the hirings, at least imo, came down to the "too many Chiefs and not enough Indians" fiasco which has plagued the club through some of the poorer decisions. I think there were too many people pulling the club in the direction which suited their own interests instead of focusing on what was best for the club. While Emelano has been labeled a lap dog he seems to at least done a good job of identifying talent to help our squad while staying out of most of the Managerial hiring decisions. I think the club has been looking for a transitional Manager since they brought AVB in to overhaul the team and move away from the Mourinho squad- and look how that worked out . The thing is we can always argue the points behind the decision to hire a certain Manager in hindsight but at the time of the hiring most of them made sense to me besides Grant and Rafa (and I am slowly warming to how things ended up under Rafa). The process behind Scolari was to have someone who can handle the big egos of the squad (which he allegedly did very well while Managing Brazil) while having a Manager with a flashy record of having won a WC. Sadly as we came to find out Big Phil was better suited for short term fixtures (tournaments) rather than the horse race of the Premiership. His lack of a Plan B was more than telling and his training methods were apparently so dated that they resembled something one would see from a Dad coaching out of a book. Replacing him with Hiddink was a great move and a wonderful hire. We then moved onto Carlo who for all of his lack of League Titles delivered the Double his first season. As noted below the parameters he was being asked to work with moving forward (again Chiefs vs Indians) did seem to fit his or our needs in the long run and we had several pretty poor showings in the second season. Probably still harsh to pull the trigger on him but apparently the decision was to grab AVB before he became almost unattainable (insert laughter now). Of course AVB was a complete disaster and I could fill up multiple pages on his faults but he was wisely replaced buy RDM who was almost the antithesis of AVB in terms of the relationship with players. Perhaps the success RDM experienced was ultimately his fault as the club basically had to keep him and it was pretty clear that they were waiting for the first chance to get rid of him which soon fell their way. That led us to Rafa which imo may have been a blessing in disguise in the long run Rafa did some things correctly (yes I said that) but most importantly a standard seemed to be created between the fans and the board in that while the majority of the fans were appreciative of what Roman and Co. have done there are some boundaries to consider when making such important decisions which not only impact the club, but the fans. We have finally landed back with Jose, much to the delight of many, who many finally be the man to finish and restart the project he began nine years ago. All in all- we are looking at two really bad hires in Scolari and AVB. A joke of an appointment in Grant. Two questionable sackings in Carlo and RDM. Possibly a decent hire (in terms of results) in Rafa and two pretty good hires in Jose (at least the first time and hopefully the second) and Hiddink. the purse strings seemed to tightened the second season under Carlo and suddenly the idea that Carlo could work with older players was accepted as the blueprint for all decisions moving forward. He seemed to have little to no say in transfers and other Managerial decision (as you note) and was almost being used as a glorified yes man only to be vilified when things did not go the way the Board wanted them to.
http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/25394591 good tactician not so good with man management where have we heard that before?
Bloody shame about Zola. Hope he lands on his feet. And can I just add that it's a joke how easy it is for clubs to sack a manager, like Clarke who placed them in the top half last season and Zola who was a match away from Promotion just last May. Sad world indeed.
sadly part of modern football above we were discussing some of the decisions we have made hiring/firing Managers and to be fair we are probably on par if not above where most other clubs are in the Premiership in terms of hiring/sacking and good/bad decisions on both but of course most teams do not sell as many papers as we do so...
Villas-Boas‘ fall at Chelsea was painted with him as the victim of a club riven by in-fighting. Tottenham is not such a club, yet Villas-Boas suffered similar problems. The idea of him as junior Jose Mourinho is now a wholly inappropriate comparison. Mourinho is a man-manager who matches that with a fearless ability to switch his teams around when a match is going against him. Villas-Boas, his gruff tones swamped in technical discourse, is neither of those. The two defeats that signed his P45 for him -- 6-0 at Manchester City, 5-0 to Liverpool -- can be paired as two matches in which an early setback was not responded to. He arrived in England as hot property, but his arrival from Porto seemed premature at the time. Villas-Boas departs English football as much a stranger as he arrived. He eventually made himself unwelcome. http://espnfc.com/blog/_/name/espnfcunited/id/10996?cc=5901
That's really spot on. Today, you have to manage players as much as be a tactician. AVB clearly couldn't handle the dressing room.
