The Official Ian Russell Thread

For Sure!!! All I want is a chance for him to prove he belongs.

 

There's enough sodium in that meal to make a dead man's blood pressure hit the ceiling! Good luck, Goodsie!!!!

 

San Jose Earthquakes fire Luchi Gonzalez with team in last - ESPN

"The 48-year-old Russell has been an assistant coach for parts of 11 seasons overall with San Jose and had a stint as interim head coach for two matches in 2014. He helped the Quakes win the Supporters' Shield in 2012 as an assistant coach.

He also spent four years as head coach of Reno 1868 FC, the Quakes' affiliate in the United Soccer League. He made the playoffs all four seasons with Reno.

"Ian is a very experienced coach who knows our club better than anyone," Leitch said. "He had a great run as head coach at Reno for four years, winning a lot of games and making the playoffs every season. We're confident that he's ready to lead us."

Russell also played in 131 games for the Quakes between 2000-05 and was part of MLS Cup champions in 2001 and 2003."

 

Not sure I completely buy into CL's comments about what ails the team. Defense is a whole team effort - OK, agreed. But our midfield is going to suddenly become much better at defending? Exactly how? And Ian may bring more "practicality" and "simplicity". Was Luchi's system impractical and too complex? Maybe. Will we play more mid block and do less pressing? More willingness to forego playing out of the back? Hard to know what he means in concrete terms.

https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/why-san-jose-earthquakes-dismissed-luchi-gonzalez-what-s-next

 

I’m sure you meant Leitch’s comments and it sounds like he’s saying don’t expect summer reinforcements.

 

Yeah, doesn't sound promising. But that's always his standard line - we're always looking to improve... He never gave more than that even before the Hernán signing. Plays it super close to the vest. So hard to say for sure. I think the U22 mechanism is really the only way we might get an impact player in terms of what can fit under the cap. What fits under the FishBudget is another question.

 

This might be crazy, but maybe play Rodrigues as dmid? With hopefully Wilson and Beason or Munie at CB?

Our dmids suck. Even if you like Morales, he's a 70 minute player. And Rodrigues like to ramble forward too much. So maybe play him at dmid?

Or maybe Skahan at dmid?

I think Rodrigues at dmid, Skahan at left wing, and Pelle and Benji as forwards.

Go Quakesfans!!

 

Reading Leitchs comments: I wonder if there is some merit to JeffAdams theory that Leitch wanted Russell all along but then Sportsology fausted Luchi upon him. Wasn't Sportsology who suggested Jesse and Stahre too?

Leitch is a shitty GM who is making excuses or we have dumb leadership who undermined his coaching pick, or both are true -- not good regardless.

But CL's comemnts of playing simpler and that we have better players than our record suggests lend creedence to Jeffs theory.

 

I don't understand this comment. How can the Quakes play any simpler? Don't we basically only use 1-2 ways to attack?

Also, i had a thought -- we are only changing the head coach, but we are keeping all the assistants. These assistants played most of their careers here. They don't have any new ideas or techniques to bring in, unless they learned something from Almeyda. We know they couldn't have learned anything from Stahre.

So basically, I'm asking why should anything change? Other than ownership, a significant problem is that we have a chain of command from GM to equipment manager that is so in-bred that we can only operate and play one way.

 

We can play much more direct (i.e. simple). Luchi loved toothless possession for posessions sake which resulted in an anemic attack and an exposed defense on the counter.

 

Holy moly - Kaitlyn’s waxing enthusiastic. Is there a full moon????

 

Yep I wanted Luchi gone after last year and have been intrigued by Ian for a while.

I just wonder if Leitchy wanted Ian all along but then the higher ups wanted the "sexier" coach and over ruled him.

 

Would not surprise me. Way too much reliance on business school BS. Kaval as Rasputin.

 

The former was obvious from the moment in 2008 the revised Quakes hit the field. The Fisher boys were convinced there was nothing they could possibly learn from anyone else.

 

Yeah what I’m trying to grok what CL is thinking. Based on the article that relayed his comments at the press conference, we heard 3 things:

We can be:

- simpler
- more practical
- whole team defense - not all on back line

I'm not sure what Luchi did that was complex. He did build in a flexible defensive system - high press, mid, and low block, and talked about "shape", even when attacking - to be able to recover against a counter. Maybe the guys had too many things to think about?

As for "practicality" maybe he thinks we high-pressed too much? We didn't win balls in our attacking third very often, so I'm not sure it did more than tire out our attacking players. If we play more compressed we can win more balls in midfield and alleviate some of the pressure on the back line, which relates to the 3rd item on the list above. And maybe he also thinks we were too dogmatic about playing out of the back?

And then, trying to reconcile what CL said against his own coaching style. Under CL, at least at the start, we essentially tried to play the way Wilfried Nancy teams play. 3-5-2, attack all the time. He pulled back the reigns a bit towards the end but I think his first inclination illustrated his coaching philosophy. I'm not sure how "practical" that style of play was - it sometimes worked great and sometimes failed badly. It was simple in the sense that we had one way to play essentially, so the player didn't have to think about all sorts of permutations.

Anyway, it'll be really interesting to see what Ian does with the team - who plays, how we play, etc. We may not notice big changes at first but maybe over time we'll be able to see the patterns and the key differences.

 

I would not put to much into what Leitch says at a press conference.

 

Geeked up - that's what I do!