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Post by prestwichpotter on Sept 1, 2023 9:30:36 GMT
MON’s best team would have looked something like: Davies Smith Collins Souttar Fox Allen Clucas Powell McLean Fletcher Campbell Decent, top 10 ish championship side. The biggest issue he had was injuries to key players, and also a bizarre blind spot with goalkeepers which ultimately was a key reason why he lost his job. I think - not unlike many Stokies - he liked the idea of bringing Burik through as a young homegrown keeper and at first he looked the real deal. But ultimately he just wasn't good enough.......
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Post by AlbertTatlock on Sept 1, 2023 9:31:50 GMT
One thing I grew to dislike more and more with MON was the 5-3-2 he tried and flogged to death while everyone could see it wasn't working, Neil has also been guilty of trying to make it work but is far less inclined to persist with it, hopefully the players we've signed will take the shackles off and we can look forward to 4 at the back from now on and let the awful wing-back system be condemned to history where it belongs. MON wasn't a bad manager he was OK but we needed more than OK, FFP didn't help but even without the FFP restrictions I could not see us being more than a mid table championship team under his leadership. Neil has been backed but now it's his turn to show how good a manager he is. One thing is for certain he needs to be better than OK. Gouranga.
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Post by a on Sept 1, 2023 9:32:40 GMT
Whoever was responsible for bringing in Jarrod Dublin deserves high praise. It has undoubtedly meant less journeyman old has beens and hopefully more exciting players with potential.
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Post by mickstupp on Sept 1, 2023 9:36:15 GMT
MON’s best team would have looked something like: Davies Smith Collins Souttar Fox Allen Clucas Powell McLean Fletcher Campbell Decent, top 10 ish championship side. The biggest issue he had was injuries to key players, and also a bizarre blind spot with goalkeepers which ultimately was a key reason why he lost his job. I think - not unlike many Stokies - he liked the idea of bringing Burik through as a young homegrown keeper and at first he looked the real deal. But ultimately he just wasn't good enough....... Thinking back, we had that situation in his first full season when both senior keepers (Gunn and Davies) got injured at the same time and we had to recall Bursik from his loan at Doncaster. He looked shaky and I think that was the point when MON went ultra cautious and too defensive to try and protect him. We were keeping clean sheets but lost a lot of attacking threat, which diminished even further when Campbell got injured when he was really flying.
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Post by bloodtypered on Sept 1, 2023 9:39:48 GMT
Oneil was tied, but did a good job of preparing the way for what we have now....better manager players and backroom staff
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Post by boskampsflaps on Sept 1, 2023 9:42:35 GMT
The OP has picked a very weak MON team leaving out Brown, Powell, Souttar and Baker, four players who all did well for him. MON did well for us initially stabilising the ship and it should be remembered that in giving chances to Collins and Souttar, he also generated significant funds for the club, something that AN has benefitted from since. Had MON still been here this summer, it would have been interesting to see how he would have used the budget. I suspect it would have been mostly British players and probably not Pearson since he didn't seem to think he needed a DM. It would have been awful had he stayed, he'd still be signing players that didn't fit into the god awful system he was trying to play.
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Post by boskampsflaps on Sept 1, 2023 9:46:01 GMT
MON’s best team would have looked something like: Davies Smith Collins Souttar Fox Allen Clucas Powell McLean Fletcher Campbell Decent, top 10 ish championship side. The biggest issue he had was injuries to key players, and also a bizarre blind spot with goalkeepers which ultimately was a key reason why he lost his job. He also decided to completely do away with what had worked for him so well in keeping us up. It made zero sense.
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Post by thisisouryear on Sept 1, 2023 9:47:50 GMT
MON had a really tough situation at our club, top to bottom we were a mess and he managed to keep us in the championship despite all the shit that was going on behind the scenes. If AN were in the same situation I don't think he would have been able to do what MON did. MON was capable of grinding out results with shit players no matter whose players they were and I believe he could even do it at a higher level, not pretty but effective. I'm not convinced he would have signed some of the players he did if he had more options and funds available. AN proved last season he isn't quite as capable of doing that and was a bit clueless at times, apart from that purple patch we were shite last season. His limitations were obvious and quite worrying. That doesn't mean AN can't be successful, I just think he has his own style of play and needs the right players to do it. If that fails this is where he might fall short at a higher level. Prem teams are very good at adapting to one trick ponies, I just hope AN has more about him with his own players.
If we ever managed to get to the prem and found ourselves managerless and struggling to stay up then MON would be a great manager to grind out results to keep us up as a short term option.
