playing well, the WH one was a prime example, we needed the win when it mattered and usually got it.
He did what he needed to - got us out of the relegation zone, which we were in under Ange, kept us out of there for the rest of his time, got the EL campaign back on track (I think he was in charge for the rest of the group stage, so the only thing he could have improved on there is not needing a play off). We needed someone to steady the ship, stabilise the club and stop the panic, he managed all that, but (although there was hope he would be, as he'd never managed a good squad before) he was clearly (and this was evident after a few weeks) not going to be the long term appointment, and that if he did last the season, he wouldn't have been here next.
What you said is basically why I still think we would have stayed up under Dyche, but it wouldn't have been anywhere near as spectacular as recently, we'd probably be level pegging with Spurs and WH keeping our heads just above water, I think Dyche would probably have won Burnley and Sunderland (probably not by as much) and not been too far off Vitor's PPG record but it would probably have gone down to the wire. And we would have lost one of the knockout ties in the EL, maybe he might have played the fringe players like he did v Wrexham, the ones he said weren't good enough.
His Plan A, which was simply to get balls into the area no matter what, even if 1 striker is isolated against two CBs, simply didn't work enough. The Everton match, where that was just executed and failed constantly, was a prime example - and you would imagine that Dyche, who managed Everton, would know not to play into their strengths. That was utterly baffling.
JonnoSnr
Jack Armstrong
Wouldn't have been so bad if it was perhaps a European side we had minimal data on, but this was against the team he'd managed last with a centre half he had at 2 clubs.
Utterly incompetent.
JonnoSnr
Jack Armstrong
For me there's no chance Dyche would've got us to 42 points with 3 to play and certainly not coupled with a slender lead going into a Europa League semi second leg.
The form of the other teams down there has been too good for us to meander along with his ppg ratio.
Scarpa's Skateboard
Viv Anderson
Will this thread just kindly f*** off
Statto
Free Kick Specialist
Tbf, that isn't what I said. Chances are we'd have about 37 or 38 and be out of EL right now, it'd be going to the last day, week before at best
His record was P18 W6 D4 L8 - 22pts so 1.2 per game, when he arrived we had 5 from 8, so 30 matches at 1.2 per game is 37 points by the end of the season.
I do think Wood coming back would have meant we got more recently which is what VP has done, so the more recent matches would probably have got him over the line.
In most seasons 1PPG is enough to keep a team up, this season is higher than usual.
MaxiRobriguez
Bob McKinlay
What was the PPG in the first 9 compared to the last 9?
We got worse the longer he was here, I'd be more comfortable extrapolating from the most recent set of results.
And genuinely have no idea what either PPG are. Strongly suspect the former is better than the latter but...
Listen 'ere young man
Stuart Pearce
Last 10 or so games had a shithouse win vs Brentford, a very lucky one against West Ham, a clinging by the finger nails draw against Arsenal.
He did a job because we got our heads above water but we were in a desperate state, performances wise and it was only going downhill.
Plus the final nail in the coffin, the players didn't think much of the tactics/methods, it probably would have been a scene from beachy head soon enough.
He did a job because we got our heads above water but we were in a desperate state, performances wise and it was only going downhill.
Plus the final nail in the coffin, the players didn't think much of the tactics/methods, it probably would have been a scene from beachy head soon enough.
Statto
Free Kick Specialist
Good question (Especially if there's suggestions he had peed off the players, which might suggest a turnaround wasn't possible as opposed to average PPG over the whole tenure)
First 9:
4 wins, 1 draw, 4 losses - 1.44 per game
Second 9:
2 wins, 3 draws, 4 losses - exactly 1 per game
However, in that time we did play City and Villa as well as Arsenal who are in the CL, WH, Leeds and Palace which are pressure because of who was around them, you could say the 2nd set of fixtures was a bit harder, but then Leeds (won the first time, lost the 2nd), Wolves (won the first time, drew the second) were in both. If we'd matched the reverse fixtures, that would be in itself an improvement, but, then we also had Neco sent off v Palace and suspended v Leeds, which didn't help our chances.
If the 2-0 v Everton was a watershed moment, then don't forget we actually only lost twice after that...
MaxiRobriguez
Bob McKinlay
So two things:
1) If you want to use PPG then using the more recent form suggests we'd be around 8 or 9 points worse off, so in the relegation spots and deep in the proverbial.
2) I personally feel like the only two results from the combined lists which weren't fair outcomes were the West Ham and Brentford wins, both felt like they should have finished in draws. So I think the second set of results is actually biased to the higher side and we couldn't even bank on 1 PPG, which if that were the case we'd probably be staring relegation in the face.
It's hard to disagree with the change given the points accumulation since and the fact we're about to play for a place in a European final. For whatever reason Dyche wasn't the man here.
Dogtitius
NorCal
Was it Dyche who decided to not have Netz and Taiwo in the squad?
