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A short thread with thoughts on Miroslav Machálek and his departure from Zbrojovka
Machálek leaves Zbrojovka with a record of P32 W18 D6 L8, with the caveat that the majority of these games were from managing the team in the second tier. For this season, it's P12 W2 D3 L7. It's safe to say that the step-up to the top flight has seen us struggle.
Despite results which leave Zbrojovka second-bottom of the table, this departure comes as a surprise. Zbrojovka have looked better in recent weeks, with losses coming more from moments of madness, such as the switch-offs vs Pardubice and Budějovice.
However, although you can't account for a lot of these errors, it does reveal perhaps Machálek's biggest failure at the helm - we can't defend. Zbrojovka have conceded 24 goals so far this season and have kept 3 clean sheets - one against second-tier Jihlava in the cup.
Machálek came to the helm after leading his swashbuckling SK Líšeň side up the table in their first-ever FNL jaunt. They were an exciting team to watch, but with the mentality of outscoring opponents rather than focus a lot on the defensive sides of things.
This was good up to a point - particularly as Zbrojovka scored buckets of goals down in the FNL. However, a we pointed out on the podcast a bunch, we may put 5 past a team but would often concede unnecessary goals while doing so - see the 5-2 game with Jihlava or 3-2 vs Chrudim
The problem was that Machálek has never managed at this level before - in the top flight, as we've seen, you get punished for your mistakes, and defenders are generally a lot smarter here. Our predicament is we don't score enough, and we concede goals incredibly easily.
This leads on to the issue of recruitment. Losing Eismann in particular was huge for us, and we were experiencing a real crisis leading up to the start of the season due to the lack of an experienced back four. Our squad depth was midfield-heavy, without much else
Now, it can be questioned whether our recruitment was down to the manager believing he had the level of squad necessary for the top league, or the reluctance of Bartoněk to fund transfers, or a combination; but we were under-prepared for this season.
The excellent @czechfooty wrote a good piece on Jan Moravec,and that has *sort of worked?*, but what on earth were we doing signing a player like Jan Koudelka? The fact we needed to bring in Gajić and Reiter after the season started is telling - underprepared.
From our perspective, it was starting to look like Machálek was out of his depth in the top flight. TBH, who can blame him? But this is a [cliche alert]bold move to give him the boot right now. Was it premature? Time will tell. But I thought it odd not to at least go to the break
![From our perspective, it was starting to look like Machálek was out of his depth in the top flight. TBH, who can blame him? But this is a [cliche alert]bold move to give him the boot right now. Was it premature? Time will tell. But I thought it odd not to at least go to the break](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EpRTCYWXIAUj6xQ.png "From our perspective, it was starting to look like Machálek was out of his depth in the top flight. TBH, who can blame him? But this is a [cliche alert]bold move to give him the boot right now. Was it premature? Time will tell. But I thought it odd not to at least go to the break")
This is on the board now - it was your call, so who comes in to try and keep Zbrojovka Brno in the top flight? A lot at stake here - obviously a financial hit with relegation, but our top players will absolutely not stick around for another lower-league stint.
