Could we make it as managers?

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Royal Blue Jersey

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Player Valuation: £35m
There are a few fallacies about great players. One is that they will be great pundits: Alan Shearer broke records with his goalscoring exploits, he must have something insightful and informative to say. But alas no, I don't think there is a pundit who is more of a bland irritation and who does less to earn his impossibly inflated payslip (courtesy of we, the taxpayer). In fact, I simply detest the match 'analysis' on these things: slowing down the video and using a series of arrows and circles to highlight bad positioning or a good run is not analysis. We can all see that. And it's so obvious that someone has compiled these clips and written these 'analyses' and just handed it to them to fumble through. The other is that they will be great managers: there are many more examples for this. Maradona, Shearer, Souness to name but a few. The assumption is that because they expressed their greatness with such ease, they can relay it all the same. I think the real fallacy is that players in general don't make great managers. Obviously there are many exceptions to this, but I think two of the very very top managers in the world, Mourinho and Wenger, were never players. Nor was Andre Villas Boas who swept everything with Porto and is doing a solid job at Spurs for a manager of his age.

We are very quick to point out Moyes flaws - they are not too many, but they are very glaring - and if we can see them, why can't he correct them? There were stories of Moyes first coming in being a complete dictator, ruling with an iron fist and basically looking to have it out with anyone who 'disobeyed' him. He did indeed mellow out after a few years but he brought such a potentially destructive personality. One of his best assets is his dedication, because he puts in unrivalled hours personally scouting players all year round, it is this attention to detail which I think makes him so excellent in the transfer market, which is definitely his best attribute. It also means he is always very well prepared when we face teams - but beyond that, does he really have great tactical insight? He consistently puts faith in systems not in individuals, meaning we have players playing out of position to suit the system, because in his mind the preservation of the system is more important, but it has proven time and time again that it doesn't get the best out of players - Osman wide right, Fellaini behind the striker, Heitinga defensive mid, and so on - he is also very reluctant to deviate from the system, perhaps because he has ploughed so much time into preparing answers to every question he believes the opposition will pose, he feels it is the players responsibility to perform well in that system. He puts too much faith into these plans. Instead of adapting when it is obvious players aren't playing well, his approach seems to be tell the players they need to play better: hence why he will leave Naismith struggling on the right wing for 65 minutes before giving up, rather than changing it when the problem becomes immediatly recurrent.


And Moyes is no Steve Bruce/Alan Curbishley: he's won LMA of year more than once, quite a few manager of the months and is highly respected both inside and outside Everton. He is often touted as one of the best managers in the country - and it begs the question, if he can posses these glaring and uncorrected flaws and still be considered very capable, just how hard is it? It makes me think, could any of us off GoT seriously, genuinely, make it as a manager? If we did those coaching badges, starting working at the lowest level, would being a more rounded, more intelligent person mean we would immediatly stand out? (Not that few if any of you cretins are rounded let alone intelligent :lol:) Then again if I've had this idea, I'm sure many others have, and although as mentioned there are some exceptional managers who were never players, they are rare. I think we all wonder sometimes whether we'd do a better job: and I'm putting it to you as a serious question, do you think you could?


(I was gonna put this in Ale House but then alot of it talked about Moyes, so wasn't sure. Move if you feel appropriate)
 

Deleting my joke responses and answering this seriously, none of us would recieve any respect from the players, so no, I can't see us doing a better job than Moyes.
 
PaddyG said:
Deleting my joke responses and answering this seriously, none of us would recieve any respect from the players, so no, I can't see us doing a better job than Moyes.
Click to expand...

Well obviously. That's the main barrier. I didn't mention it because obviously it's variable you can't account for, we don't know what its like being with players day-in, day-out
 
I like boxing I was also semi capable (although pretty poor) at it, when I watch top class fights I can often see where the fighter is going wrong or risks he's taking that could maybe be seized on but when I'm actually in there and somebody is trying to take your head off it's a he'll of a lot tougher. That's a convoluted analogy but I basically mean theory and reality are often different.

With management it's about consistency about evolving , changing, keeping it fresh or whatever. Last year Derek mcinnes kept Bristol city up and players were talking openly and more importantly privately about him being the best manager they'd worked with , this year he was sacked with them bottom.

There is just so much to it and I think with circumstances some people could maybe make a fist of it (like anything I suppose) but performing consistently would just seem so difficult not to mention the influence of players. AVB was almost destroyed by the Chelsea old guard but he's looking the part now , the Swansea lads took a whole to buy into and were briefing against him but now are lapping up his methods.

All the above I suppose is more comment that answers tough I suppose
 

Without being involved in the day to day running of a professional football club for years beforehand, I think it would be very difficult to have a positive effect on a club - much like a referee that has never played, they don't have a true 'feel' for the game - as much as we all think we would.

Armchair management is the easiest thing in the world. There are clearly many other factors that we don't see or hear about that go into manager's decisions, as baffling as they may seem to us from the outside.
 
You have to be tough as teak to be a manager at PL level...and in Britain it's defo more of a rouinded, all-encompassing post, so you have to be a bit of everything from scout to tactician to wheeler dealer to diplomat. There's no way anyone here could cope. We can have a pop at our manager though - he's paid almost £4M pa to be able to carry the trick off.
 
When Joe Royle repeatedly played Claus Thomsen I thought it can't be that hard.Then I watched Peter Reids attempts on Premier Passions and realised I wasn't eloquent enough
 

Just a point about Wenger,he did play as a pro for RC Strasbourgh and Mulhouse both when they were in Ligue 2
Villas Boas as previously stated has never actually kicked a ball......just saying
 
Of course they could. Anyone can do anything within reason if they put the work in. It aint easy but there are harder things to do in the world that every day regular people manage to do.
 

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