The Harry Effect

[Bus-Conductor]

I just thought I'd show my face in here in the spirit of fairness and say that the last three performances have been very good. Culminating in the performance against Arsenal on sunday which was possibly our best performance of the season.

Teams and tactics were all good but most importantly we were passing the ball consistantly for the first time since Redknapp arrived. I'm very much hoping that this is going to continue, if it does I will have to give Redknapp some credit.

I think we need to address the fitness levels as we are losing too many goals late on. We suffered the same fate under Jol. This is not a coincidence entirely. When fitness levels drop and fatigue starts to kick in concentration suffers.

With Kevin Bond in charge of training I still have grave worries in this area but the fact that we are passing the ball again has at least given me some hope when prior to the last three games I'd felt about as dispondant about where we were heading as I had for a very, very long time.

One of the facets of Ramos's coaching effect was the way we started to press the ball better, including higher up the pitch, I'd also like to see this return - and there was some evidence of this again in the last three games.

I still have my doubts, because years of watching what Redknapp has done with other teams and ours most of this season will not be vanquished by three games but I just thought I'd come in here and say it how I'd seen it last three.

 

[danielneeds]

I just thought I'd show my face in here in the spirit of fairness and say that the last three performances have been very good. Culminating in the performance against Arsenal on sunday which was possibly our best performance of the season.

Teams and tactics were all good but most importantly we were passing the ball consistantly for the first time since Redknapp arrived. I'm very much hoping that this is going to continue, if it does I will have to give Redknapp some credit.

I think we need to address the fitness levels as we are losing too many goals late on. We suffered the same fate under Jol. This is not a coincidence entirely. When fitness levels drop and fatigue starts to kick in concentration suffers.

With Kevin Bond in charge of training I still have grave worries in this area but the fact that we are passing the ball again has at least given me some hope when prior to the last three games I'd felt about as dispondant about where we were heading as I had for a very, very long time.

One of the facets of Ramos's coaching effect was the way we started to press the ball better, including higher up the pitch, I'd also like to see this return - and there was some evidence of this again in the last three games.

I still have my doubts, because years of watching what Redknapp has done with other teams and ours most of this season will not be vanquished by three games but I just thought I'd come in here and say it how I'd seen it last three.

Nice to see you are prepared to offer some praise where praise is due....:clap:

 

[SpurSince57]

The fitness issue must be one of the biggest cons that's been foisted upon the gullible in years. Somehow, an overweight half-fit bunch of deadbeats managed to put together the best run-in in over 50 years, and have at least 50% of the tie against Sevilla. But hey, Bullshit Central trots out this crap, so it must be true.

Before Ramos departed there was no obvious evidence of superior fitness—against Wigan at the Lane at least half the team appeared to be playing in diving boots for the last ten minutes. About the only game where superior fitness has been in evidence was in extra time against Burnley.

Why are you worried about Bond? I don't have a clue what he brings to the party, neither do you, nor does anyone else. What did any of us know about Alvarez? Bugger all, in two words. Brian Kidd was a failure as manager at lower-league clubs and a disaster at Blackburn, but as assistant to Ferguson probably saved his bacon.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

Bond is not entirely an unknown quantity though. He has been around along time and I have seen and read several things that are uncomplimentary about his training methods of the years.

Just because Ramos raised doubts about the general fitness of the players doesn't mean it wasn't true. I love the way any rumour that contradicts or in some way might tarnish the halo of St Mart comes from bullshit central. But if it is a rumour about Kelmsley sacrificing virgins on an alter it's gospel.

Are you not prepared to accept that Jol wasn't perfect in each and every way yet.

Or are you still clinging to your belief of Jol as the emaculate conception of managerial lovelyness.

 

[Rackybear]

Although the fitness issue was highly documented, SS57 you cannot hide from the fact that diet is crucial in terms of physical performance.

What you eat portrays who you are, and to some extent how you behave and come across to others. When Ramos came in, he fixed that and as a result the team lost a collective weight of 50+ pounds, which tells you that we WERE carrying extra baggage on the pitch.

At this time, we were conceding sloppy late goals, I believe the aston villa match was the turning point. After that, we did not look like conceding during the last quarter, and our energy levels were at a high tempo throughout large parts of most matches.

Fitness became an issue because Ramos' style of football requires his team to press and harry the opposition until they win possession back, and hit them hard on the counter attack for 90 minutes of each and every game.

