the nascent appeal of managerial competency

you might not speak english but with love, just like football, the language is international

oh, the girls of makhachkala
they're not called sue or carla
but to a lonely ulster boy, ohhh

yep, that's right, oawia - thank you!

charitable sinecure only, Nilmar.

Would you join us for ILF book club, Fizzles? It'll be Fever Pitch and I've been meaning to schedule it for a while but've been busy. Middle of January is possible.

only a game? or gtfo

http://images.angusrobertson.com.au/images/ar/97805525/9780552562454/0/0/plain/tj-and-the-hat-trick.jpg

oof, Fever Pitch? go on then. I have read it years ago. I don't remember having a v high opinion of it, but it might be interesting to revisit. xpost

I've read some of that! Not sure it'd stand up to this more verbose turn that ILF has taken overnight.

Argh! I was talking about Theo's book there.

Isn't it enough that I read about Liverpool not winning the league every day on ILF? Now you want me to re-read an entire book about it?

If you want a book about Liverpool winning the league you'll have to check the sci-fi section. Heh heh

Whereas Utd winning the league ones are to be found in True Crime.

more like Art History. Or something

nicely done

read the article. vegan.

cryptic

mistranslated, maybe

vegan?

vegan

http://i.imgur.com/sOZYc.jpg

http://www.animalsuffering.com/resources/photos/images/Meat-Free-Zone-or-Vegan.jpg

http://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/index.php?topic=301288.0

first line is pretty special

“I am a manager, a doctor, a nuclear physicist, a theoretical philosopher, but above all, I am a man. Just like you."

i am none of those things fwiw

tried to watch some of being liverpool tonight and couldn't make it past a line about 'liverpool will need to perform strongly if james carragher's father is to ever win a league medal' or soemthing. rodgers seemed alright- not v comfortable with cameras about, none of them were rly

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2307095/Paolo-Di-Canio-Sunderland-training-scenes.html

Interesting article on pdc's training style. Hands on showing players exactly what he wants is I suppose no less valid than the more old man impart wisdom from mountain top default setting.

everyone should re-read this thread every couple months imo

this probably a better place to extend my comparison of moyes and martinez and why the latter while more flawed has greater upside. it isn't just about the notional aesthetic comparison between maloney vs anichebe. rather it's because what martinez doing is really rather unusual, today he played a formation that confounded manchester city. the use of wingbacks, even converting a dmid to the position because all of his other options are injured, and two forwards attacking from the flanks caused regular overmatching. zabaleta is the best rb in the league but he couldn't contain it and got booked twice, leading to the late surge that brought the corner and the goal.

sacchi described the multiplier effect as the aim of all tactics, getting players to play beyond their skillset via formation/coaching etc. moyes' success depended to a greater extent on physicality and aggression, midtable sort of strategies which top teams seldom rely on as an end in themselves. they depend on the particularities of the players, like having a £15m 6'4 nuisance capable of outmatching an adjunct centreback (how everton won 1-0 at goodison last year). and as such they are more predictable and more easily neutralized, like by putting phil jones on fellaini in the next game. martinez isn't dependent on his players to the same degree, most of his squad are interchangeable journeymen who he has to deploy in innovative ways vs more talented teams.

it's like how 'natural goalscorers' in the afonso alves vein fail to transfer to higher leagues because their 'instinct' reflected the naivete of the opposition, whereas a player like thierry henry with an unremarkable scoring record can become great because his exceptional physical and technical skills were not contingent in the same way. martinez succeeds via tactical determinism in the manner of the greatest coaches, rather than the dogs of war spirit of most lower table success stories.

i still rate moyes pretty highly but i think his best achievement is buying midpriced defenders -- jagielka, distin, baines, coleman, lescott have all easily outperformed the for money spent on them. he is certainly better at it than martinez but the differences would probably be less apparent if they both had £60m to spend and finding undervalued prospects was less important. other than that i rate the way he plays 4-2-3-1 so well (if crudely) and the solidity of his attacking midfield, players like arteta osman pienaar are much better drilled defensively than a lot of amids. chelsea could learn from him.

Good posts.

Martinez's control of that game today was embarrassing.

didn't see the QF where wigan won 3-0 at goodison - apparently that was a total outplaying too

with all that said it is fairly amazing how wigan constantly seem to outplay a side (like swansea last week) and still lose

http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2013/oct/08/english-coach-anthony-hudson-bahrain

I'm a bit pissed bit for some reason I found that quite moving. think it was the bit about watching the Chilean games. intense dedication to skill + professionalism rather than bogus notions of "heart".

yeah, almost to the extent that i bought this bit of diplomatic evasion

More troubling for family and friends back home was the wave of violence that erupted during pro-democracy protests in the wake of the Arab Spring two years ago, an issue highlighted in the sporting world by the controversy over the staging of Formula One Grand Prix on the island kingdom.

Yet the national coach feels cut off from the disquiet. "It'll be hard for people to believe this, but since I've been here I've not seen any problems. Where I live is very peaceful. But I'll freely admit my life is immersed in football, a very one-track existence. I'm in a bubble which means I don't see much outside of football."

a real football man

yeah, the "sport is separate from politics" stance is never not bullshit.

The nascent appeal of snake oil marketing.

FOUND OUT

If you are a young turk technocrat genius wunderkind manager that cant change formation then impale u imo and onwards to the next victim

but he's so dreamy

he isn't a genius and only half a dozen in the history of management could qualify for that (not mourinho either) but he is 2 or 3 points behind where tottenham ought to be right now, and that is optimistic given the player turnaround

Strikethru needs to sort this, chelsea fans otm about this inflexible fraud

― 30 ch'lopping days left to umas (darraghmac), Sunday, 24 November 2013 14:38 (1 hour ago)

EMPRERS NEW CLOTHES M8

E's all too aware of wot e's fackin doin guv

problem is the overprioritisation of that aspect vs player form and what's happening in front of his eyes. He tweaks when slashes are called for. And he looks like howard moon.

http://i.imgur.com/HUgwt.jpg?1

that's beautiful

"Inflexibilty" isn't the problem, a sudden shift to 4-4-2 or use of an attacking central midfielder isn't going to solve the problem, it's an issue of squad balance and personnel. Priority #1 in January should be more physical threat in attack.

The criticism from the dressing room is that his highly scientific approach overlooks the human dimension, which is ironic, given that is one of his buzz phrases. The players, technically, ought to have been ashamed after City but, on a human level, would that soundbite not have been better kept behind closed doors? Other managers might have accepted the blame in public, albeit as a diversionary tactic.

Villas-Boas has struggled to manage the transition since the sale of Gareth Bale and the influx, for a second successive summer, of a host of new faces. Some of the existing players have been bumped down the pecking order, which has led to gripes.

tell you what nakh, sandro is a big strong boyy but he's absolutely griking there

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2013/nov/29/andre-villas-boas-tromso-fan-sacked-chant-ejected

occurring to me more and more that Roberto Martinez would be a perfect England manager. discuss

With the current squad? In the context of the World Cup at least (maybe up to Euro 2016) I think we're gonna be limited by the ability of the players more than their deployment. Obviously an attacking free-flowing England side would be lovely to see, but who mans the right flank in Martinez's system? Walker? urggh