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Post by mickstupp on Sept 1, 2023 9:48:07 GMT
MON’s best team would have looked something like: Davies Smith Collins Souttar Fox Allen Clucas Powell McLean Fletcher Campbell Decent, top 10 ish championship side. The biggest issue he had was injuries to key players, and also a bizarre blind spot with goalkeepers which ultimately was a key reason why he lost his job. He also decided to completely do away with what had worked for him so well in keeping us up. It made zero sense. I just recall a mixture of heavy wins and heavy defeats. We had too many injuries and he went ultra cautious as a result.
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Post by jesusmcmuffin on Sept 1, 2023 9:51:49 GMT
MON’s best team would have looked something like: Davies Smith Collins Souttar Fox Allen Clucas Powell McLean Fletcher Campbell Decent, top 10 ish championship side. The biggest issue he had was injuries to key players, and also a bizarre blind spot with goalkeepers which ultimately was a key reason why he lost his job. Absolutely Never seen a manager gave an injury curse like he did. To be fair he lost so many keepers with injuries also although Bursik was a liability. Neil has had the go ahead to totally rebuild but needs to get the results now.
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Post by theonlooker on Sept 1, 2023 9:54:39 GMT
It's hard to judge the two as they are operating under what is clearly a very different structure aswell as circumstances. It's a structure that I've believed for a long time benefits the first team manager and takes a lot of weight off his shoulders.
I'll be honest, I've struggled for years to completely appraise our managers given what was clearly an archaic structure. I found great difficulty in drawing boundaries around their performance.
On the one hand a manager is ultimately responsible but on the other how much was his attention taken away by having to deal with other things. I certainly felt it took it's toll on MON and Jones. I certainly think this structure would have given us a better shot at buying better under Rowett.
Either way we're in the here and now and it feels so much better but also more clear in my mind how when looking at AN and what he's doing.
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Post by Kenilworth_Stokies on Sept 1, 2023 10:02:52 GMT
I'll be honest, I've struggled for years to completely appraise our managers given what was clearly an archaic structure. I found great difficulty in drawing boundaries around their performance. Agreed, we've had a run of managers who were tentatively welcomed by the fans when appointed and who had had a modicum of success elsewhere, but who ultimately underperformed at Stoke. Once is unfortunate, five or six in a row indicates the problem is wider than just the manager. Hopefully now the club has had a full reset and we can break out of that cycle. Time will tell, but it looks like we have an interesting ride ahead, which is a big factor in energising the fans. If it works out, we have to give credit to the club in ripping up the playbook and taking a different approach.
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Post by bayernoatcake on Sept 1, 2023 10:04:03 GMT
No, he left a shit show that needed to be ripped apart and started again. He left us in a terrible position that has then seen the complete overhaul we’ve seen. How is needing to sign 12-15 players leaving us in a good position? 😂 Exactly the opposite conclusion, a lot of signings this summer was always the plan.. His job was to get us to this season, when we knew we would be on a better FFP footing, in the Championship with the ability to restart. He did that by clearing a lot of the players out on long contracts and using loans, young players and the staff he had. He made mistakes for sure but he stabilised the club and created the platform Neil is now exploiting. Teams with much smaller budgets than ours did way better. It’s a bad excuse for a bad manager who had no plan.
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Post by thisisouryear on Sept 1, 2023 10:20:51 GMT
Exactly the opposite conclusion, a lot of signings this summer was always the plan.. His job was to get us to this season, when we knew we would be on a better FFP footing, in the Championship with the ability to restart. He did that by clearing a lot of the players out on long contracts and using loans, young players and the staff he had. He made mistakes for sure but he stabilised the club and created the platform Neil is now exploiting. Teams with much smaller budgets than ours did way better. It’s a bad excuse for a bad manager who had no plan. We were making terrible signings a long time before MON came, it just continued until now. People can blame the manager but it seemed more like an in house problem that was deep rooted not necessarily the manager fault. It's taken time but we seem to have learned our lesson and got our shit together at last. It would have been nice if MON had got a job elsewhere where we could see how he coped with less restrictions. I believe he is a decent solid manager for any team outside the top half of the prem. Going back to international football just looks like he wasn't enjoying club football and to be fair he had it tough here. Overall he left us in a better place than he found us so it's unfair to give him too much criticism. I think more blame should be on the owners not MON.