Absolutely is, but I feel for the game. Teams don't win when you have 2 managers in a season on a regular basis. Who in their right mind would want to take a job in the Premiership for a lower half side. You'll get the sack at your first hiccup. On top of that, if you do well you likely aren't going to get a top job in England and you'd be mad to leave the Premiership. So sadly, you do well, the following season at the first sign of trouble you find yourself in the unemployment queue. Nobody wins here, especially the young lads who have to try and break into the first team with another new man. I was thinking that Zola would be a good fit for West Brom because of his connections with Italy and Spain with all his loanees. But the next day I see he's out of a job? English football is going to continue to suffer because the league makes too much money and there is just so much foreign influence it really derails itself. Chelsea would be better off sending our kids to Belgium and Holland as a training ground where there are far more younger players in the leagues and more emphasis on technical ability and the patience for youth is much higher. Not to be all mopey, but this trend is not good for the game.
as you said the big pressure is on staying in the Premiership and the money involved and boards are not willing to risk that. The other issue which arises is that a combination of boards and fans becoming complacent with mid table stability (see Charlton Athletic) and the remaining clubs who are either spending or trying to compete and do not get the return on their investment they feel. I do feel that the gap in the Premiership is closing, mostly due to squad restrictions and the homegrown rule (the FFP rules are a joke right now and may be almost impossible to implement) and from top to bottom this is slowly becoming one of the most balanced Leagues about. The trickle down effect seems to be occurring in the other Leagues with the general standard of football being better and without doubt the level of competition in the Championship and League One getting better. I can not think of a tougher division than the Championship right now and it says a lot that the days of Premiership sides going down and coming straight back up are being limited to one team at most in recent years. from the Managerial standpoint we have reached an era of impatience and instant results from the perspective of the boardroom and the terraces. The lore of Deadly Doug Ellis and Ken Bates is now common place and Managers have to be realistic that their tenures have a shelf life of 3-4 years. Far too many people have continued to believe the media diatribe regarding the Managerial stability of SAF and Wenger while failing to be honest in that both of those were the exception rather than the norm. Unless a Manager and club can find a good match for one another- as Moyes did with Everton- for a continued period then I do not see much change coming. With Utd and possibly Arsenal facing a future without a potential long term Manager we may just see several of the mid range clubs being used as "stepping stones" to those jobs. As with the younger players who struggle to make a break through several Managers would be best suited going to the Continent to find an appropriate job or to give themselves a fresh start. Just how many Managers have left the Premiership to revive their careers abroad in recent times, especially British Managers? Plenty of benefits to gaining experience abroad both for players and Managers.
Big blow for City....Aguero is out for a month with an injury... http://www1.skysports.com/football/...ed-striker-sergio-aguero-for-at-least-a-month
Do not like the dirty little cvnt, but tough blow for Citeh. Jovetic fills in I suppose to nick a few, but Negredo will replace some of his goals.
I pretty much agree with this. However it doesn't really change how I feel about the game. But you hit the nail on the head about English managers. Why don't more go overseas? No reason they can't succeed, especially in the Eredivise. I don't know what the shelf life is for our relationship with Vitesse, but we hit a gold mine. No reason for us to send our young players down to the Championship, unless the fit is that good. What our lads are doing there is fantastic. Good shout to win the league this year and because of that be in the group stages of the CL. Likely see a few of our lads sent back and possibly a few more new ones as well. Back on topic, I can only think of McClaren as someone who left (not sure if he's still there) to find a job on the Continent. He had a good run at Twente as well. I really do wonder what has happened to the English youth system? How is it that Portugual, the Eredivise, Serie A, and the Pro League (the last few years), can produce loads of youth products so regularly, yet, in England most clubs have a hard time producing talent at the level those other countries. Maybe I'm way off base, but it really seems like that is the case.
Oh perhaps a certain two footed stamp on a certain player that looks like Sideshow Bob in a certain match last season. He's a dirty little cvnt.
Interesting theory about AVB sacking... http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/...s-by-rejecting-emmanuel-adebayor-9009034.html Don't know if it's correct or not.
Gattuso (amongst others) being investigated for match fixing in Serie A. Good to see that they are going after people at the highest levels though it may just be tip of the iceberg stuff. http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/25414094
http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/25419791 how to mess up a good thing by V. Tan http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/25408242 Wilshere may miss our game