Tom W
Grenville Morris
Yes. Hate this prick more than Ange.
Statto
Free Kick Specialist
It happened when he was manager
But realise that first of all Nuno left us without Hutchinson in the squad. We also then loaned out Kalimuendo who was in the squad.
We've also been playing with keeper swaps, we had Gunn and JV in there at various points and Sels and Ortega swapping in and out when they were injured too.
Because we can only claim Yates as club trained senior players the amount of other players we can include was reduced.
Not everyone in the 25 was going to get in and in January we had a limited number of changes to make.
Savona presumably was in there and is injured, if he was fit we wouldn't need Netz.
Let's also not forget who we have missing - No Aina, Murillo on the bench, Abbott presumably out from Chelsea, Savona, that's 4 defenders already. Having Taiwo in the squad as well as Wood, Lucca and Jesus would have been a bit daft too as that's 4 strikers.
Whoever did miss out, it would have been questioned, but we didn't have enough places to include them all.
Personally I think if you sell or loan a player you should be able to swap them, but I think they have to be included in your permitted mid-season changes.
Ewan Husami
First Team Squad
Fkn ell that's like one of my mrs favourites "the car hit the bollard while it was being reversed" err who was driving then?
Dyche is past his time, pissed everyone off the football was turgid we only stayed out of the relegation zone because west ham were abysmal and if we hadnt sacked him i have absolutely no doubt we would probably be relegated already due to the upturn in form of the others. Awful Manager desperate to try and keep himself relevant on podcasts and talksport
Statto
Free Kick Specialist
Missing the point
The car analogy fails because presumably there was enough space to reverse when hitting the bollards, so it could have been reversed without hitting anything. Now imagine reversing the car with the bollard in the middle of the drive and whilst you do have enough room either side, it's a bit of a tight squeeze. You can get out without hitting it but one side there's a load of broken glass past the bollard and the other side doesn't have much visibility onto the road. Neither way is ideal and can fail due to circumstances outside the control of whoever is driving
Going back to the EL squad the rules are here https://documents.uefa.com/r/Regula...League-2025/26/Article-31-Player-lists-Online - these rules are for every club
It's not like the PL where you can name 25 over 21 players with no restrictions
List A is covered in 31.04
So that means we can't have more than 25 players in the squad, but 8 of them have to be "locally trained" of which only 4 of them can be "association trained" meaning 4 of them have to be club trained. We only have 1, so that's a cap of 22 on our squad.
Automatically, this means 3 players in the league 25 can't be in the EL squad
31.10 covers changes
So we can swap two non-injured players after the league phase, subject to the previous caps
31.14 covers injuries
We have done this with Sels and Victor when they got injured
We did this when Aina got injured (note the 60 day limit, and that it is until matchday 6)
Some more changes rules in 32.01
32.04 confirms this has to abide by the same limits
I don't think either decision was on Nuno or Dyche.
The club had plenty of constraints, not to mention losing player spaces from the 25 player squad because only Yates qualifies for List A as club trained. Abbott is list B. So it was inevitable some players could miss out.
I'm sure there was good reasons not to include Netz and Awoniyi - one of them was probably that they were out of changes, the other is that they perhaps felt another player would miss out by including them. It's difficult to track what we have and haven't changed because the current squad is listed on the UEFA website. But it seems our allotted three was to remove Boly, Victor and Kalimuendo and then add Hutchinson, Jair and Lucca.
Awoniyi for Lucca is a possibility, but, I'm sure Dyche would have wanted to play his new striker, and the club would have, plus Taiwo by all accounts had done little at that point so perhaps wouldn't have been considered good enough to include (or would perhaps, without the benefit of hindsight from recent form, been equally criticised on here), the other factor is that doing so might have breached our quota on locally trained players as although we signed him from Germany he was a Liverpool trainee...
Dyche deserves criticism for a lot of things, but this was probably a club decision and also equivalent to squaring the circle with missing out.
We also couldn't swap out Savona, because that injury rule didn't apply any more.
Ewan Husami
First Team Squad
You dont ship out one type of player(kali) then go and loan a completely dofferent type of player (lucca) unless the manager chooses to do so
You keep fighting your dyche fight, my opinion will never be changed
You keep fighting your dyche fight, my opinion will never be changed
Statto
Free Kick Specialist
Both of them were bad signings but they clearly saw hold up play with Lucca similar to what we get with Wood who was out at the time.
Neither of them will be PL strikers. But Lucca's style of play and build is closer to what would be successful than Kalimuendo's.
At least we don't need to think about shifting out Lucca as he is only on loan. It was a risk worth taking as there was no real loss to doing so, we were acting late in the window, and needed a striker.
If you're fundamentally questioning including Lucca and not Taiwo as one of our three changes (assuming we could have), then that is probably something said with a lot of recency bias and hindsight. Most people on here thought at the time the decision was made that he was finished and wasn't worth considering.