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Post by The Toxic Avenger on Sept 1, 2023 10:35:04 GMT
Teams with much smaller budgets than ours did way better. It’s a bad excuse for a bad manager who had no plan. We were making terrible signings a long time before MON came, it just continued until now. People can blame the manager but it seemed more like an in house problem that was deep rooted not necessarily the manager fault. It's taken time but we seem to have learned our lesson and got our shit together at last. It would have been nice if MON had got a job elsewhere where we could see how he coped with less restrictions. I believe he is a decent solid manager for any team outside the top half of the prem. Going back to international football just looks like he wasn't enjoying club football and to be fair he had it tough here. Overall he left us in a better place than he found us so it's unfair to give him too much criticism. I think more blame should be on the owners not MON. What do you mean by ‘an in-house problem’? Our recruitment has been largely manager driven until this summer. MON entrusted Cousins and Aldridge and had his own picks as well. Jones’ signings were his, Rowett’s signings were his, Hughes’ signings were largely his.
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Post by bayernoatcake on Sept 1, 2023 10:47:16 GMT
Teams with much smaller budgets than ours did way better. It’s a bad excuse for a bad manager who had no plan. We were making terrible signings a long time before MON came, it just continued until now. People can blame the manager but it seemed more like an in house problem that was deep rooted not necessarily the manager fault. It's taken time but we seem to have learned our lesson and got our shit together at last. It would have been nice if MON had got a job elsewhere where we could see how he coped with less restrictions. I believe he is a decent solid manager for any team outside the top half of the prem. Going back to international football just looks like he wasn't enjoying club football and to be fair he had it tough here. Overall he left us in a better place than he found us so it's unfair to give him too much criticism. I think more blame should be on the owners not MON. A slightly better one. We went from certain relegation to probable relegation. Great work. He had plenty of time and resources to do better than what he did. His first season was great, a miracle. The rest was diabolical.
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Post by Robo10 on Sept 1, 2023 10:57:19 GMT
O'Neill sadly just lost his way, and from a relegation threatened team that lost its shackles and started to score for fun, exciting games that were won at the death and a little hope after a good start in 2019/20, he absolutely went into his shell and started to play slow, negative, sideways and unimaginative football, much like the blueprint of his NI sides.
Yes he had injuries but so do others - we bought in additional slow unimaginative players in a dour 1994 Joe Jordan-esque with no cutting edge, no excitement and ultimately no goals and very few home wins.
If I can explain one detail that tells me things are changing - my youngest has been coming since he was 6 or so, and has seen very little to understand why we go each week, has complained for years or let out a sigh when I tell him he is coming
This season he is full of it (13 now), looks forward to matchday, and wants to go to several away games too - we are off to Huddersfield in a few weeks midweek
That change in attitude is a reflection of the clubs adventure in the market, the setup of the team and a completely different mindset - we will lose some obvs, there will be weeks where we dont turn up, but even being outplayed by Ipswich we could/should have had 2 goals to show, and Millwall last week, as poor as we were, the second half I'm still baffled how we didnt score at least 1.
Good times ahead, its positive all round (bar the usual grumblers)
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Post by cvillestokie on Sept 1, 2023 11:00:10 GMT
The players that MON developed has enabled our survival and growth:
Brown Souttar Collins (To a lesser extent) Bursik
Players that could still run us a tidy profit:
Wilmot Baker Tymon
We are a middle sized club in a shite league with limited income. Developing players for profit is the main goal. MON did that very well.
MON’s biggest failings include building teams around specific players. He built a team around Fletcher and Campbell: both got injured. He then built a team around Powell and Souttar: both of them were injured. He had no idea how to combat that.
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Post by prestwichpotter on Sept 1, 2023 11:03:51 GMT
It's hard to judge the two as they are operating under what is clearly a very different structure aswell as circumstances. It's a structure that I've believed for a long time benefits the first team manager and takes a lot of weight off his shoulders. I'll be honest, I've struggled for years to completely appraise our managers given what was clearly an archaic structure. I found great difficulty in drawing boundaries around their performance. On the one hand a manager is ultimately responsible but on the other how much was his attention taken away by having to deal with other things. I certainly felt it took it's toll on MON and Jones. I certainly think this structure would have given us a better shot at buying better under Rowett. Either way we're in the here and now and it feels so much better but also more clear in my mind how when looking at AN and what he's doing. The problem is when you appraise managers there's too many "whatifs" Who knows who MON would have signed this summer if we'd kept him on, who knows what would have happened if Campbell hadn't broke down against Cardiff, if Fletcher hadn't slid into the advertising hoarding, if we hadn't lost Souttar and Powell, who knows if we'd stayed up with Hughes instead of Lambert even though we were really struggling at the time etc etc? And of course you're never privy to what goes on behind close doors at a club. What I do know though is we were in free fall and on our knees as a club before he arrived, that 2-0 home defeat to West Brom under Delap was one of the most depressing moments as a fan I can ever remember, 3,000 West Brom fans and literally a handful of home fans in the ground at the end in one of the most tepid performances you could ever wish to see. If we'd have gone down that season I dread to think where we'd be now. History will be kind to MON I think, and I'll always be grateful for the job he did even if it didn't work out in the end. He's cleared the way for AN to take us to the next level, from where we were at I wouldn't underestimate the achievement of that with all the expensive wasters we had on our books and the general air of resignation when he arrived.......