Yes, the same team had one of our best league runs prior to that, but you need to remember, in the season we almost finished 4th, we dropped valuable points to late equalisers (West ham, sunderland..), you wonder, had our players been able to fight that extra 10 minutes more, those extra points would have seen us make the cut for the CL.

Its all ifs and buts, but I dont think the fitness story was some miracle story to portray Ramos in a good light.

The fitness under MJ might not have been poor, but it was nothing more then average, and Ramos simply wanted to improve that - and he did. Every manager has his own style, some are more tactical, some more arm around shoulder, he was just more physical I guess - because it was vital in order to play the football he expected from the team.

 

[SpurSince57]

I wouldn't dispute that diet is crucial to performance for a single second. What I would dispute is that it was as bad pre-Ramos as was claimed. Do some people seriously imagine that the players were fed a menu of pies and death by chocolate puddiing, washed down by copious quantities of lager? You'd think so from some of the comments on here, and I have my doubts that all of those were joking. It's unthinkable that Jol and Comolli, not to mention Clive and Inglethorpe, would have countenanced the canteen's serving up vast quantities of high-calory junk. In fact, there were a few shots of the canteen in a televised interview with Comolli a couple of years ago; it all looked pretty healthy to me.

It's a fair generalisation that Continental eating habits are a good deal healthier than British ones, full-stop. Anyone who's been to Spain (the bits that aren't set up to serve British tourists the stuff they eat at home, anyway), France, Italy will know that the locals, by and large, don't eat crap. A football club's canteen will surely to a degree reflect national eating habits; there have been several stories about foreign players coming to English clubs and getting a dose of culinary culture-shock—Malouda for one. It doesn't, therefore, surprise me in the slightest that Ramos and Alvarez decided to change things; but, seriously, is the odd chocolate muffin or dollop of ketchup (or Jenas dishing out the jelly babies) going to have markedly adverse affect on fitness? And unless the players are under 24-hour surveillance you can't stop them sending out for a pizza any more than you can stop them going to Faces.

It wasn't 50 pounds, it was 100 kilos—over four times that, getting on for 10 pounds a player if you include the whole first team squad. There were eyebrows raised at the time, because the only players who were visibly carrying excess poundage were Huddlestone and Robbo. Lennon overweight? Defoe? Zokora? Bent? Shortly after that story came out Jenas said he'd been told to bulk up. And after Huddlestone was revealed as Slimmer of the Season last summer, did we see any improvement in his pace and mobility? No.

Perhaps someone with the club yearbooks could check players' weights at the start of last season against the start of this season?

But the proof of the pudding is in the eating, of course (an unfortunate phrase in this context, but who cares?). So what, exactly, did all this enhanced fitness gain us in terms of results? Over the last twelve games of last season, a piddling 14 points against the record-equalling 27 the previous season. And after the ludicrously overblown PR exercise of last summer's training camp ('Hey, punters, you can see we're doing things properly now'), which was going to make us the fittest outfit in the league—so we poor gullible fools innocently imagined? Well, we all know the answer to that.

 

[Rackybear]

Thing is we are not talking abour results here. This is about physical fitness. Ok fair enough Ramos wasn't great during his spell here, but he left the squad in much better condition then when he arrived - that I will say.

Regarding Huddlestone, well, we saw his new slimline physique in the summer snapshots when the boys went on their training camp in spain, but did we really ever see him play after that until Ramos got the chop? Enough time for him to go back to his old ways perhaps - I dont know. So it's kind of hard to comment on that.

A little ketchup here and their will not make much difference no, but you know what they say - Everything in moderation. If it was a habit and they were having a dollop of ketchup everytime with their fish or whatever else - then its not really moderation is it. I dont know how much difference it would make to completely shut it out, but it would at least help them get closer to their peak physical condition, I know that much.

I never for one moment thought that the squad MJ had assembled had poor fitness, I just think perhaps their may have been a little less attention to detail in the physical aspect of our game. Like I said, the fitness of our team around then was probably average, all Ramos wanted to do really was make it exceptional, something that would give us a competitive advantage over 90% of other teams and enable us to get the results we wanted.

The spell up to the CC win was fantastic, we really played some delightful flowing football with bags of energy, I dont know what happened theirafter, but we defo got a taste of what this manager was capable of producing. The rest is history..

 

[jimtheyid]

Over the past few days/weeks/years there have been a lot of threads prasing recent managers for certain things yet praising them for others.

