Sometimes I look at the trajectory of Martin O’Neill’s career and wonder why he didn’t land another top job after leaving Celtic. He was the hottest property in football while he was in Glasgow, almost joined Leeds United (then a top side), while he was short odds for the Liverpool manager’s job at each annual crisis on Merseyside. At the time Ferguson at Manchester was talking about retiring, had he gone, Martin would have moved to Old Trafford.
In 2003 he met Mourinho in the Uefa Cup final. The Portuguese had some of the finest footballers of that generation at his disposal, unquestionably a better collection of players than Celtic, as their Champions League win 12 months later would prove, but Porto were pinned-in for long spells in the second half and required (literally) every trick in the book to prevail.
Despite losing, O’Neill did better with the resources available to him than Mourinho.
After a few meritocratic years at Aston Villa, where he spent more than the club could afford, but delivered a better team than they would otherwise expect, he left a day before the season kicked off, apparently unhappy Villa’s budget was being curtailed.
Without meaning offence to Sunderland, I was disappointed when he pitched up there. Martin O’Neill was surely a manager who should be competing for league titles and in the Champions League. His early form at Sunderland was transformational but it was a transformation built on fragile foundations.
Those founds’ have now disappeared, Sunderland sit two places above relegation. Their play is recognisable from how Celtic played a decade ago, and how Leicester played in the 90s. Opponents know what they get from Martin’s teams, so they know how to prepare for them.
Martin’s former players talk about his inspirational qualities not his tactical incision. It’s hard, if not impossible, for a manager of a major club to master all the attributes required in the job. The successful ones realise this and delegate.
One of the frustrations we had with Martin when he was at Celtic is his reluctance to indulge the scouts. We signed former Leicester players, players who featured on Match of the Day, or players from other SPL clubs. The Wanyama, Izaguirre, Kayal-recruitment model, players signed with greater trust in the scouts and limited supervision from the man at the top, would never have happened under O’Neill.
The technical side of the game is perhaps even more important than recruitment. Great football systems, clubs and countries develop from one coach doing something sensational. Successful tactical changes are then studied and copied, but how do you study and learn from a system that’s not utilised against you, or on TV, when you are manager of a large club? You can’t, on your own.
Instead you have to deploy the systems you already trust and used to get yourself the big job in the first place. Or you can tinker a little, or use what, for the want of a better term, we’ll call a technical research team. People who can say to the manager, “A club in Romania is doing something really clever, we should try it”, without being frog-marched off the premises.
The lesson of evolution is that it is not the biggest, strongest or healthiest who thrive, it’s those who can adapt to a changing environment. The list of great managers who end their career in humiliating relegation is longer than the list of greats who regularly discard their tried and tested formations and become early-adopters of successful new systems.
‘By any means necessary, Journey with Celtic Bampots’ by Paul Larkin, is now available at Lulu and other outlets. Paul charts the remarkable events the Internet Bampots became embroiled in since 2008.
As well as reading for FREE here (don’t try to read through the graphic below), you can subscribe for £10 or £20, and our sponsor, Executive Shaving, who offer an enormous range of grooming products, are offering readers a £20 voucher for all £30 CQN Magazine subscribers.
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No to Souness
No to Smith
No to McLeish
Maybe to WGS
Yes to Rednapp
Cults,
Personally I woulda kept levein. The lord himself couldn’t get Scotland out that group, and certainly not now.
I’d happily take anyone who hasn’t turned their back on Scotland before.
….and definitely not fplg obviously ;)
TALLYBHOY
If it happens,you will NEVER see me watching a Scotland game again.
I doubt I will be alone.
I have had little interest in them for years,right enough,but that would be the final nail in the coffin for me.
BMCUW
Di Canio in charge of the open-air Swindon asylum?!
It’s a pity there are no Roman ruins in Swindon!
Paolo would probably try and bring back gladiatorial combat for the delectation of the locals!
HH!!
CultsBhoy
I would even say yes to ‘arry Redknapp’s dug ffs, before the cardigan!
HH!!
Joe Jordan fits the bill for me.
