Originally Posted by
Oldtimer
That's a good question, tbh you made me think about it.
I think what I meant by my expression "the usual suspects" is that there is a small group of people who will dislike Vanney no matter what he accomplishes. Key to this is considering that any success is for reasons other than his leadership, or even despite his leadership. I think any objective viewer of this board would agree there is such a group on this board (and even more so on Twitter).
I don't think these people are unthinking. After all, it's about interpretation of events. I do disagree with them and feel there is some bias against Vanney based on his earlier inexperience and lack of foreign experience (many would prefer that TFC would spring for an elite foreign coach).
I should note here that I was very dubious about Vanney myself for most of his first season. He was inexperienced, made some bizarre decisions at first, and didn't seem to know what he was doing. I was willing to give him some benefit of doubt because he was clearly a deep thinker, but I would have taken Kreis any day over him.
By mid 2017 there was quite a bit of evidence (for a lot of us) that he had learned a lot and was by then one of the more decent coaches in MLS. A lot of us changed our minds by then who were cool to him at first. That doesn't mean he's an excellent coach. If he was excellent he would be in a higher league, not MLS.
I would agree with the criticisms that he doesn't practice defending set pieces enough, and they don't seem to have spent enough practice on PKs. However, I'd take him over a majority of MLS coaches.
