Yeah well RM had to go through that 1-2 years after CR left too.
Smashed 0-3 in 17/18
0-3 vs Seville in 18/19 after he left
Barely grinded draws vs Atleti and Barca (in cup) while also losing 0-1 to Rakitic goal, 1-4 at home to Ajax
Pretty average at best vs PSG in groups in 19/20 (then again we hardly ever take groups seriously)
Kept losing cup knockouts
I don't know what you expect but you need to wait this year out and not get mad when you look like shit when half your attackers are out injured.
Folk used to go ballistic over Lopetegui not handling the 18 potential Ballon DOr winners (Perez's words at the time) correctly.
Koeman doesn't have that and folk are sounding off like you're supposed to show some promise?
Wait for Braith, Dembele and Pedri to return and accept you might get found out in bigger games unless you're in a particular stretch of form.
So while other people may be criticizing Koeman with reactionary takes, this is far from reactionary from me.
Again, its not about the results themselves but how these games play out and crucially the sort of approach we take in these games. You named it yourself earlier: everyone knew when he first arrived he was more pragmatic, defensive and safer than someone like even Lucho. The fact that right now, we are anything but pragmatic, we have regressed defensively and still struggle to close out games when we have a lead is a pretty damning indication of Koemans failures. What I expect is a clear idea of how you want your team to play and steady progress in executing that idea as time progresses and I am just not seeing that from Koeman.
While there are some similarities to the situation Lopetegui and Koeman were in, it is important to remember you were not nearly as financially hamstrung as we are right now and also, at least recently, you have been much more willing and open to adapting different play styles than we have. With that in mind, you had more wiggle room and margin for error in terms of player and manager recruitment during this rebuild stage than we can allow. Thus when we miss, it does more long term damage to us than it does to you. Just the nature of the two beasts.
With Koeman now, that means three misses in a row for us relatively speaking compared to your one miss so far and that damage is why despite having the weakest team I have seen from Real on paper in decades, your still top of the league while we are in 7th. If Koeman continues on this trajectory, we could crash out of the groups in the CL, end up in the Europa league and could seriously miss out on a CL spot for next season, based on recent results. Simply cannot afford that so this is not just fans being reactionary to an injury crisis but seeing the writing that has been on the wall for a while.
Lastly, the thing with Julen too is while the results were not there when he was with you guys, he still at least had a better idea of what he wanted to do at Real than Koeman does here. In terms of the squad, again, not a treble winning team but I think it has been a bit overstated how poor this team is. Yes, it has gotten weaker with the departure of Messi obviously but there is still enough of young, core squad there to be comfortably getting past the likes of Cadiz & Granada, especially if Koeman had a better idea of either getting us to play more pragmatically or an idea to play more expansively. It is decisions like insisting on Sergi Roberto over the likes of Gavi and Puig, failing to get anything whatsoever out of Luuk, continuing to rely on a clearly physically past it Busi in midfield; a capable coach like ten Hag could be getting a lot more out of this squad for example, even facing a similar injury crisis.
That is why I respectfully want us to move on from Koeman ASAP, I respect him for stepping into a pretty much impossible task but even taking the results out of it, the performances just arent heading in the right direction.
