http://www.theguardian.com/sport/bl...ght-to-avoid-the-epl-and-work-with-az-alkmaar "...In soccer, the clearest example of this happened at English club Southampton in 2005, when Sir Clive Woodward, a World Cup-winning coach with England’s rugby union team – and data-obsessed – was appointed technical director. It was a tense season, mainly because there was little buy-in from the head coach Harry Redknapp, who (to put it kindly) is more intuitive. After Southampton lost one game 3-2 to Luton Town, Redknapp turned to rookie performance analyst Simon Wilson and said: “I’ll tell you what, next week, why don’t we get your computer to play against their computer and see who wins?” (These days, Wilson is manager of strategic performance at Manchester City and Redknapp is not working.)..."
The Southampton bit of that article just shows how far they have moved since then - really poor leadership to try and pair such opposites as Woodward and Redknapp. Sounds poncey and pretentious, but you need an ethos and a philosophy to make stuff like this work, and to have everybody actually trying to make it work, rather than trying to undermine it. Now, where do we buy a philosophy?
We don't need to buy one we can just copy Southampton's! We're currently in phase 1 where we achieve relegation from the top league...next phase is to achieve relegation to league 1 before we can rise like a phoenix from the flames with back to back promotions, a team brimming with upcoming international stars and some inspired managerial changes to oversee it all...surely this is what TF has in mind??
I remember Woodward's first lecture he gave to the players when he went to S'oton. There was a closeup on his hands and he'd written the words "push", "pull" and "harry" or something like that on the insides of his fingers. Was he even a Soccer fan prior to giving a tactical lesson to a Soccer team?
No idea, but just from a few of his comments as a pundit on the Six nations, he is clearly a superb coach and tactician. Made some very clear points about handling and lines of running specifically aimed at kids, great stuff. I'd prefer him to Redknapp even if he actively hated football. His problem would probably be assuming too much intelligence and motivation on the part of the average soccer player.
The rugger buggers didn't particularly rate him Stan. At least the vocal ones didn't anyway. They say he won the World Cup by accident and that the players pushed him aside because he didn't know what he was talking about. Sounds iffy to me. How could you fluke a World Cup?
They are idiots, he spent years building to that win, rather like your coach is doing with Ireland now, though the exact circumstances of the win in the final were of course very dramatic, could have gone either way. Any team that beats the Aussies and All Blacks at their homes in the build up to the tournament held in the Southern hemisphere did not fluke it.
I was googling for articles that mention him being a Chelsea fan (he is by the way) and came across this outstanding candidate for the journalistic equivalent of the Darwin awards http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/ru...t-is-lunacy-to-expect-them-to-beat-Wales.html
Woodward first came to prominence coaching in Junior Rugby, he was coach at Henley for 4 years from 1990 before going to London Irish, Bath and then England.
My mate was on the same FA coaching course with Woodward. It was the coaching cert and he was doing it the same time he was working at Southampton. It was so dumb of Southampton to think it would work and so arrogant of Woodward to think he could pull it off. What would the rugby lot think if Mourinho was appointed head coach of harlequins ? Chairmen can be so thick and can be taken in by anyone who can demonstrate management principles. I'll bet woodwards flip charts and PowerPoint presentations blew them away at the interview.
I read the book (and saw the film). Did you know that AZ Alkmaar have appointed billy beane as an advisor? Rangers definitely need a similar strategy if we are to survive as a premiership club with our stadium... And at the risk of incurring the wrath of all the redknapp haters do believe that Harry was maybe following a similar path on transfers; old players for free and payment for younger players with the potential for a higher resell value.
It was so dumb of Southampton to think it would work and so arrogant of Woodward to think he could pull it off _________________ Actually, away from tactics & talk of football, he left us with much better idea's regarding the players fitness routines & food requirements. He pissed 'Arry off a lot as well, so he earned his keep in my eyes.
Think that warburton has more football experience than Woodward ever had. Played at decent non-leagues standard and got into coaching pretty soon afterwards. The problem I see with warburton is that he would have to cope with a lot more expectation than he did when he landed at Brentford. While our fans are generally supportive while we are in the prem I am not so sure this will be the case in the championship. If we were to get off to a poor start then the fans would soon 'turn'.
