As manager of Celtic you automatically get a 50-50 chance of winning stuff up there
Steve Coppell
:rofl:Harry Rednapp.He gets players playing good football.
:rofl:
Brain Clough, Ferguson and Arsene Weneger both gave/give very simple team instructions, which is essentially to just pass the ball. If Wenger was appointed England coach would he really choose a team very different or with any real tactical differences to McClarens? Would Gerrard suddenly be good? When we played Arsenal this season Wenger didn't even adjust his defensive line when Bent came on, told no one to track Keane's runs towards the keeper at set pieces which he does everygame and put no one on Berbs at set pieces. Between them Wenger and Ferguson make as many tactical erros as any coach in the Prem. Yet they get away with it (not the right phrase), because of the fantastic player recruitment/development, club ethos and the basic brilliant way they get their teams playing. But they can't do the most important part (ie get the team playing) without the first 2 parts (ie player recruitement/development and club ethos). The England coach can't recruite new players from France or South America. He can't develop players when working with them a few times a year and he can't create a winning ethos for a country that has won nothing for over 40 years.
Yes and No. I absolutely take your point that at international level, players should not need basic skills coaching. But one of the things Ramos is supposed to be good at is one-on-one coaching of players about their precise roles in the team, and how to get the most out of their strengths. What I've seen with England under McClaren is a bunch of players who don't know what they're meant to be doing most of the time. Last night we ended up with Gerrard dropping back to the half way line, taking the ball off a CB and lobbing it towards Crouch's head!!!!!! What complete tactical nonsense, and why is Gerrard not hovering near Crouch trying to get on the end of any ball he wins in the air???
Ditto, under Keegan, England were so passionate and fired up that you always expected a Red card, whilst tactically they were a clueless shambles.
However, I agree with you about the absolute importance of team or club ethos. One of the reasons Hiddink was so successful with South Korea was that he was able to get the players together for months on end, to build and drill that team ethos. No England coach will ever get that much time with the players.
My main point is that I agree that players don't need skills coaching, but I do feel that they need to have the overall style of play and their specific roles within the team carefully communicated. And the coach needs to select a properly balanced team.
Even when you have Riquelme, Messi, Tevez and Aguero, or Kaka, Ronaldinho, Robinho etc in your team, you still need to have a clear team shape - as Argentina and Brazil constantly seem to prove by losing (because if it was only about "special players", all you'd need to do would be to put the shirt on them.)
i putting my money on Jol
But this is what i mean by over hyping the importance of tactics and coaching. I'm not saying they aren't important, but compared to other factors their significance is relatively small. You are of course right that a coach needs to select a balanced team, but are a balanced team of england players good enough to match expectation/hype, no matter who the coach is. What you say about Ramos is fascinating, as he is a typical example of a coach who is supposed to improve players etc. This is why I think the next 18 months at Spurs and Sevilla will tell us so much about the reallity of the influence a coaches tactics and coaching etc have. If I was a betting man I suspect we'll see 2 top 4 finishes for Seville and a top 10, followed by a top 6, but not top 4 finish for Spurs.
Joey - interesting comments, as always. I suspect our core opinions here are pretty close, and some of the seeming difference is to do with terminology (eg what is coaching and what is tactics?).
And of course you're correct that club coaches have the opportunity of signing the precise type of player they think they need to improve their system (subject to transfer fees and availability), whilst national coaches don't have this option.
It may very well be that England don't have good enough players at present to be a top international side. But I did not see any evidence that McLaren knew how to build a side which got the best out of both Gerrard and Lampard, and he didn't have bottle to drop one of them for the sake of the team. Whereas until Jol was sabotaged by the sale of Carrick, I did at least understand the type of team that he was trying to create. And that, for me, is coaching.
I just want to make it clear, that I'm not suggessting McClaren wasn't shit - he was.