burjennio » Tue May 15, 2012 9:59 am wrote:I try to be as objective as possible when it comes to this club but c'mon, that article is written by someone clearly wearing the rosiest of rose tinted spectacles. The "coulda, shoulda, woulda" attitude of the piece isnt journalism, its blind faith in places. I agree though one hundred percent about how hypocritical people can be over Kennys persona in the media and at the same time have a love-in for Jose Mourinho or Alex Ferguson, manipulative, deceiptful men who repeatedly attack peers, players and officials in the press with statements and accusations bordering on slander to gain a "psychological edge" yet the media in this country buy into it hook, line and sinker because it fits right into their soap opera approach to sports coverage
But you know what drives me nuts? Its not only something this guy consistently barks on about in this article, but a way of thinking that I see from so many posters on here and out in the world, is that a manager is automatically terrible if hes at a smaller club and hes "over achieved" as he puts it to become "flavour of the month". There are such a large amount of football supporters out their that seem to believe that only a manager who has won a cabinet full of trophies can deliver success and repeatedly call for the same names time and again such as Mourinho, Hiddink, Rijkaard etc. Great managers have to start somewhere, rarely do they get a chance to take over a huge club without first making a name for themselves. People laugh off the idea of Martinez, Rodgers, Lambert etc when hypothetically connected with the Liverpool job because they dont have a Champions League win behind them ffs - instead of being impressed by the fact that Lambert has taken Norwich f*cking City to mid table respectability in the premier league after back to back promotions while playing positive football with a budget less than their owner gets paid for making a pot of lentil soup. Rodgers has taken little Swansea City to promtion and a mid table finish playing a style of football that defies belief - can you tell me that if that guy was given the money to bring in some top technical players instead of having to mould a side of lower league journeymen into a "mini-Bara" (a nearly miraculous feat in itself) he couldnt deliver the goods? Lastly is Martinez, manager of a side that finished the season behind only the league champions in terms of form. "Why didnt he do it all season them?" people ask - he manages a team that has its best players sold every summer, with a miniscule transfer budget he rebuilds the side again and again yet keeps them up every season playing some quality attacking football - something associated with successful sides and if he actually had a top group of players to work with and was allowed to consistently add to a quality squad the question has to be asked of how far he could go. I know this is a point sidetracking from the topic of this thread, and dont mistake my defense of other managers as me wanting Dalglish replaced, but its just a mindset that irks me to the point of wanting to bang my head of the table when people are so shallow minded in their assumptions of what makes a successful football manager.
but 12 months ago it was owen coyle who was the flavour of the month and look at him now!
i`m a big believer in the theory that there are big time managers just like there are big time players, when i say big time i dont neccessarily mean more talented but more mentally strong. when you join a big club like liverpool or united from a so called `lesser` club you might be still working in the same sport but your working in a different world. the pressure is tremendous. roy hodgson despite what people thought of him was a very experienced and intelligent man who speaks about 6 languages including japanese, FIFA used to employ him as a technical director during world cups and he had managed club sides and international sides all over the world. when he got to liverpool his first instinct was to get everyone behind the ball, why?
it`s because any loss at united or liverpool is blown into a crisis.
even with his experience he kept putting his foot in his mouth in press conferences because he was under pressure.
these managers that come from wigan or west brom arent fully prepared for the liverpool job imo because they are not used to the backlash defeats bring, if you lose a game at wigan it`s a bad day at the office, if you lose a game at liverpool it`s the end of the world.
i`m not saying martinez wont be a good manager in the future but for me if we do have a different manager (and i dont want one) he has got to have worked in an environment where defeats are devastating. when we got rafa he`d worked at a club challenging for titles, because of the power of real madrid and barcelona and the way those clubs churn out wins rafa knew at valencia that a defeat could cost him the league.
the really, really brave managers are the ones like ferguson who take over a huge club and get their sides playing attacking football.
if the worst happens and kenny go`s all i want from the club is to pick a manager who is used to pressure, i`m not talking about that bottom of the league pressure that comes around in march or april when teams need to win 3 out of their last 6 games i`m talking about that week in week out season long pressure that has even intelligent, experienced managers like hodgson turning into gibbering wrecks.
look at our managers over the last 20 years, a gaunt looking dalglish had to retire through stress, souness ended up having a heart bypass at 38, the normally dignified evans ended up in tears at the press conference when he resigned and houllier ended up in a seriously bad way with his heart. they are all fit men and 3 of the 4 were professional athletes in their youth, these werent say taxi drivers or lorry drivers who spent their working lives sitting down and eating at greasy spoon cafe`s or office workers who smoked 60 a day, the likes of kenny and souness were characters made of iron!
managing this club should come with a health warning the expectations are that high.
