The changing from managers to the whole Head Coach/Director of Football thing is a bit like a gradual move to driving on the right. Players complain over the head of the coach, because they were booked by the director of football, the head coach is undermined. See that fool Dyer and how he treated SJ after the Fulham game. British players just don't understand this manner of working. Our loanees haven't been so troublesome have they?
We also need to realise that a lot of the loanees/players we get from the Pozzo group are the ones that didn't work out in the first place at the clubs they were at. When you look at our best performers compared to the ones that left or aren't played, you can clearly see the divide (bar the few exceptions like Vydra). Maybe the attitude problem is down to the initial evaluation/purchase of the players rather than our management team. Udinese are their main team, we don't get the 'best of the best', just the players the Pozzo group have already acquired and are shoehorned in. This isn't a complaint, we're much better off than the Bassini fiasco, but we also have to be realistic...We're not Man City/Chelsea with an open chequebook and we have an amazing squad quality-wise when they perform.
Since the Huddersfield game at home 2 seasons ago I have full belief that we could perform comfortably in the Prem as most of the squad is the same...Unfortunately, as I was trying to explain earlier, players like Chalobah were great and were chosen from other clubs to fit in and work in our team (like Toszer as well, and others...), rather than the surplus players from the Pozzo group that we need to now fit in.
Hi Toby, I'm sure you're probably right, but there is part of me that thinks, as a business, is there not more to be made from WFC as a Prem team, so perhaps, for now, the push may be for us to go up as a priority. Then maybe we could feed Udinese back from our Prem's limited squad of 24? Just a thought, I have no evidence for this at all.
Another club with a Head Coach, Sunderland: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live/29697532 Black Cats boss Gus Poyet has suggested he isn't the manager when it comes to the club's recruitment policy. "I want more quality. Do I think I'll get it? I don't know," he told several national newspapers. "I am a head coach. I am not going to be a head coach when it suits people and a manager when it doesn't. That side of it is down to recruitment. "So, if you ever get the chance to speak to anyone on the recruitment side and ask them about it, you are lucky. If you don't, don't ask me."
Must cause some friction between the DOF and the head coach - as we saw at Spurs with AVB. You'd have to be very luck for every signing to work out and be agreed on.
This is why the Head Coach/Recruitment Director/Technical Director model model does not seem to work in the UK where the Manager traditionally has had full control over transfer policy. It would also appear to be the reason that coach turnover seems to be higher in Europe than here. After all if you buy a group of players and the coach fails to mould them into a successful team, it's probably easier to change the coach rather than the team.
On the one hand I'm reluctant to contribute here, as it just keeps an unpleasant pot boiling - full of rumour (whether true in fact or not) , and on the other hand it would be good to make a positive entry. I have two thoughts. 1) We have a European squad mostly, who are probably familiar with the football model employed. 2) The supposed grumblers are (it is rumoured!) Dyer Mcgugan & Andrews - all UK bred players. Are these 2 thoughts connected -apart from in my own head ? Whatever, a few wins will quell all the noise. COYH
Whatever it is the players ought to just get on with it. I think you've hit the nail on the head JT. That is the system they have been brought into and I've met nobody in the workplace who has ever enjoyed change unless they have instigated it. Myself included. High time they got with the program.
Spot on HF. Some (Deeney being the obvious one) seem to be able to deal with it well and others can't. Baffles me a bit as they have such a huge prize within their grasp if they all pull together and get on with it. Getting promoted to the premier league is hardly going to harm your CV, and therefore earning potential, even if you only played a bit part in that success.
Jokanovic says he can only recommend players - so Duxbury has the final say? He seems very keen to keep Bassong...