I know it’s only Arbroath or the Locos, but I hope the SFA don’t make us play on the Sunday before the CL game against Spartak. They wouldn’t want to hinder our preparation for a CL game, like the SPL did, would they?
How come he’s dismissed before the announcement?
SFA more leaks than Craig Whytes’s roof.
Why, pray tell, is the WE game V St Johnstone on Sunday with a 3.00 PM KO……
Paddy T. who cares not a dot who the next Scotland manager is.
Just been up to the Arbroath Library. I asked if they had a copy of Downfall. I mentioned that it was Scotland`s Best Seller but had not been reviewed by a single newspaper.
” Because it was about Rangers collapse,” I said.
“Oh,” replied the Librarian,” I thought it was about Hitler.”
“Nearly.” I replied. ” I certainly is about the Hun!”
It was an amusing little exchange and they DO have a copy but it
If Levein is to go then he should go now. This qualifying campaign is fecked, so give a new manager time to build towards the next one.
WGS would be a good choice but I can’t see his style being appealing to the SFA. Joe Jordan might be a good shout. Has a reputation as a decent coach although hasn’t done much as a manager.
I have one ticket, North Stand Upper, going free for the game against St Johnstone this coming Sunday (11 Nov, 3 p.m.). If anyone wants it, let me know soon (via Paul67) as I’ll have to post it.
is out at the moment and someone else is on the waiting list. Quite a few Tims in Arbroath, you know.
JJ
An interesting article on MON. I always thought he was very rigid in his approach, but the players he had knew their job inside out. Sutton, Thompson et al were the model professionals. However, without Henrik they would not have achieved so much in Europe. He would have graced any team in any land, and the proof was when Barca kept him on when his cruciate was kaput. He won them a European Cup. What Neil has learnt he has learnt in a very short time in Europe. The away win in Moscow was no fluke–indeed Celtic could have scored more–and neither was the defensive performance at the Nou Camp. Various factors are at play in the SPL, complacency being one, referees another, and the inability to keep the nerve when the other team score late on in a game. These are rectifiable. Some of the football being played is excellent. What the club needs to do however, is to remind their own stewards and the Strathclyde Militia (and they are a militia-make no mistake) that Celtic have an exceptional and unequalled record as regards fan behavior. If they ignore this they are derelict in their duty to the Celtic family.
“@BBCchrismclaug: BBC has learned Craig Levein will not be carrying on as Scotland manager. More to follow across #BBCSport outlets.”
guys a bit of a long read, but a very interesting article on the poppy by Ian Bell, Herald journalist.
Dont think the Legion or Cameron come out to good in this article
Why I refuse to buy into politics of the poppy brandIan Bell
ColumnistAt the heart of our community stands a fine, lovingly tended war memorial.
At the heart of our community stands a fine, lovingly tended war memorial.
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Custom byline text:
Ian Bell
The simple fact tells you nothing. All it means is that I could be living anywhere in this country. Only someone attuned to local names, to the truth that hellish loss is always specific, could make a guess at the region.
Contextual targeting label:
Business
The edifices are everywhere: we grow up with the fact. When someone mentions Scotland and war, the ubiquitous memorials are invoked. Sometimes, one of the better historians will try to decipher what the sober statements mean as expressions of unthinkable grief and indiscriminate bereavement. You might even be reminded that in the first of the world wars our losses were “disproportionate”.
The lists of names, dates, ages and long-gone regiments invite, perhaps demand, remembrance. It is a tricky word. Year by year, those who can truly remember fade from the world. No-one with a physical memory of the 1914-1918 war remains; memories of 1939-1945, and of all the rest, slip away, one after the other. The long march into the past is ceaseless.
The word, though, means something more than memory alone. My dictionary offers “that which serves to bring to or keep in mind; a reminder”. That’s why the memorials endure. We speak of “acts of remembrance”, and of forgetting as a kind of betrayal. So what is it that we bring to mind?
The public language is a compromise. It is acceptable to speak of service and talk of sacrifice. We say, some of us, that they gave their lives so that we might live. We deplore war, always, but honour those who fought. Yet on the second Sunday in November it is a brave soul who says remembrance should encompass mindless bloody slaughter, needless loss, futility, waste and cynicism. That would be “inappropriate”.
