Are managers that important?

or is it just money that makes a great team? When a team is the talk of the town all the the good players want to play for them. Did Liverpool, Man Utd, Barcelona, Real, or Bayern have the greatest managers?. Was their manager the greatest or did he just manage the greatest club? Would Big Sam be the greatest ever manager if he was manager of Barcelona?

 

It's a very good point, which is why I hold Brian Clough [and Peter Taylor] in the highest esteem. If a manager can get the best players to believe in him and he's a great tactician then he can become a modern day great manager. But Clough was more than that. He identified so-called journeyman players and fitted them into a brilliant jigsaw with more than one club. Much like Leicester, but he repeated it season after season. After he lifted those clubs to heights he was able to buy higher profile players like Trevor Francis.
Lawrie McMenemy was a great manager because he also drew special performances out of teams of non-stars, but he could also manage a team sprinkled with higher profile players perfectly well too. But only with Southampton.!

 

Perhaps they are as important as Moderators...

 

Not a chance.

 

Pep who?

 

Jose who?

 

I think Guardiola is realising that this manager game isn't as easy as it seemed before. Not managing a team with, head and shoulders, the best players in the league means that he is at risk of being found out. Personally, I think all so-called 'great' managers should have a go at a relegation battle with the quality of player at their disposal there. That usually finds them out. Respect to Rafa Benitez who went down with Toon and stayed. Looks like he's coming back as well. Part of which is because he has the best group of players in that division. But perhaps we shouldn't mention that.?

 

Sir Alex Ferguson

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like players, managers have different skill sets, which suit different clubs/situations.
Even the aforementioned Clough had some well publicised disasters.

If you're wanting to stay up then you'd bring in a fat Sam or Pulis.
They'll get the players well drilled and difficult to beat. That's all fine and dandy if staying in the league is priority, but if you want to be managing a team battling for honours, then being difficult to beat isn't enough. You've got to play on the front foot and beat teams that some teams would be happy to draw against.
That's requires a little more innovation as a coach and separates great coaches from good ones

 

I'd say the importance of managers differs depending on the standard of football. The Premier League being the absolute pinnacle. You can't afford to have the wrong manager in such a ruthless division because any team can beat any other, and the knowledge that a manager needs in order to somehow get the better over his rival is incredibly technical. They also need to handle so much more than just football matters (players' egos, the press, mind games etc).

As you go down the divisions I'd say the importance lessens each time. I think the best playing squad in these divisions will generally get themselves promoted no matter who is in charge. You can't say that at all with the Premier League (promoted = top 2/3).

Regarding international football, again I think the importance is not so great, because a team full of world-class players should know exactly what they must do in any given situation (obviously not every national team is full of world-class players of course, so in those cases the manager's role is more significant).

 

Or the opposite, in Pep's case. His refusal to do anything other than try and play on the front foot cost him.

Now perhaps a manager who can mix it up a bit, play some possession football, play some games more defensively, sometimes employ a counter attacking style, sometimes not so the obvious....

Claude Puel anyone?

 

Do we need managers? This is a cry in any enterprise. Look at the way the term "NHS managers" has become a term of derision. When I was managing more than whether I wanted an extra cup of tea in the morning, I used to have a sign in my office that read "When I'm right, no-one remembers; when I'm wrong, no-one forgets"

Gary Lineker once said that his granny could have managed the great Brazilian teams and still won the World Cup. Almost certainly true. Professional musicians will tell you that they ignore most conductors. But where a manager earns his corn is when they need to change something because things are in danger of going away from them. Like being 0-0 at Anfield with ten minutes left and deciding to put on some kid who had been sitting behind you texting his mum, then watching him run through the home defence and setting up the winning goal. Not that it'll ever happen!

 

Absolutely the last of the old school British managers. And he was a manager, not simply a coach. No one will ever again embody his club in that way, nor impose his will on every aspect of that club's identity and values. And no one will ever again be able to get away with administering a proper bollocking to pampered millionaires while still commanding their respect and even love. He was the boss and everyone knew it, but, a bit like Cloughie, he never lost the common touch nor the old fashioned working class values that defined his character. I'm not sure where any of that would get you nowadays.

 

I would strongly suspect that in a strange way, managing a premier league club is a little like punching for blokes (sorry Fran/Whiteley/Helen and the lurking ladies, but bear with me on this).

Pretty much every bloke in the world reckons they can punch. Especially blokes who are 'well hard' or go to the gym a lot and have pneumatic muscles. "Yeah, I'm gonna knock you out" kinda thing.

Then you go and spend one day in a boxing lesson and you realise that actually, you haven't got the first clue, and that it's incredibly technical, and in reality you had no idea how to punch in the first place. You just thought you did.

I think if any of us (or any armchair manager) actually took charge of a premier league team, we'd all stop after about 10 minutes and go "umm....this is actually an awful lot more complicated than I ever suspected. Soz".

 

If I was a manager, I wouldn't substitute my teams best player with 5 minutes to go in a cup final. CRAZY I KNOW

 

Head Coach. He needs to be young, experienced in European leagues, be a disciple of 'insert name here', and where a slim fit suit. Stubble is optional, but being far too emotional on the touchline, putting one hand over your mouth whilst talking to a player (so nobody can hear/lip-read you, and a well developed squat form for when you need to ponder tactics mid-game, are essential.

 

Are you ignoring the fact that Pep actually built the Barcelona team that went on to become arguably the greatest team ever? Messi, Iniesta. Xavi, Busquets and Pique were all brought into the first team and given key roles by him. He also won the treble in his first season, having inherited a squad that finished 3rd the season before and losing players like Ronaldinho and Deco amongst others. But no, of course he had everything handed to him on a silver platter and should obviously go and prove his credentials by having a stint at Sunderland fighting relegation.

 

Nope, I am not ignoring that fact. Hardly journeymen, are they.

 

And Boro have got rid of Karanka: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/39291081

 

Of course you're not. Who are hardly journeymen?