Don't Sack The Manager - It Makes No Difference

[Stuart Dickson]

Found this interesting article on the BBC website tonight where a Dutch economist has looked at the statistical proof that disproves the theory that sacking the manager will reverse a trend in fortunes. Certainly the examples they cite are compelling ones where Paul Lambert did indeed manage to turn things around at Aston Villa, just as Paulo Di Canio appeared to when he took over from Martin O'Neill. The Chelsea example is also sound as would be the case if you want to expand the logic look at the case of Roberto Martinez and the numerous late come backs Wigan managed to pull off sticking with their manager where others may have panicked.

[Kemp]

New manager Roberto Di Matteo did unexpectedly lead the club to Champions League glory. But Ter Weel's research looks only at league performance, not cups.

He would fit in well with the misery club on here then!

There are obviously cases where someone is out of their depth (Tony Mowbary), doesn't suit/can't change the culture of that club (Le Guen) or has just reached the end of the line (Get it sorted MacPherson) but I'd say its pretty clear the best approach is to maintain some sort of stability at a club and a build a culture that will continue at all levels even if the manager leaves. Man Utd and Barcelona being the most obvious examples.

To do that you need a good PR department as well as a good coach though.

I would hope that form of stability is what the current board will look to maintain at St Mirren Park.

Edited August 17, 2013 by Kemp

[Stuart Dickson]

He would fit in well with the misery club on here then!

There are obviously cases where someone is out of their depth (Tony Mowbary), doesn't suit/can't change the culture of that club (Le Guen) or has just reached the end of the line (Get it sorted MacPherson) but I'd say its pretty clear the best approach is to maintain some sort of stability at a club and a build a culture that will continue at all levels even if the manager leaves. Man Utd and Barcelona being the most obvious examples.

To do that you need a good PR department as well as a good coach though.

I would hope that form of stability is what the current board will look to maintain at St Mirren Park.

Not sure about the PR department, but there definitely needs to be a strong stable strategic vision.

The article has made me think though. Some clubs seem to be able to be successful regardless of who their manager is. Look at St Johnstone today for example. It didn't matter whether it was Owen Coyle, Derek McInnes, Steve Lomas or now Tommy Wright - the club just seems to be incredibly consistent. Is that because they have a strong philosophy on how to play and each appointment to the club is made with that philosophy in mind, or is it just that their board of directors are very good at recruiting good managers? The same goes for the likes of ICT where most of their managerial appointments have had a reasonable degree of success.

A few weeks ago there was an excellent documentary on the BBC which charted the rise of Swansea City from administration and the brink of extinction at the foot of the Football League, to being back in the Premiership, winning a major trophy and competing in Europe. On that programme their Chairman, who is an elected leader of a fans group, admitted that initially they knew nothing about running a football team. However they interviewed Roberto Martinez for the managers job and he impressed upon them the importance of having a footballing blueprint that could be followed regardless of who the manager was. It made sense to them, they appointed Martinez and they've been working off that blueprint ever since whether the manager was Paulo Sousa, Brendan Rogers or Michael Laudrup.

Anecdotally there's stories about the success of the Spanish National side being down to a blueprint that lays out a formation, a style of play and attributes of players required for each position, and in Germany they talked about the rethink they had of their national game and how they too have a blueprint that they follow in International Football.

So I guess where warning bells should be ringing is if you have a manager who changes and adjusts his formation based on the opposition rather than following his own and the clubs blueprint for success.

[oaksoft]

Not sure about the PR department, but there definitely needs to be a strong stable strategic vision.

The article has made me think though. Some clubs seem to be able to be successful regardless of who their manager is. Look at St Johnstone today for example. It didn't matter whether it was Owen Coyle, Derek McInnes, Steve Lomas or now Tommy Wright - the club just seems to be incredibly consistent. Is that because they have a strong philosophy on how to play and each appointment to the club is made with that philosophy in mind, or is it just that their board of directors are very good at recruiting good managers? The same goes for the likes of ICT where most of their managerial appointments have had a reasonable degree of success.