Each year I put my money in the tin and decline the poppy. It offends me that the money has ever been needed. As for the symbol, I refuse to be conscripted.
Revisionist historians can muster their tin soldier arguments, explain that German aggression made conflict “inevitable” in 1914, or argue that every nation suffered horribly in an unavoidable – so they say – war of attrition. For my part, I’ll have nothing to do with anything bearing the mark of Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, he who gained a military education at the expense of all those lives. Call me old-fashioned.
Equally, I’ll have nothing to do with those who still, even now, exploit the dead, who treat honest emotions as an opportunity to excuse every modern disaster. The poppy implies assent. Wear the poppy and, whatever your private thoughts, you sign up publicly for the lot: good wars, bad wars, wars legal, illegal, or merely insane. The idea of sacrifice is deployed as blackmail.
The poppy has meanwhile become an excuse to manipulate ideas of nationhood, patriotism, faith, community and unity. By these means the 57,000 lost on July 1, 1916 – Haig had “no choice”, they’ll tell you – become moral guarantors for Iraq and Afghanistan. Honour the slaughtered and you accept every slaughter. Worse than that, worse because it is trivial and barely noticed, the poppy has become compulsory.
Anyone in the public eye who fails to wear one will attract comment. Newsreaders, absurdly, are given no choice in the matter. Politicians long ago learned it is pointless to struggle against manufactured “public opinion” if they are not to be accused of “insult”. Remembrance has been turned into a cult and put to political use. So the bereaved, whether they know it or not, are truly insulted, and insulted twice over.
Had I the wherewithal, I could be a corporate partner of the Royal British Legion. If I ran a business, and felt like becoming complicit in a charity mugging, I could “increase sales and competitive advantage”; “maximise brand affinity”; “attract and retain customers and staff”. The Legion suggests, in fact, that it would be a smart move to “Give your business poppy appeal”. Trust me: the ability to make this up is beyond my talents. Try http://www.britishlegion.org.uk/support-us/corporate-partnerships.
There, as the centenary of the 1914 debacle approaches, as two more families wait to receive two more of those lost in Afghanistan, you will find the following: “Companies working with us enjoy a host of benefits. With 97% awareness of our poppy brand in the UK and a significant presence overseas we are uniquely placed to tailor partnerships that meet your specific business needs.”
The Legion does good work and needs money. The professional fundraisers capable of composing drivel have probably received lectures on sensitivity. But is this what remembrance has become? Are the legions of the dead, ancient and modern, simply marketable items in the modern British sentimentality industry? Are young people killing and dying in foreign fields for the sake of “our poppy brand”?
David Cameron, a marketing man to the tips of his polished toes, has grasped an opportunity of his own. Just before the launch of this year’s poppy appeal, with its pop stars and camera-ready petals, he decided to spend £50 million to mark the centenary of Haig’s bloodbath. Handily for the Prime Minister, that will fall in 2014, when invocations of Britishness might work wonders on anyone liable to vote for a contrary proposition.
That’s no matter. Just over a fortnight ago, Mr Cameron said Britain would mark the 1914 war with a “commemoration that captures our national spirit in every corner of the country, from our schools and workplaces, to our town halls and local communities; a commemoration that, like the Diamond Jubilee celebrations this year, says something about who we are as a people”.
In other words, he proposes a series of events to honour the “national spirit” that saw three-quarters of a million dead for no earthly reason. He could have said Britain will spend a moment contemplating shame, regret and remorse for its failure to end the old, hideous cycle. Instead, this voice of the officer class said – I quote from a London report – “an advisory board of former defence secretaries, chiefs of staff and military specialists would bring together ideas for the commemorations”. Huzzah.
This is no black satire. The kind who took us to 1914 sense vindication, yet again, for the “spirit” they depend upon. Yet again, they lay claim to ownership of “who we are as a people”. Is there really much wonder that the wars go on, one upon the other, endlessly, with nothing learned?
