Ronny Deila Named NYCFC Head Coach / Deila Joins Standard Liège

What Are Your Thoughts on Deila as NYCFC Head Coach?

  • Quite Really Pleased

    Votes: 9 19.6%
  • Really Pleased

    Votes: 2 4.3%
  • Pleased

    Votes: 8 17.4%
  • Neither Pleased or Displeased

    Votes: 7 15.2%
  • Displeased

    Votes: 6 13.0%
  • Really Displeased

    Votes: 10 21.7%
  • Quite Really Displeased

    Votes: 4 8.7%

  • Total voters
    46
This is a great and helpful analysis. The one factor that leaves fans a bit numb with Ronny is this - after some understandably poor performances as teams adjusted, both Torrent and Vieira had the team rolling and near the top of table. Ronny D does not have that, although I am willing to be patient.

Put another way, it will perhaps more illuminating to evaluate games 18-51 once we can - eliminate the first half season of adjustment and get something that's more of a run rate.

i think that is fair considering the circumstances of covid and such. ronny gets a pass on that. but with viera and dome, at least we saw what they were building. I'm at a loss to figure out what exactly Ronny wants to do with the team. That's probably what bothers me the most. After bringing in talent and options, which he said he needed, he doesn't use them. Very strange.
 
i think that is fair considering the circumstances of covid and such. ronny gets a pass on that. but with viera and dome, at least we saw what they were building. I'm at a loss to figure out what exactly Ronny wants to do with the team. That's probably what bothers me the most. After bringing in talent and options, which he said he needed, he doesn't use them. Very strange.
To piggy back off of Moogoo, that bolded section I think really is why I’m not so sure about Ronny as a coach. I only started getting involved with soccer when this team was formed and I haven’t put in a lot of time or energy yet (nor do I know if I ever will) to learn most of the small nuisances or tactics that happen within a game. That being said I think that’s why Viera and Dome were well liked. The game was very easy to follow and the team played THEIR game and dared the opponents to essentially out play them. It was relatively simple to follow once you watched and saw the style. And they played their style really well even when the pundits said that style of play couldn’t be played in mls. Ronny on the other hand, after 34 games I still just don’t see what is happening. I see the stronger defense which is lovely but on the attack I just don’t follow it very well. It’s not as easy on the eye. Maybe if someone were to explain to me the basics of what Ronny is trying to do I’d get more on the Ronny train. But right now I see the stats and just don’t see it on the pitch.
 
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First, I definitely skewed the narrative on my last post. I probably would say that Vieira had the toughest job taking over and did the most with it. But still, for Ronny, specifically on the offense question that some have raised, I keep coming back to personnel. My first point is pretty subjective, but they get less so as they go on IMO:
  • Heber was not himself last year after the lockdown and before getting hurt, and I do attribute that to either fitness or attitude or mental health. I don't blame him - it was a terrible year and he showed up and tried - but he wasn't himself.
  • Under Ronny, Maxi has never been the player he was under Vieira or Torrent. I suppose you can blame Ronny if you want but what I see is age. Also, I see that when Maxi was hurt last year the team struggled mightily, but when he was hurt this year the team was much, much better because Parks, Medina and Acevedo have formed a 3 headed midfield unit. Oddly, none of them does any part of what Maxi does at his best, but together somehow it came to work. I don't see how you don't attribute that to coaching.
  • Again, and I don't know how people think Ronny was supposed to overcome this based on an eye test, but Mitrita and Heber scored 43% of the team goals in 2019, and they both disappeared on him, and he was given no replacements for 14 games. Come on. Best counter is he didn't play Mitrita regularly until just before he left, but then he did use him, he produced, and then he was gone. Torrent whined endlessly because he had to go 6 whole games in-between Villa and Heber. Ronny went 14 games without 2 top scorers. Under him we have seen Castellanos develop into an actual striker, and he rescued Medina from the Upside -Down where Torrent left him, and kept the team on track until the new guys finally showed up.
  • If Johnson saves just 2 out of 4 bad goals we gave up early on this team has at least 3 more points (maybe more), and is second in the East on PPG (maybe more).
  • The team has 9 set piece goals off Free Kicks and corners. That's coaching and effort (which is a by product of coaching).
He could be doing better with what he has? Don't make me go back and dig up all the forum quotes from March-April when the club had no talent and especially no scoring talent and we were doomed, doomed I tell you. NYCFC played the first 7-8 games with offensive depth consisting solely of Andres Jasson. The year before Ronny, Castellanos played 2052 minutes. Shradi and Medina each less than 1000. Jasson was in the Academy prepping for Yale. That was the team's entire front line roster for the first 2 months of 2021: one previously full time player, 2 role players, and a kid who probably would not be here but for desperation. We have nobody named Ruidiaz, Nani, Chicharito, Bou, Rossi, Zardes, Vela, Zelarayan, or Dike. Even now it seems that Magno is still not fully recovered from his injury, and Santi has been non-existent for who knows why (until the last game). I do not believe we have under achieved on offense.