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Post by independent on Sept 1, 2023 11:30:45 GMT
I think it's a bit early to be making comparisons between managers who inherited vastly different situations. Anyway, is this the dreaded vote of confidence in John Coates? Where have all his detractors gone? Surely he should be getting smothered in praise.
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Post by gawa on Sept 1, 2023 13:33:40 GMT
Made a net profit every window. Reduced the wage bill every window. Brought youth through and developed many of them into better players or sellable assets. Improved existing players/assets and sold them on at a higher value. Got alot of the big earners off the books. And maintained a very healthy win percentage despite alot of long term injuries to key players (Collins, Souttar, Powell, Campbell, Davies etc...). Aside from a game against Leeds in his first season I don't remember ever being "hammered" by a team on the pitch. Put the foundations in place to allow Alex to have the freedom to do what he has this transfer window. Providing Alex doesn't have the same misfortune with long term injuries to key players then we really should hopefully be challenging for playoffs after the summers investment. And the early signs show it's very much possible. Still has a better win rate than Alex too
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Post by jesusmcmuffin on Sept 1, 2023 13:34:52 GMT
Made a net profit every window. Reduced the wage bill every window. Brought youth through and developed many of them into better players or sellable assets. Improved existing players/assets and sold them on at a higher value. Got alot of the big earners off the books. And maintained a very healthy win percentage despite alot of long term injuries to key players (Collins, Souttar, Powell, Campbell, Davies etc...). Aside from a game against Leeds in his first season I don't remember ever being "hammered" by a team on the pitch. Put the foundations in place to allow Alex to have the freedom to do what he has this transfer window. Providing Alex doesn't have the same misfortune with long term injuries to key players then we really should hopefully be challenging for playoffs after the summers investment. And the early signs show it's very much possible. Still has a better win rate than Alex too Excellent summary Gawa
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Post by The Toxic Avenger on Sept 1, 2023 13:57:43 GMT
Made a net profit every window. Reduced the wage bill every window. Brought youth through and developed many of them into better players or sellable assets. Improved existing players/assets and sold them on at a higher value. Got alot of the big earners off the books. And maintained a very healthy win percentage despite alot of long term injuries to key players (Collins, Souttar, Powell, Campbell, Davies etc...). Aside from a game against Leeds in his first season I don't remember ever being "hammered" by a team on the pitch. Put the foundations in place to allow Alex to have the freedom to do what he has this transfer window. Providing Alex doesn't have the same misfortune with long term injuries to key players then we really should hopefully be challenging for playoffs after the summers investment. And the early signs show it's very much possible. Still has a better win rate than Alex too Excellent summary Gawa Sounds like a king among men, presumably only some ghastly conspiracy means he’s not still here?
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Post by biddulphchav on Sept 1, 2023 14:08:00 GMT
Wouldn’t call it so much a transition, more of a transformation, driven primarily by the recruitment strategy we’ve seen this summer.
While what we are seeing is really refreshing, it’s really early days and the fact is we simply don’t know how it’s going to pan out this year (or next). Worth remembering that MON brought through Jacob Brown, Souttar and Tymon (and Collins but I think he was that good he’d have made it whomever was here), and was on his way to making saleable assets out of Connor Taylor and DWP. You could argue he kept Campbell at the club too. And he did that on a shoe string budget.
Personally i think MON was great for us, really liked him have a lot of time for the guy and I believe he left the club in a really good position to be able to capitalise on the end of FFP restrictions and really, enable what we are seeing now to take place.
As for AN, really encouraging signs, and this new recruitment style has made a lot of people sit up and take notice and I think there is an air of optimism and excitement in the fan base that we haven’t had for a while. However, to-date he’s not delivered much, aside from a pretty poor first season with some as-shit as MON’s performance in his last year or so in charge.
As a fan base, we are getting a bit carried away (which is the fun part of being a fan) but for me, we can’t really judge him until he’s had a chance to get this team together - he has to show signs he can deliver by December otherwise it won’t look good for him.