A few weeks ago there was an excellent documentary on the BBC which charted the rise of Swansea City from administration and the brink of extinction at the foot of the Football League, to being back in the Premiership, winning a major trophy and competing in Europe. On that programme their Chairman, who is an elected leader of a fans group, admitted that initially they knew nothing about running a football team. However they interviewed Roberto Martinez for the managers job and he impressed upon them the importance of having a footballing blueprint that could be followed regardless of who the manager was. It made sense to them, they appointed Martinez and they've been working off that blueprint ever since whether the manager was Paulo Sousa, Brendan Rogers or Michael Laudrup.

Anecdotally there's stories about the success of the Spanish National side being down to a blueprint that lays out a formation, a style of play and attributes of players required for each position, and in Germany they talked about the rethink they had of their national game and how they too have a blueprint that they follow in International Football.

So I guess where warning bells should be ringing is if you have a manager who changes and adjusts his formation based on the opposition rather than following his own and the clubs blueprint for success.

St Johnstone have traditionally spent most of their time outside the top flight.

In the last 3 years they've been decent but if you're talking about strategy we want a much longer time period of success before we look to emulate it otherwise we are in headless chicken mode trying to copy one team after another and getting nowhere. They should be trying to copy us. Maybe they'd win a Cup.

ICT fall into that category as well.

You are making the mistake of seeing a tiny bit of success and then leaping to the conclusion that we should copy them. It's a fundamentally flawed idea.

You're making the same mistake with Swansea.

You actuially remind me of the Daily Record. The second a Celtic teenager scores a goal he's being pushed as the next Scotland International gem.

It's all bullshit.

Your last sentence might be true if it actually happened.

No manager (unless facing completely overwhelming odds) will play to only to his opponents weaknesses.

They'll of course consider it BUT they'll also balance that with tactics to play to their own strengths as well.

You have to do both (Spain and Germany absolutely will consider both - don't be fooled) and I'm seeing no evidence that any club is only doing one of those.

[Stuart Dickson]

On another note it was interesting listening to Open All Mics this afternoon to hear Alan Preston tell of how coaches at Pro Youth Initiative Level hate the Under 20's set up. He refused to name the Chairman, but he said that one Scottish Premiership Chairman had said to him that Initiative football was killing the game in this country - he said others were also coming to the same conclusion. He was joined by other fellow ex pros who talked about the culture of "shirt fillers" - players recruited just to make up the numbers. They talked about the wastage within the game where thousands of kids are being take onto the scheme at 11 years old only to be told they aren't good enough the following year, and they talked about the number of kids released at the age of 16 who aren't supported in finding a club that might allow them to continue to develop the game out with the Initiative Scheme incase they might be late developers. And Alan Preston rounded it off talking about how each club will have at least 100 players on their pro youth initiative programme when a club will hardly ever run with more than 23 players in the first team squad. He suggested that we return to the old S' Form system where clubs could only sign up to 25 players on S Forms across all age groups.

It was interesting to me because it's exactly what I and others involved in juvenile football have been saying about pro youth football for almost a decade now. It simply is not fit for purpose. Preston also went on to slate Scotland Under 21 manager Billy Stark for his team selection against England on Tuesday night and Richard Gordon was about to bring up the topic of what all that criticism meant in regard to Mark Wotte's position within the SFA but there was a poorly timed goal from somewhere and the conversation was dropped.

It is time we had a proper rethink about our national game and the way we develop our kids and it's about time we had a more efficient structure that shares resources. The pro youth set up simply hasn't worked. The current Under 20's set up just means that fewer players are progressing into first team squads from the age of 16 - as Paul Lambert did - and that for many the first time they will play against an adult will be when they are 21.

[Stuart Dickson]

St Johnstone have traditionally spent most of their time outside the top flight.

In the last 3 years they've been decent but if you're talking about strategy we want a much longer time period of success before we look to emulate it otherwise we are in headless chicken mode trying to copy one team after another and getting nowhere. They should be trying to copy us. Maybe they'd win a Cup.

ICT fall into that category as well.