And not for nothing, but the team has scored more goals per game than anyone in the East, is third in the league overall, and has not been shut out since last September. This isn't some sketchy advanced stat stuff you might not trust. This is basic shit like goals scored and points per game and we did it mostly with Taty, Isi and Medina and nobody else. But multiple people are certain their subjective analysis says we should be doing better with what we have?!?! Really? Your eye tests are telling each of you that 3rd place in goals scored per game is underachieving and this was a team that from the start of the season should be, what?, best in the league in scoring goals? LOL and a half. Deila's record is pretty damn good.
 
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Are we getting results? Yea. Could we be doing better? Until we are #1 in the league, the answer for me is always "Yes" but given the circumstances (pandemic, new players, no home stadium, etc), I am satisfied with how we are doing thus far.

But there are just some things that can't be quantified with stats. That's where the eye test comes in. For me, it's about playing a beautiful and consistent style. I don't think we are anywhere near the consistency and creative style we used to see from this team. That's where I want to see the improvement but I also recognize he's got new players who will need time to acclimate and sync with everyone. But damn - his lineup choices, late game line changes, and positional experiments aren't making the process any easier.
 
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This is a great and helpful analysis. The one factor that leaves fans a bit numb with Ronny is this - after some understandably poor performances as teams adjusted, both Torrent and Vieira had the team rolling and near the top of table. Ronny D does not have that, although I am willing to be patient.

Put another way, it will perhaps more illuminating to evaluate games 18-51 once we can - eliminate the first half season of adjustment and get something that's more of a run rate.

I think the reason is that you only get one chance to make a first impression, and after the start Ronny got off to last year, fans never gave him a chance. Add to that he didn't appear to be their first option, and he's really never been given a chance here. He should be, though, because he has the squad playing some pretty good stuff.
 
I think people overrate the impact that managers have on the game. The only thing that Ronny has to do is not fuck things up. The concern that I have is that sometimes he does not rotate the squad properly and the playing people out of position rather than adjust the system to the players they had.
 
I think people overrate the impact that managers have on the game. The only thing that Ronny has to do is not fuck things up. The concern that I have is that sometimes he does not rotate the squad properly and the playing people out of position rather than adjust the system to the players they had.
I believe one of the cases made in the book Soccernomics is that managers are overrated and make little difference. That may be true in a general sense and when analyzing using certain metrics but I find it hard to believe that it is never a difference maker. Was replacing Lampard with Tuchel a pointless exercise?
Maybe Lampard just “fucked things up” and Tuchel just unfucked them.
The Montreal loss really kind of messed with me... I was starting to feel positive knowing that the team still had to work on some parts of their game. At this point I don’t know who they are. The Columbus loss was heartbreaking but I thought the team came out on fire and were showing signs they were ready make a statement by humiliating the champs. They actually started pretty hot against D.C. before turning sluggish and dull. Then they emerge out of somnambulism for a heroic win.
A few glaring issues/questions in my mind
-substitutions. Why so late in the game when it’s clear something needs to change for NYCFC on the pitch
-Use of Andres Jason. I see the determination and some good things but think the holes in his game may outweigh the positives
-Lack of use of Tavon Grey. 1.instead of Jason / give Tinny (who is not the same as last years version) a break
-FINISHiNG
 
I'm still on the #RonnyOut train. lol. I think because despite doing better statistically than previous managers, I personally think he could be doing even better. Sometimes the eye test is more meaningful than the data? *shrug*

ronny also hasn’t had to play the Western Conference?
 
