Loosing A Dressing Room... What Does It Mean?

[dave.j]

I suppose the question can only really be answered by thse who have played or managed at ny sort of level.

It's a phrase I've never really understood what it means. If a manger looses the dressing room, does that mean:

The players don't listen to him anymore?

Any advice or tactics he gives the players, they ignore?

How do a group of players demonstrate the manager has lost the dressing room?

Do they play to their own tactics?

Do the players still give 100% if the manager has lost the dressing room?

[Leicester Saint]

I suppose the question can only really be answered by thse who have played or managed at ny sort of level.

It's a phrase I've never really understood what it means. If a manger looses the dressing room, does that mean:

The players don't listen to him anymore?

Any advice or tactics he gives the players, they ignore?

How do a group of players demonstrate the manager has lost the dressing room?

Do they play to their own tactics?

Do the players still give 100% if the manager has lost the dressing room?

I don't think it's necessarily just a football thing, or even a sport thing.

Being a manager of any team of people, you need those people to perform to the best of their abilities.

If you don't encourage them, inspire them, lead them the right way, then their performance is likely to suffer.

Lose the hearts and minds of your team and you're f**ked, basically.

[Stuart Dickson]

I don't think it's necessarily just a football thing, or even a sport thing.

Being a manager of any team of people, you need those people to perform to the best of their abilities.

If you don't encourage them, inspire them, lead them the right way, then their performance is likely to suffer.

Lose the hearts and minds of your team and you're f**ked, basically.

Disagree with the bolded line. It really depends on what you have in your squad. For example look at the effect Scott Parker is supposed to have had at West Ham a few seasons ago where other players credited him with giving an inspirational half time team talk that brought tears to some of the players eyes and which was credited as the inspiration to get them to pull back from 3-0 to draw 3-3. I've had experience like that at a much much lower level where I had managers who appeared to have no idea about football, the players used to rally together before kick off and change the tactics to suit ourselves - and we won all of our league matches as a result. The danger in both those examples though is if two or more factions break out in the dressing and the manager and the coaching staff can't get them to pull together.

[Leicester Saint]

Disagree with the bolded line. It really depends on what you have in your squad. For example look at the effect Scott Parker is supposed to have had at West Ham a few seasons ago where other players credited him with giving an inspirational half time team talk that brought tears to some of the players eyes and which was credited as the inspiration to get them to pull back from 3-0 to draw 3-3. I've had experience like that at a much much lower level where I had managers who appeared to have no idea about football, the players used to rally together before kick off and change the tactics to suit ourselves - and we won all of our league matches as a result. The danger in both those examples though is if two or more factions break out in the dressing and the manager and the coaching staff can't get them to pull together.

And, possibly, you've answered your own question with that last bit.

I just meant that, if you can't get players to WANT to play for you, then you're massively up against it, and unlikely to ever succeed.

[scottd]

No idea what 'Loosing' the dressing room is.

[reborn saint]

It's real and I have no idea if Danny is in this position. Happened to Tom Hendrie in the SPL......Ex player told me why and how.......If it has happened then there is no way back. If you think about it then it's human nature.....don't like your boss?...fcuk him/her.....Think the boss is ok or better you work harder.

[Tam M]

It means you've went blind due to too much masturbation.

[beyond our ken]

Re the thread title, is Loosing a dressing room the opposite of tighting a dressing room?

[BuddieinEK]

Re the thread title, is Loosing a dressing room the opposite of tighting a dressing room?

Why would you put tights on a dressing room?

[Kemp]

Edited September 1, 2013 by Kemp

[dave.j]

Double post.

Edited September 1, 2013 by dave.j

[dave.j]

It's real and I have no idea if Danny is in this position. Happened to Tom Hendrie in the SPL......Ex player told me why and how.......If it has happened then there is no way back. If you think about it then it's human nature.....don't like your boss?...fcuk him/her.....Think the boss is ok or better you work harder.

Is it human nature to give less than 100% to the company who employs you, just because you don't respect your manager?

I can't imagine for a minute my sales director accepting an excuse of me not giving 100% because I don't get in with my boss.

I had this discussion yesterday and it amazed me how many folk deemed it acceptable that their team was under performing because the manager had lost the dressing room.

People were freely admiting that players could play better under a different manager. Surely as a fan of a club, regardless of who the manager is, the players should always give their all to their employer and in turn respect the fans by giving their best to them.