You are making the mistake of seeing a tiny bit of success and then leaping to the conclusion that we should copy them. It's a fundamentally flawed idea.

You're making the same mistake with Swansea.

You actuially remind me of the Daily Record. The second a Celtic teenager scores a goal he's being pushed as the next Scotland International gem.

It's all bullshit.

Your last sentence might be true if it actually happened.

No manager (unless facing completely overwhelming odds) will play to only to his opponents weaknesses.

They'll of course consider it BUT they'll also balance that with tactics to play to their own strengths as well.

You have to do both (Spain and Germany absolutely will consider both - don't be fooled) and I'm seeing no evidence that any club is only doing one of those.

Oaksoft - you need to look at the pattern though. St Johnstone have been incredibly consistent in their progress since Owen Coyles appointment in 2005. Eight years and four managers later that progress still continues and they haven't sacked anyone in that time. At ICT you can roll down the list of managers they've had since inception and there's not many failures in the list at all. From 1995 to the present day Steve Paterson, John Robertson, Craig Brewster and Terry Butcher have all take the club forward and only Charlie Christie's performance as manager would be questionable as he appeared to be out of his depth.

Swansea City aren't talking about a tiny bit of success by the way. They were nearly relegated out of the Football League down to Conference level. They survived on the last game of the season coming back from behind to win that match when a win was all that could keep them up. They were bankrupt and in deep financial trouble but somehow their directors - all elected fan representatives - turned it around to the point that Swansea City now sit in the Premiership and are playing comfortably in Europe. They managed the complete turn around in just 10 years. There has to be lessons there.

And of course there are managers who change their formations based on the opposition. You've acknowledged that yourself in your own post. The point I'm making is that if a manager has a strong enough belief in a particular strategy that he has built his squad to suit it, then it's a sign of weakness when he abandons his strategy to try to combat an opposition.

[oaksoft]

Oaksoft - you need to look at the pattern though. St Johnstone have been incredibly consistent in their progress since Owen Coyles appointment in 2005. Eight years and four managers later that progress still continues and they haven't sacked anyone in that time. At ICT you can roll down the list of managers they've had since inception and there's not many failures in the list at all. From 1995 to the present day Steve Paterson, John Robertson, Craig Brewster and Terry Butcher have all take the club forward and only Charlie Christie's performance as manager would be questionable as he appeared to be out of his depth.

Swansea City aren't talking about a tiny bit of success by the way. They were nearly relegated out of the Football League down to Conference level. They survived on the last game of the season coming back from behind to win that match when a win was all that could keep them up. They were bankrupt and in deep financial trouble but somehow their directors - all elected fan representatives - turned it around to the point that Swansea City now sit in the Premiership and are playing comfortably in Europe. They managed the complete turn around in just 10 years. There has to be lessons there.

And of course there are managers who change their formations based on the opposition. You've acknowledged that yourself in your own post. The point I'm making is that if a manager has a strong enough belief in a particular strategy that he has built his squad to suit it, then it's a sign of weakness when he abandons his strategy to try to combat an opposition.

You mention 8 years for St Johnstone and 10 for Swansea.

Those figures are only relevant IF both teams consolidate their positions.

Come back to me when both have been in the top flight for 10 years and the same system starts delivering regular trophies over that period of time.

At that point, yes, we should definitely start trying to emulate their success.

We'd be better off looking at the systems introduced by countries with a proven country-wide system of producing world class players. Countries like Germany, Spain, Italy etc. What are their youth programmes like and we can't they work for us?

We'll have to fundamentally disagree about your last paragraph.

An inability to change to suit your environment is a fatal weakness and that is as true for football as it is for human evolution and business.

Nobody is talking about "abandoning" anything. I made it quite clear I said you need to consider BOTH your strengths and weaknesses and your opponents strengths and weaknesses.

Analysis of your opponents strengths can expose an unknown weakness in your own strategy which you can then try and overcome before you go out there and find out by ignoring them and losing your match. I see that as a character strength not a weakness. The only people who think changing your position is a weakness are politicians and we all know how smart they are.