What we can expect from Felix..and a sense of humour (or maybe it's irony?): "Felix Magathâs message to Fulham fans is that he will do whatever it takes to get the points the Club needs to secure their Barclays Premier League status. Previous sides under Magathâs stewardship have produced attractive, ruthless football going forward, but the Whites Manager admitted he would take scrappy narrow victories between now and the end of the season. âAt the moment, 1-0 is the best result for us,â he said. âItâs a special situation and we have to play to win, not to impress our fans. Sorry for that, but they have to be patient for a few months. In Germany I put a team together at Wolfsburg over three years and we scored the most goals. I had Grafite, he was the best scorer, I had [Edin] Dzeko, he was the second best scorer, and then I had [Zvjezdan] Misimović, he had the most assists ever in Germany. So, you see, Iâm a fan of attacking not defending, but if youâre willing to attack then you have to be closed in the defence.â Much has been made of Magathâs alleged mentality when it comes to preparation for matches, but when quizzed about his training methods the 60-year-old laughed off suggestions that he pushed his players too hard. âSo far, everybody has loved my training sessions, everybody; no-one died!â he stated. âThe most important thing, for me, is to get the players together and to work as fast as we can. Therefore I called them to come [in to training] on Sunday because otherwise we would have had no time to get together and know each other. The players have to know me and try to understand what I want. I have to understand the players and I have to think about what I can ask of the players. Iâm sure that the players want to stay in the league so I think theyâre happy they have a change and I think they trust me that we can stay in the league.â Magath was also asked about his dealings with Shahid Khan since he was first approached about taking over at Fulham, and the new boss was full of praise for our Chairman having met with him last week. âHeâs a very impressive person and Iâm sure that heâs the right man for Fulham,â he said. âHe also is overwhelmed by the tradition here and he told me itâs the only club in England he fits. Heâs willing to do a lot for Fulham. Heâs not satisfied [with our position in the table] and he was very surprised at the situation that Fulham are in last place.â On the morning of Thursdayâs press conference, rumours began to do the rounds that Mark McGhee, a playing colleague of Magathâs in their Hamburg days, was being lined up as a potential Assistant Manager at Fulham, but the six-time Bundesliga winner explained that he currently has no plans to add to his backroom staff. âThereâs no plan to bring in anybody else â at the moment Iâm not thinking about that,â he said. âI know Mark very well, not only from when we played together but I also visited him when he was manager at Wolverhampton Wanderers. So I know him, heâs a friend of mine, but at the moment I only focus on the next game. I donât think about the next season or who can join me, Iâm only focused on winning games.â Source: http://www.fulhamfc.com/news/2014/february/21/we-play-to-win
Here's something I read that deals with the emptying of water bottles during training, it seems that FM wants everyone fighting for one another. It seems he has been on Extreme team building classes. It is supposed to reveal him as dictatorial and tyrannical, which is not an entirely unfair assessment, since it leaves out crucial details. Magath was angered by an incident in Wolfsburg’s 3-0 defeat at Bayern Munich in which no player had checked on the well-being of the goalkeeper Diego Benaglia after he had collided with Arjen Robben. Magath felt they had abandoned a teammate and wanted to challenge them to help each other. So he emptied all but 10 water bottles to encourage them to share. Unorthodox, perhaps. Unwise, maybe. But it was not an act wholly without logic.