Someone will give me that familiar funny look when I stuff in the note and refuse the poppy. They will interpret the omission as a gesture, and find it offensive. Tough. The poppy was once a symbol of the belief that somehow humanity survives the blood and the mud. It was supposed to say – and when did we forget? – that these things must never happen again. Now it tells us the killing will never end. It is, says Mr Cameron, “who we are”.
There is no greater insult to the nameless dead than the refusal to learn a single damned thing from a century of industrialised slaughter. The refusal says, after all, that not one of the lost ever mattered. And how does that count as remembrance?
TALLYBHOY
He is over-critical of the players,the fans are split,and the board are wondering how to control him.
They can’t afford to sack him,so have to rely on his ambition to better himself to take the club forward.
Bit of a nightmare,apparently-according to an ex-player I was talking to earlier today.
Has to be Goprdon Duffield Smith .
Born in Kilwinning
Played for Rangers.
Experience of foreign football .
Has some managerial experience .
Football Agent .
BBC pundit .
Churnalist .
Chief Executive of The SFA
Director of ” Football” at Rangers,.
Knows everything you need to know about Scottish football . Knows where the bodies are buried.
any update on the injury list for Barca?
McCoist is a possibility.
Positives:
SFA hand over compensation cash to Sevco.
CG gets shot of an underperforming manager with no back lash from fans/media.
McCoist gets to walk away with his head held high.
The only down side is that the national team probably perform even more poorly but in the grand scheme of things that hardly matters.
Strachan or Jordan are the obvious candidates and it should be one of those two. I’d also like to from in a wild card, Davie Hay
It could be cardigan and swally. no doubt swally will be a
full-time assistant as running a fourth tier outfit is more
demanding than running an spl club – peter houston
If the krankie’s dont get the gig ……………………………………Joe jordon.
Raymac
I enjoyed our success under MON but I have to say that he would never have signed Henrik nor Lubo for that matter. Not his stamp of player. He and we were lucky that he inherited them and gave some guile to that team.
I like MON but just saying.
Levein has won nothing as a player and a manager,with assistants like Houston and Kenny Black ffs,it was always going to end this way.
The Battered Bunnet understands that @bbcchrismclaug follows @OHenleyAlex on twitter.
PEDROCARAVANNACHIO
The poppy has been hijacked,as simple as that.
Like many-or most,indeed,on here-I had relations before my time who fought for our country.
The poppy was never meant as a jingoistic statement,it was a method of funding for the care of the unfortunate soldiers,etc,who needed to be looked after because of their suffering.
I still donate to the poppy appeal,in memory of those who died.
I refuse to wear their symbol,because it no longer means what it did.
Scotland manager, who cares.
Scotland job?
Owen Coyle’s gran says Ownie has knocked it back.
My opinions on yesterday’s game:
Watt’s halves were night and day – couldn’t get going with Commons, but combined brilliantly with Miku. I’d be delighted to see them start v Barca if Hooper isn’t fit.
Once again our main concern is at the back. I’m a bit disappointed that Rogne looks to be out injured as Ambrose/Wilson don’t look good right now. Izzy out isn’t a problem imo – he’s been average – the same applies when he plays at CP in European games.
Brown’s first half was outstanding – he carried the team. Looked tired in the 2nd. Very much hope he is fit for Wed night.
Commons???? How can two successive performances be so different from eachj other? Inconsistent is the word.
The new Scotland manager will almost certainly be a hun!
Take your pick from –
– Smith (either)
– McLeish
– Davies
– Williamson
– the fat useless pie-guzzling sleekit whisperer
– Jefferies (!!!)
…….
Have I missed anybody out?!
HH!!
New Manager won’t be a RC ,that’s a given.
Give the job to Steve Kean.
Stuart Baxter is waiting by his phone………….
Scotland manager?
Ninth this century?
Geezajoab,I can dae that!
Especially wi a big pay-off.
so nae news on the injury list for the Barca game?
Pep Guardiola is on a sabbatical!
Would he be interested?
HH!!
I hear ye Bobby.
I have no problem with the true meaning of the poppy.
What drives me insane is the amount of complaints that appear when tv presenters and guests on tv shows dont wear a poppy from about the MIDDLE OF OCTOBER FFS!!!
Getalife csc