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I would be hard pressed to think of anyone who would do a worse job.
Me for a start – and I would suspect most posters on here.
Graeme Souness.
John Barnes.
Kevin Keegan.
(Hang on, there’s a theme here – who did they all play for!)
Roy Keane (particularly as he “loves” Wigan now).
Avram Grant.
Paul Ince.
Alain Perrin.
Brian Kidd.
Christian Gross.
Shall I go on??
Far be it from me to suggest otherwise, Andy. I was talking in the generality of course, not specifics ;)
ITV4 – 7:10 – Escape to Victory.
That’s the way to do it :cheer:
I,ll go 4-4 with a late penalty save
trouble is I also think there could be crowd trouble I only hope there is no pitch invasion ;)[/quote]
Now you’re just being silly – that would never happen in real life. It almost sounds like a film script. :huh:[/quote]
you,ll tell me next that there all acting :whistle:[/quote]
That’s just ridiculous too. Nobody could act that convincingly.
Yes. I know exactly what I was writing.
When we came up, and historically over a number of years, Preston have been a “championship” club. Current position is not what I was talking about. I was talking about the general feel of a club. Where it belongs. Preston are playing below what we expect of them (enjoyable it may be for us although their Schadenfreude when we go down will be immense if we continue to have that view of them). Just like Leeds and Forest in those divisions. Funny to see at the time, and deserved because of their performances, but taking a much wider viewpoint you cannot say they are “League One clubs”.
Whisper it, but West Ham are probably more a Premier League club than Championship. Sheff United and Wednesday also probably have more the feel of Championship clubs rather than League One.
So – yes – I know exactly which division clubs are in this season. I’m talking about the general feel. And for us I wanted us (those years ago) to have the feel of a stable Championship club rather than lower league nobodies.
ITV4 – 7:10 – Escape to Victory.
That’s the way to do it :cheer:
I,ll go 4-4 with a late penalty save
trouble is I also think there could be crowd trouble I only hope there is no pitch invasion ;)[/quote]
Now you’re just being silly – that would never happen in real life. It almost sounds like a film script. :huh:
I’ll be disappointed if/when we go down – no-one likes to see their team being rubbish – but when we came up into what is now the Championship I said that my greatest hope was that we could establish ourselves as a regular at that level, a bit like Sheff United, Preston, Leicester, Cardiff and so on, rather than lower division like Hartlepool, Doncaster, Barnet and Lincoln.
That was my hope at the time, and the 7 years in the Premier League have been a bonus if I’m rational about it. Which at the moment I’m not. But in time I will be.
I’ll add my twopennyworth of one cause of the problem – and that’s stats.
Now I know Bobby isn’t the only one who uses them, Bruce was quite a believer. But stats should be used as indicators, not the be-all and end-all.
Bobby constantly talks of squad players (ie those not getting a game) by quoting that their performance is not yet at the right levels, their fitness isn’t ready etc. As they aren’t playing he is clearly only getting this information from figures from training. Which is OK to a point. But stats don’t show someone in training who may not be performing at the highest levels (because he just can’t) but is so eager to prove himself, who wants more than anything to wear the shirt, who would die to be on the pitch. I’m not saying that there are people like that, but maybe to some extent: PVA was so p***ed off because he wasn’t getting a game. He wanted to play and may well have done far better than those who did.
Then on matchday we have figures upon figures and analysis upon analysis. And I think he is placing a lot of decisions on that information. One is clearly “passes completed”, and that instils in the players a fear of making a misplaced pass, so they take the easy option and pass sideways and back. It doesn’t matter on the stats that there may have been more risky but potentially more probing options available. If you pass to a blue shirt then that’s a tick in the box for you.
You don’t hear Ferguson talking about pass completion rate, or fitness levels. And United play the unexpected long ball, cross field, or run at the defender.
The analogy is a call centre. They have masses and masses and masses of individual performance figures. One is call handling time. Get as many calls as you can, what is the average call handling time, and if you are quicker than the target time you get a tick in the performance box. It doesn’t matter how briefly you cut the caller off, it doesn’t matter if you didn’t actually resolve their query – the stats are all important.
The big mistake, in my humble opinion, is not that the tactics (as in 4-4-2/4-5-1 or whatever) are wrong, or that the players are second rate (individually and with other clubs they have been fine), it’s that the stats regime limits them in what they can do without having a big cross put in the box instead of a tick.
Stats should be used as an information tool, but then the manager (of a football team or of a call centre) has to use his skill and experience to identify what is really going on and make managerial decisions accordingly. Unfortunately (and I hate to say this) this is where Bobby’s inexperience has shown through – he’s read the manual, done the course or whatever – but what is needed is a sensible head with experience of occesionally throwing the book out, and going with a gut instinct.