What happens if the next manager doesn't gain the respect of the players, do you continue to accept mediocre performances?

Edited September 1, 2013 by dave.j

[Griff]

If a player is on a win bonus , you would think he would give his all every time he puts on the stripes.

I also think that very good teams have four or five captains/managers/organisers on the pitch, to ensure that the team puts in a disciplined , hard working performance.

The St Mirren team of the late seventies early eighties had players like Jimmy Bone , Ian Munro , Jackie Copland , Tony Fitzpatrick , John Young , John McCormack ,Billy Abercrombie ,to pull the team through the hard times .

Losing the dressing room in my opinion , is when these experienced players don,t go the extra mile for the manager

[Stuart Dickson]

Is it human nature to give less than 100% to the company who employs you, just because you don't respect your manager?

I can't imagine for a minute my sales director accepting an excuse of me not giving 100% because I don't get in with my boss.

I had this discussion yesterday and it amazed me how many folk deemed it acceptable that their team was under performing because the manager had lost the dressing room.

People were freely admiting that players could play better under a different manager. Surely as a fan of a club, regardless of who the manager is, the players should always give their all to their employer and in turn respect the fans by giving their best to them.

What happens if the next manager doesn't gain the respect of the players, do you continue to accept mediocre performances?

Spot on David.

Maybe a month ago I started a topic "Don't Sack The Manager - It makes no difference" which quoted a survey that had been done by some Dutch economist that showed that sacking a football manager had little or no positive effect when it came to results and that any perceived results bounce with a change of manager would most probably have happened regardless of the manager change. They cited many examples including Roberto Martinez and his Wigan experience, and Paul Lambert at Aston Villa. It also looked at Sunderland and the "effect" Paulo Di Canio supposedly had when he replaced Martin O'Neill and the effect at Chelsea when they sacked AVB and replaced him with Roberto Di Matteo. He called the effect "regression to the mean" - and explained that if there is a short extraordinary run of bad results they will usually soon be followed by an run of good results to bring a team back to the mean regardless of whether you replace the manager or not.

The question was then asked if it mattered who ran your football team and they responded saying that it did but that generally players and managers sort themselves out in such a way that the best players and the best managers land up with the best clubs. If you like in other words St Mirren have the manager and the players that they have, and are experiencing the results sequence they have because of an inability to attract better to the club.

I've always been a believer that the only way forward for clubs like St Mirren is to develop a long term strategy to grow supporters numbers but it's long been an area that has been ignored by the current board of directors. That's where the blame should lie. Danny Lennon may be a poor manager but because St Mirren are such a poor club he's probably the best the club can reasonably expect to attract.

As for players I totally agree with you Dave. After all aren't Marc McAusland and Stephen Thompson supposed to be St Mirren fans? Aren't they two of the most under performing players at Greenhill Road? Do St Mirren fans think that someone who loves the club as much as they do would deliberately lose matches in the hope that the manager gets the sack?

[flyingscot]

Regression to the mean is a decent logic statistically, like you say. I've used it in accident analysis- you can have a road with 1 or 2 accidents a year, which jumps to 4 or 5 then falls back to its previous background level. Not sure how well it works to a football environment where there are perhaps more variables, year to year.

I also find some of the results bounces if they hadn't changed the manager debatable. Not sure McLeish would have got the same signings or results as Lambert has with Villa. Sometimes a change of manager can result in a change of direction- particularly with signings.

I can understand the losing the dressing room scenario too. Morale, confidence and leadership come partly from the manager. I've seen situations outside of football where a managers decisions have caused loss of morale and subsequent dips in staff performance down to managerial decisions. Equally if you see colleagues or team mates frozen out, perhaps unjustifiably (Lee Mair?), it is likely to cause concern to others that it might happen to them.

[Stuart Dickson]

Regression to the mean is a decent logic statistically, like you say. I've used it in accident analysis- you can have a road with 1 or 2 accidents a year, which jumps to 4 or 5 then falls back to its previous background level. Not sure how well it works to a football environment where there are perhaps more variables, year to year.

I also find some of the results bounces if they hadn't changed the manager debatable. Not sure McLeish would have got the same signings or results as Lambert has with Villa. Sometimes a change of manager can result in a change of direction- particularly with signings.