Not one manager is going to be perfect. All will have their flaws. I loved Martin Jol, I look back at his time with much fondness and I wish he was still here. Yet i am not naive enough to know that sometimes his tactics didnt work. LevycomolliRamosJolKemsleynewcastle-gate ruined it all. My take on it is that if Jol didn't feel marginalised by Comolli and Levy he would never have met with the barcodes. I do believe he loved spurs but feel he was forced out. Anyway everyone is bored of that now right?

With Ramos, he brought with him his big reputation, which in fairness was probably overstated. He had positives sure, fitness being the main one. But I believe he was too tactical. He and Gus were too in depth and over-analyitical which therefore left lost some of our players lost. It's not their fault that our players are thick as shit but hey, you have to manage who you have got.

With Harry, the jury is very much out. In truth I feel he is a footballing dinosaur. I think the game has changed too much and in truth I can't see him succeeding in the long term. But if we continue to play the starting line up we had at the weekend. And they play as we did at the weekend, then there is no reason why we wont be top 6 next season. The problem is we wont.

 

[NEVILLEB]

Harry = Poor Coach + Excellent Manager

Ultimately his ability to recognise, sign and manage good players makes him superior to Jol and Ramos despite their coaching pedigree

It's all very well getting the best out of Zokora but Harry sidesteps the issue by signing Palacios...job done

 

[SpurSince57]

Thing is we are not talking abour results here. This is about physical fitness. Ok fair enough Ramos wasn't great during his spell here, but he left the squad in much better condition then when he arrived - that I will say.

Regarding Huddlestone, well, we saw his new slimline physique in the summer snapshots when the boys went on their training camp in spain, but did we really ever see him play after that until Ramos got the chop? Enough time for him to go back to his old ways perhaps - I dont know. So it's kind of hard to comment on that.

A little ketchup here and their will not make much difference no, but you know what they say - Everything in moderation. If it was a habit and they were having a dollop of ketchup everytime with their fish or whatever else - then its not really moderation is it. I dont know how much difference it would make to completely shut it out, but it would at least help them get closer to their peak physical condition, I know that much.

I never for one moment thought that the squad MJ had assembled had poor fitness, I just think perhaps their may have been a little less attention to detail in the physical aspect of our game. Like I said, the fitness of our team around then was probably average, all Ramos wanted to do really was make it exceptional, something that would give us a competitive advantage over 90% of other teams and enable us to get the results we wanted.

The spell up to the CC win was fantastic, we really played some delightful flowing football with bags of energy, I dont know what happened theirafter, but we defo got a taste of what this manager was capable of producing. The rest is history..

I'm sure that was the idea, and it's quite clear that Ramos was a perfectionist and that attempting to micro-manage players' diets, etc., was part and parcel of this. But was there a clearly visible improvement in fitness on the pitch? Have we looked markedly fitter than the other EPL teams we've played, or even as fit? I can't say that I've noticed.

 

[Sputic]

If fitness was such a problem under Jol then we wouldn't have finished the 06-07 season the way we did. And we got a fair few late goals ourelves under Jol too.

 

[danielneeds]

If fitness was such a problem under Jol then we wouldn't have finished the 06-07 season the way we did. And we got a fair few late goals ourelves under Jol too.

Exactly a team cannot finish 5th in the EPL play a fair amount of Uefa, Carling Cup matches without being pretty fit.

The irony of Ramos is that a fully engaged squad who put all their effort into training are going to burn up more calories and be more fit than those who are missing out on tomato kethcup and jelly babies.

Oh yeah to the poster who said the Spanish are more healthy than Brits. That is only true in certain regions in Spain, if you go down south all they eat is pork, pork, pork.

 

[SpurSince57]

Nothing wrong with a bit of pork! (And I bet it's better quality than the water-filled force-fed crap you get in Tesco's and Sainsbury's.) Make mine Ibérico!

 

[AngerManagement]

Yes but a little ironic for a club known as the Yids to be on a Pork pork pork diet

 

[Bus-Conductor]

I wouldn't dispute that diet is crucial to performance for a single second. What I would dispute is that it was as bad pre-Ramos as was claimed. Do some people seriously imagine that the players were fed a menu of pies and death by chocolate puddiing, washed down by copious quantities of lager? You'd think so from some of the comments on here, and I have my doubts that all of those were joking. It's unthinkable that Jol and Comolli, not to mention Clive and Inglethorpe, would have countenanced the canteen's serving up vast quantities of high-calory junk. In fact, there were a few shots of the canteen in a televised interview with Comolli a couple of years ago; it all looked pretty healthy to me.