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This doesn't include Dome, though, right?

Still interesting!
Correct. NYCFC probably has the best track record in MLS hiring foreign coaches who lack prior US or Canadian coaching experience. We've had 3 in a row and all were probably more successful than average for that particular class. Even if Ronny gets fired after this year, he'll have a winning record overall if he can manage at least 1 W and 1 T (or even just 3T) in the last 8 games.
 
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To be fair, he took over a team that topped the conference and averaged nearly 1.9 ppg. Maxi and Heber were both top-5 in the MVP race, our defensive spine of Chanot-Callens-Johnson was top 7 or 8 in the league. Tinnerholm was breaking out. Players like Sands, Taty, Medina, and Parks seemed ready for bigger roles and we had decent pieces to round out our 11 (Isi, Mata, Gudi, Ring, etc). We've also brought in more talent than most during that time period.

We've certainly been good under Ronny, I'm just not sold we've been as good as we can be.
 
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To be fair, he took over a team that topped the conference and averaged nearly 1.9 ppg. Maxi and Heber were both top-5 in the MVP race, our defensive spine of Chanot-Callens-Johnson was top 7 or 8 in the league. Tinnerholm was breaking out. Players like Sands, Taty, Medina, and Parks seemed ready for bigger roles and we had decent pieces to round out our 11 (Isi, Mata, Gudi, Ring, etc). We've also brought in more talent than most during that time period.

We've certainly been good under Ronny, I'm just not sold we've been as good as we can be.

As someone posted somewhere, it's like Ronny is a minivan driver in an F1 race car.
 
As someone posted somewhere, it's like Ronny is a minivan driver in an F1 race car.

I really think we're being unfair with Ronny. This guy was never given a fair chance after he started 1-5-0. If you take his overall record after the 1-5-0 and before this recent 1-3-2 slump, he had a record of 21-9-7 over a full calendar year. That's a per-game pace of 1.89 PPG, or 64 points over a full season. Even if you include this latest six-game stretch, his record since the bad start is 22-12-9, or 1.74 PPG, a 34-game pace of 59 points.

Every time they lose, it's a referendum on Ronny. Every time they win, Ronny had nothing to do with it and we just have good players. I have a controversial opinion. Ronny is a good coach. Not a great coach or he'd be in Europe, but he's a good coach and is helping more than he's hurting. Does he have his faults? Absolutely -- virtually no coach is perfect. But Ronny's above average, perhaps solidly above average for MLS. And he deserves at least some credit for coaching one of the best teams in MLS, even if they are slumping a bit right now.
 
I really think we're being unfair with Ronny. This guy was never given a fair chance after he started 1-5-0. If you take his overall record after the 1-5-0 and before this recent 1-3-2 slump, he had a record of 21-9-7 over a full calendar year. That's a per-game pace of 1.89 PPG, or 64 points over a full season. Even if you include this latest six-game stretch, his record since the bad start is 22-12-9, or 1.74 PPG, a 34-game pace of 59 points.
It's pretty easy to say someone's a good coach when excluding all of their losses :).

But really, there are 2 sides to this debate. On one side, you have some advanced analytics people who can probably say that statistically, we're still one of the best teams in the league. Our xG, xA, and chances allowed are all probably pretty good. As disappointing as the last 3 games have been, we've only allowed 3 goals in those 3 games. 1 goal allowed per game is pretty impressive. I also remember seeing statements from players that they enjoy playing for Ronny and that he's been helpful in the development of a few key players, specifically Medina.

That said, the other side is the eye test, streakiness, and mental fortitude. The guys look tired and uninspired, and are playing poorly as a result. If we all agree that our players are talented, then it's the coach's main job to put them together into the best positions and tactics to win games. Ronny's been really struggling with that recently. Sometimes we've gone on really good runs, but they're followed by some really awful play.

I'm really having a hard time with last night's game because of the team's flat, scared attitude. Especially after Wednesday night, there shouldn't have been any problem motivating the side to play with enthusiasm and grit. Instead, we got a soft, scared performance where we completely abandoned our tactics that we've been training for almost 4 years with 3 different coaches. Rationally, Ronny probably deserves to finish the season and play 1 more full season so he gets 2 non-Covid seasons to judge his competence. But that would be a tough pill if we don't finish out the season strong.
 
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