I can understand the losing the dressing room scenario too. Morale, confidence and leadership come partly from the manager. I've seen situations outside of football where a managers decisions have caused loss of morale and subsequent dips in staff performance down to managerial decisions. Equally if you see colleagues or team mates frozen out, perhaps unjustifiably (Lee Mair?), it is likely to cause concern to others that it might happen to them.

Lamberts squad at Villa was far less experienced and much younger than Alex McLeish's squad. In the BBC article they used the Paul Lambert scenario to show that Villa - a club who looked down and out in February - stuck by their manager and the results turned around. Sunderland sacked Martin O'Neill, brought in Paulo Di Canio and after a little up turn in results which may well have happened anyway, Sunderland have now regressed back to being a struggling Premiership team despite Di Canio spending a great deal of money in transfer fees and having signed 11 new players. Look at QPR who brought in Harry Redknapp to save them - he couldn't. Can anyone honestly say that things really do turn around when the manager changes?

I'd never heard of regression to mean as a statistical principle before I read the article but I do think it makes sense. Good players don't become shite overnight, and a football player incentivised to win isn't going to start throwing matches just to get rid of a manager they don't like. In the modern era we put far too much emphasis on the importance of the club manager - especially when the reality of modern football is that managers are generally hamstrung by their boardroom and the clubs ability to attract the kind of players the club manager wants.

If we are going to make this about St Mirren then I would say that what the board should be assessing with Lennon right now is his long term strategy. Does he stick to his preferred formation? Has he recommended players to the board that would have fitted his preferred formation? What was his strategy to grow the number of St Mirren fans paying admission to matches? Has he stuck to that? Is it working? And finally is he progressing enough young players from the youth squad to the first team squad? if not, why not and what is being done to fix it?

[oaksoft]

Regression to the mean is a decent logic statistically, like you say. I've used it in accident analysis- you can have a road with 1 or 2 accidents a year, which jumps to 4 or 5 then falls back to its previous background level. Not sure how well it works to a football environment where there are perhaps more variables, year to year.

I also find some of the results bounces if they hadn't changed the manager debatable. Not sure McLeish would have got the same signings or results as Lambert has with Villa. Sometimes a change of manager can result in a change of direction- particularly with signings.

I can understand the losing the dressing room scenario too. Morale, confidence and leadership come partly from the manager. I've seen situations outside of football where a managers decisions have caused loss of morale and subsequent dips in staff performance down to managerial decisions. Equally if you see colleagues or team mates frozen out, perhaps unjustifiably (Lee Mair?), it is likely to cause concern to others that it might happen to them.

Presumably regression to the mean only happens with statistically independent events.

I'm not sure it would be mathematically correct to apply it to football.

ETA: In fact I'm convinced it isn't valid. If a dressing room is "lost" it would depend solely on the reason for it.

If players are behind the manager but lacking confidence then changing the manager won't help IMO.

If however the manager has a bad relationship with at least one influential player then that spreads like a cancer amongst the squad. In that scenario, replacing the manager or the player involved is probably the only thing which will fix it. None of us is in a position to know for certain which is the issue at the moment.

Edited September 2, 2013 by oaksoft

[zurich_allan]

A lot of analysis and possibly over analysis here. Losing the dressing room can be as simple as a large proportion of the players, who by the time they get to a first team premier league squad will have been coached by dozens of quality coaches and managers, collectively coming to the same realisation that their current coach or coaches either don't know what they are doing, aren't tactically aware etc. All it takes is for it to be mentioned in some context between squad members before it spreads. I'm not speculating as to if that's what's happening here or not, but what I am saying is that just because a coach might have lost the dressing room doesn't necessarily mean that the players aren't still trying, but it can mean, and often correctly, that they have no faith in the tactics being used. I've played under a number of coaches through the years, some good and some bad, some that the 15 year olds in the team could have genuinely put together a better formation, but I've never given any less than 100% for any team I've played for.

[Stuart Dickson]

That final point is a worry. Personally I don't see the value in bringing in Caprice ahead of Reilly, Kelly or Naismith given that Caprice has only ever made 9 appearances for Dagenham and Redbridge as a substitute in the 4th tier of English football.

All we are saying is give youth a chance - especially this season with the situation at Hearts.

What does that say about our clubs Youth Development if this guy is brought in from nowhere and is ahead of them in the pecking order.

It may prove the point that Alan Preston and John Robertson were making on the radio a couple of weeks ago, and the point that others around the game have been making for much longer - that the pro youth system is failing and that too many clubs, including St Mirren, are carrying too many "shirt fillers".