Appointing a manager is an incredible gamble but the risks can be mitigated, especially at a club which is successful or even pointing in the right direction. In this case, clubs should look to build upon whatever platform they have. Bringing in a new guy with a team development strategy which is completely different from the existing plan accentuates the risks.
This is why the boot room strategy is successful over any extended period. Build on what you have, sign players needed by the squad and who have been scouted extensively. The new man may or may not prove to be the world’s best coach but at least he’ll have a successful infrastructure to insulate the club from lurching into oblivion.
When Gordon Strachan succeeded Martin O’Neill, Gordon picked up a scouting folder, flew to Poland and got on with the development project, much as Martin would have, had he stayed. Celtic were technically no less successful when Tony Mowbray took over in 2009 but the team, and strategy, were tired. A change of direction was appealing, we couldn’t continue to sign Hibs players, although the execution of the new strategy was flawed. The writing was on the wall from the moment we signed £3.9m Marc-Antoine Fortune.
Neil Lennon was an enormous gamble when he was appointed in 2010. He was a rookie, had never signed a player, won a trophy (as manager), or deployed a game plan in anger. There were a few facts in his favour. He’d worked with the other coaches at the club, as well as chief scout, John Park, and Peter Lawwell. For years, they shared a development vision. Celtic retreated into a strategy closely aligned to the vision of the remaining technical staff.
Despite the Scottish Cup semi-final debacle against Ross County Neil got the job, spent much of the next year learning a few painful lessons and hasn’t looked back since. The club gambled on the guy with ultimate responsibility, but they knew he was not about the step out on a ledge.
The time to have a root-and-branch clear-out is following a John Barnes-type season. The manager was wrong, as was tactics, scouting and team development plan. Martin O’Neill brought with him radical and necessary change. This worked at Celtic but, if anything, it is even more risky than appointing a rookie. The lower leagues of England are full of clubs who have gambled unsustainable money on a manager only to come a cropper.
There are gems out there, Pochettino and Simeone, for example, but finding them is a challenge. Pochettino pitched up at Southampton after being sacked by a hugely underperforming Espanyol, and Simeone got the Atletico Madrid job after several years of average-to-poor returns.
Big Davie Moyes was a good manager at Everton but watching him at Manchester United was a bit like watching him 30 years ago in a Celtic shirt. He started by dismantling whatever platforms were in place and served notice he would be following a Haphazard and Wasteful player recruitment policy on the final day of last summer’s transfer window by blowing all his pocket money on a guy he didn’t need and refused to sign for less money a few weeks earlier. He had to go.
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All the best to big Johan. Did me a big favour back in 2001,in MON’s first season, when he scored a late winner in a midweek match v Dundee at Celtic Park. Meant they could win the title on the Saturday v St. Mirren, the day before my mate returned from his (badly-planned) holiday, and came round for his season book. Great to be there whenever Celtic clinch a title, but MON’s first was especially joyful, given the gap he had had to overcome with the deid club from the previous season.
Didn’t have to depend on mates going on holiday after that.
thomthethim for Oscar OK:
I wonder what would have happened if two years ago our board had, aside from his faults that you publicly list, half the courage that Kelly had in abundance.
I’m not one demanding a Carthaginian Peace with regards the huns or the SFA. I don’t want to salt the grave of the huns, how bitter and sick is that. Are we to become in glory all that we detested in others. I would not have been adverse to see them come back if only they were sentenced appropriately. However, they were not sentenced appropriately, appropriately for me would have been for them to have been removed from senior football. Only one club in Scotland demanded that with their vote and it was not Celtic.
The fault that Scottish football is in turmoil is not primarily the fault of Rangers, past, present or whatever, it is the fault of a bank and powers that, to this day, be.
All that aside ‘I’ believe Celtic did not, and continue to not do, what ‘I’ think is best and true to our ethos. I don’t think Celtic bottled it so much from aggression as much as I believe they bottled it, and continue to bottle it, from commercialisms. Therefore ‘I’ am left with a decision to make.
Remember how the huns used to goad Scotland when they were raging towards Ten in a Row. Remember how they used their (the banks) financial muscle to ride roughshod over every other club and that clubs supporters. Remember how they used to buy foreign talent over any promising Scottish born kid. Remember how none of their kids came through the ranks. I can’t remember but how many foreign internationalists did the huns buy during their rage to ten?
Did Celtic ever prosecute Jabba over his ‘auld firm’ ticket jibes?
A lot of Celtic Supporters are disgruntled with the club, even with all its relative stability and success…. rather than decry them after their life long support and devout adherence to the ethos, maybe it would be wiser to ask, why are they disgruntled?
Ah! this green tea is bad for me, keep a Scotsman in a job, where’s my whisky?
I remember Sir Robert Kelly being respected for his principles and being abused for imposing those self same principles on the team. The support regularly called for his head.
If you could go back in time and watch one game what game would it be?
Real Madrid Hampden final…7-3
Scotland beating World Champions 3-2 in 1967
My choice would be the Red Star game with Jinky at his very best
BB05
1961. England 9 Scotland 3.
Kidding!
beatbhoy
12:50 on 23 April, 2014
BB05
1961. England 9 Scotland 3.
—————————————-
Maybe kidding but still funny
BB05
Seriously though, not Lisbon?
Unless. . . You weren’t, were you?