It's a fair generalisation that Continental eating habits are a good deal healthier than British ones, full-stop. Anyone who's been to Spain (the bits that aren't set up to serve British tourists the stuff they eat at home, anyway), France, Italy will know that the locals, by and large, don't eat crap. A football club's canteen will surely to a degree reflect national eating habits; there have been several stories about foreign players coming to English clubs and getting a dose of culinary culture-shock—Malouda for one. It doesn't, therefore, surprise me in the slightest that Ramos and Alvarez decided to change things; but, seriously, is the odd chocolate muffin or dollop of ketchup (or Jenas dishing out the jelly babies) going to have markedly adverse affect on fitness? And unless the players are under 24-hour surveillance you can't stop them sending out for a pizza any more than you can stop them going to Faces.

It wasn't 50 pounds, it was 100 kilos—over four times that, getting on for 10 pounds a player if you include the whole first team squad. There were eyebrows raised at the time, because the only players who were visibly carrying excess poundage were Huddlestone and Robbo. Lennon overweight? Defoe? Zokora? Bent? Shortly after that story came out Jenas said he'd been told to bulk up. And after Huddlestone was revealed as Slimmer of the Season last summer, did we see any improvement in his pace and mobility? No.

Perhaps someone with the club yearbooks could check players' weights at the start of last season against the start of this season?

But the proof of the pudding is in the eating, of course (an unfortunate phrase in this context, but who cares?). So what, exactly, did all this enhanced fitness gain us in terms of results? Over the last twelve games of last season, a piddling 14 points against the record-equalling 27 the previous season. And after the ludicrously overblown PR exercise of last summer's training camp ('Hey, punters, you can see we're doing things properly now'), which was going to make us the fittest outfit in the league—so we poor gullible fools innocently imagined? Well, we all know the answer to that.

It's not just about diet though. It's about conditioning. I remember one of the old arsenal back four (lee Dixon, Tony Adams I think) claiming that Arsene Wenger added about 3 years to their careers by improvong the fitness (and diet etc) regime.

No body said that we were a team of lardy woblers under Jol who spent their training time scoffing steak and kidney pudds and copius amounts of creme brulee. But where ultimate fitness becomes an issue is in the last quarter of games. Fatigue causes the body to tire, and the brain struggles under duress to concentrate. It is why so many goals occur in the final minutes of games. And no coincidence that the teams that have the best coaches are the ones that are doing most of the last minute scoring.

 

[danielneeds]

Nothing wrong with a bit of pork! (And I bet it's better quality than the water-filled force-fed crap you get in Tesco's and Sainsbury's.) Make mine Ibérico!

Ain't that the point of Iberico though? The pigs are fed acorns until they are fit to burst!!! Hehe I agree though, they care about their produce a lot more than we have done in this country with the supermarkets dictating.

 

[ripley]

With Ramos, he brought with him his big reputation, which in fairness was probably overstated. He had positives sure, fitness being the main one. But I believe he was too tactical. He and Gus were too in depth and over-analyitical which therefore left lost some of our players lost. It's not their fault that our players are thick as shit but hey, you have to manage who you have got.

I'd just like to disagree with this generalization.
Why is it that some of the games greatest players do not make good managers? It's because many players play the game on such an instinctive level. They do not like to over think the game...they just play. My take on the tactical Ramos was that, maybe, he was actually asking players to think too much while playing and it affected their ability to just flow as they normally would. It's not that they're too thick...it's like someone instructing you how to walk differently...when you start to think about something you've done naturally for so long, you start to trip over your own feet.

 

[jimtheyid]

I'd just like to disagree with this generalization.
Why is it that some of the games greatest players do not make good managers? It's because many players play the game on such an instinctive level. They do not like to over think the game...they just play. My take on the tactical Ramos was that, maybe, he was actually asking players to think too much while playing and it affected their ability to just flow as they normally would. It's not that they're too thick...it's like someone instructing you how to walk differently...when you start to think about something you've done naturally for so long, you start to trip over your own feet.

Fair point.

 

[sloth]

Good stuff on this page apart from SS who's got a bee in his bonnet over senior Ramos :razz: a very good manager at the wrong club.

 

[thfcsteff]

Harry = Poor Coach + Excellent Manager

Ultimately his ability to recognise, sign and manage good players makes him superior to Jol and Ramos despite their coaching pedigree

It's all very well getting the best out of Zokora but Harry sidesteps the issue by signing Palacios...job done

I think this is pretty much on the money I think...