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Post by gawa on Sept 1, 2023 14:30:18 GMT
Sounds like a king among men, presumably only some ghastly conspiracy means he’s not still here? Results business and early results last season along with understandebly frustrated fans made the position untenable. That doesn't mean he didn't do a good job with the resources available. Alex Neil actually achieved a lower PPG last season than what we had before his appointment. One could argue that some such as yourself make Alex seem like a king amongst men. But talk will only get you so far - its the results which matter.
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Post by thisisouryear on Sept 1, 2023 15:02:57 GMT
We were making terrible signings a long time before MON came, it just continued until now. People can blame the manager but it seemed more like an in house problem that was deep rooted not necessarily the manager fault. It's taken time but we seem to have learned our lesson and got our shit together at last. It would have been nice if MON had got a job elsewhere where we could see how he coped with less restrictions. I believe he is a decent solid manager for any team outside the top half of the prem. Going back to international football just looks like he wasn't enjoying club football and to be fair he had it tough here. Overall he left us in a better place than he found us so it's unfair to give him too much criticism. I think more blame should be on the owners not MON. What do you mean by ‘an in-house problem’? Our recruitment has been largely manager driven until this summer. MON entrusted Cousins and Aldridge and had his own picks as well. Jones’ signings were his, Rowett’s signings were his, Hughes’ signings were largely his. There were obviously problems higher up the chain than the manager as every manager was failing which now seems to have been rectified. We will see over the season but there are positive signs the owners have got their act together and fixed a problem they created. MON is a good manager, the mood at the club has been sour since relegation and he couldn't keep the fans onside any longer with his playing style. The one thing MON was good at was getting results and despite how bad our situation was he managed to get points on the board. We don't fully know the situation and what he was in control of but for manager after manager having the same issues season after season leads me to believe the problems were above him.
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Post by foxysgloves on Sept 1, 2023 15:05:58 GMT
I was debating with my lad what the average O'Neil team was and how that compares with now. It's quite a transformation. We came up with: Davies Smith Baath Chesters Tyman Thompson Allen Ince Clucas McLean Campbell Could have had Fletcher up too and Campbell wide. Was there a more average left back than Tyman? Average as in played more games there rather than wingback? 1. No foreign players 2. No pace or creativity 3. Average age around 29? 4. Players don't suit the system (hence could have been 352) An amazing Revolution unique in my near 40 years watching Stoke. Struggling to see what’s so complicated? Surely we just take away the O?
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Post by The Toxic Avenger on Sept 1, 2023 15:07:40 GMT
What do you mean by ‘an in-house problem’? Our recruitment has been largely manager driven until this summer. MON entrusted Cousins and Aldridge and had his own picks as well. Jones’ signings were his, Rowett’s signings were his, Hughes’ signings were largely his. There were obviously problems higher up the chain than the manager as every manager was failing which now seems to have been rectified. We will see over the season but there are positive signs the owners have got their act together and fixed a problem they created. MON is a good manager, the mood at the club has been sour since relegation and he couldn't keep the fans onside any longer with his playing style. The one thing MON was good at was getting results and despite how bad our situation was he managed to get points on the board. We don't fully know the situation and what he was in control of but for manager after manager having the same issues season after season leads me to believe the problems were above him. There were problems higher up the chain for sure but the managers themselves were a big part of the problem and none of them were having players inflicted on them, they had final say and their own targets as well, including MON. MON wasn’t that good at getting results given he couldn’t finish higher than 14th.
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Post by The Toxic Avenger on Sept 1, 2023 15:09:27 GMT
Sounds like a king among men, presumably only some ghastly conspiracy means he’s not still here? Results business and early results last season along with understandebly frustrated fans made the position untenable. That doesn't mean he didn't do a good job with the resources available. Alex Neil actually achieved a lower PPG last season than what we had before his appointment. One could argue that some such as yourself make Alex seem like a king amongst men. But talk will only get you so far - its the results which matter. Not really, it was you who decided I must love AN because I was critical of MON. I thought AN was a big disappointment last season but I thought his career before that and that brief upturn suggested he could deliver for us and MON’s poor transfer business meant he had to go because he was getting more and more confused.
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Post by terrorofturfmoor on Sept 1, 2023 15:42:36 GMT
Rip it apart and start again. He left a shit show. Irrespective of what others say, I've got to agree with this!!! Apart from the half season he turned us around to avoid relegation, the rest of his time was mediocre at best, I was going home after matches feeling somewhat deflated..... AFTER A WIN!!!
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