Off Topic Gary Neville

Having been sacked by Valencia for being their worst manager ever, where does his career go from here?
Should he try again, preferably with a team that speak the same language as him?
Would a return to punditry and translating Jamie Carragher be better for everyone?
Does his utter failure make his analysis any less interesting or valuable?

 

He still hates Scousers.

Top pundit - he should stick to that.

 

Hardly a "unique selling point" . is it.

 

I continue to respect that he at least took himself away from his comfort zone and knowingly placed his reputation at risk.

Having said that, it is inevitable now that if he immediately returns to TV work, viewers will treat his analysis with some cynicism. If he continues in management, then wherever he goes, some fans will believe he would represent a huge gamble.

I reckon he will keep a low profile between now and the Euros, and then make a decision on his next career move at the end of the summer.

From what I read about him, he seems to have had a lot of involvement in a lot of things - Valencia, England, Salford, The Football Hotel etc. If he wants to make a career in football management, he needs a rethink on if it is reasonable to try and multi-task at an elite level, which is what he seemed to be trying to do during his time in Spain.

 

Has he really though ?? I would contend he has no such reputation as coach or manager.
He has opened himself to ridicule, but that won't damage his future career as TV pundit nor coach/manager.

 

I was meaning his status within the game.

 

From an outsiders point of view, it looked like a project destined to fail:
1st managerial job - in Spain with no Spanish language skills - no experience of even playing outside of the UK (other than internationals) - for a club with high expectations. A Manc looking for a more secure first business venture in Iberia might have considered Class A importation....
He may have been brave, but I think foolhardy. But at least he has the pundit career to fall back on and one that he was proving to be quite adept - and when he dusts himself off he may well try the club management role again. Just think it might be closer to 'home'.
And agree with OS that he probably had too much going on at once.

 

I admire bravery, but trying to manage in a country whose language I didn’t know would have stopped me. It doesn’t hurt his reputation as a pundit, for me. I don’t know if he goes in much for self-deprecating humor, but now would be a good time to try, I think.

 

I mentioned on the rival thread that I think he should go into coaching, regardless of how good a player he's been, I think it's a huge step to go pretty much straight into management, especially at the highest level AND in a foreign country.

There's no doubting that he knows the game inside out, his analysis on Sky is probably the best and most insightful of all the pundits and the respect he has throughout the game is immense but I think it's proven to be a completely different ball game to just knowing the game and then trying to manage in it, especially in the top tiers of European football.

So I say take a coaching role, probably every side in Europe bar City and Pool would employ him, maybe try and seek an assistant managerial role so he can work and learn from the main man and then eventually he can look at venturing off on his own.

If it's management he only wants then I think a lower tier team would be more ideal although his stint at Valencia won't be leaving a massive queue of suitors right about now.

 

The mysterious black art of management! There are very few really good managers in all walks of life. I think because people think that qualifications are important to it and often they are not. Obviously it's quite handy if you are going to manage a football club to know something of football but if you are a really good manager it's not actually essential. Mostly people are chosen because of their apparent skills in the field they are managing when one set of skills above all others is what is required in any field of management.

People skills.

In my experience of the business world good managers are as rare as hens teeth; at least they are in the UK.

 

Great pundit but as others say people just won't take him seriously anymore or not right now.

Concentrate on England & the euros then maybe back into punditry next season

 

Also that people are rarely actually trained to manage other people. You progress, achieve management status and then kind make it up as you go along.

 

One thing that always sticks out for me is how some of the managerial greats inspired their former players to have great careers in their own right, for example Bill Nicholson under Arthur Rowe, Martin O'Neill under Brian Clough, Kenny Dalglish under Bob Paisley etc - yet when it comes to Alex Ferguson's charges their success rate is remarkably poor, as evidenced by Roy Keane, Paul Ince, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, and now Gary Neville. Even those you could claim had some degree of success, namely Steve Bruce and Mark Hughes, have plenty of failures on their respective CVs.

 

I think a lot of that is down to the changing face of football in this country as the PL era continues to evolve into a more continental, wide-ranging league. Most of the examples you've cited as successful all managed when the majority of their contemporaries and the players available to them were all more or less cut from the same British cloth. Even O'Neill isn't such a recent example as he can be seen as contemporaneous with Fergie's generation of managers. The interesting thing is that when King Kenny long may he reign over us all amen tried to take on the PL beast, he looked utterly out of his depth and inept. I would say the same for O'Neill tbh - his club career began to slide alarmingly at Sunderland before ROI swooped for him with a lifeline. I'm not sure where I'm going with this line of thought, but your observations made me notice the generation gap.

 

Gianluca Vialli who came from a wealthy family and was apparently a millionaire even before his career in football made a famous comment as manager of Chelsea.

'How do you motivate a team of millionaires?' Ironic as perhaps he might know better than most but it is a major change to the game in recent years and creates a new set of managerial problems that previous generations did not have to deal with.

Jimmy Greaves was delighted when he got £40 a week (for a while anyway)

 

Absolutely. This certainly seems to have been a major problem at City and Chelsea. But then you see the likes of PSG and Bayern strolling their leagues while playing by and large great football. This either reflects very well on their coaching staffs, or extremely poorly on the standard of the French and German leagues.

 

Bit of both, perhaps? They're a couple of levels above the other sides in their respective divisions, barring Dortmund.

I think that our policy under Pochettino has been quite effective at dealing with unmotivated players.
Scout for more than just talent and ability, then weed out anyone who isn't prepared to give 100%.
Bayern appear to have that down already and PSG don't really need to, as they're miles ahead of the rest.
They can afford the odd pillock, as long as they're very good pillocks.

 

In Germany, perhaps the players, good money that they may be earning, understand and respect
the better connection that the supporters have with the club, and give a full seasons' worth.
Dortmund seem to epitomise this.

In England, the disconnect between a players wages/lifestyle and that of their supporters,
has never been worse.

 

The greatest managers were all able to get the best out of their players, both individually and collectively, although they may have used different methods to achieve this. As has been said above, people skills is the biggest asset for any manager in any walk of life. Playing under a great manager doesn't necessarily give you the ability to work with people. In fact, there is clear evidence to the contrary so far as modern players are concerned. Few have any life experience outside football from an early age. They have an easy life with few problems to address. Everything is handed to them on a plate. SAF grew up in a disciplined environment with a strong work ethic. He learnt to work hard for what he would achieve and that things would not come easily. He learnt how to deal with people who were equally tough and determined. He had to know when to be confrontational, when to be conciliatory etc. Roy Keane has never learned people skills. His role as a player was to be confrontational only. He knew only how to be aggressive, uncompromising, unrelenting.....These characteristics made him successful as a player, but would only be of limited use in limited situations in management - and he couldn't change his personality in order to adapt to what was needed, of course.