The dizzying permutations of head coach, assistant coach, manager, director of football and technical director have all been fizzing through the ‘West Ham ether’ this weekend as newspapers, journalists and yes, fan sites too have had their own stories, rumours and inputs over the shape of ‘West Ham yet to come’.
In true Dickens style, the ‘West Ham of the Past” and ‘West Ham of the Present ” didn’t turn out so well- so maybe there’s another variation on the way. Let us hope it isn’t ghostly.
Claret and Hugh reader ‘James’ certainly got us thinking with his post suggesting the Hammers were likely heading ‘back to the future’ with Nuno as the supremo. See what you think:
Guest post by “James“:
The old way of running a football club worked best. You had the manager who oversaw transfers and kept a bit of a distance from his players to observe things while his coach/coaches took over training sessions and even sometimes gave orders from the touchline.
The Brian Clough and Peter Taylor or Alex Ferguson and Brian Kidd (later Mclaren, Quieroz and Phelan) model worked well. These days you have the head coach and he is trying to do too many things instead of delegating.
They get burnt out (Jurgen Klopp) or lose their energy and get sacked. Then you have the problem of the director of football and manager having a different vision of transfers and then coming to blows (Moyes and Steidten).
The manager has to be the one making all the transfer decisions. How can he build a team if someone else is making the decisions?
A DOF should only be implementing the will of the manager. Football clubs need a manager and not a coach. This is why Ancelotti has had so much success. He’s a manager and not a coach.
This resonated with the news over Nuno having a say in his Sporting Director’s appointment: It does sound as if Nuno is heading to wards the ‘Ferguson’ model in overall charge and then having coaches, sporting directors, agents all underneath him. Would that be such a bad thing? You tell me.
These Director of Football or whatever we want to call them are just glorified managers. Remember the days when managers used to sometimes sit in the stands watching the games while the first team coach was by the touchline? Now that role is taken up by the director of football. The problem though is the director of football is so removed from the team, he is like a stranger to them. The manager is more hands on but not too hands on. Directors of football aren’t at training sessions, they aren’t in the dressing room, they don’t have any relationship with the players, they can’t see which players work and which don’t. I find it incredible how humble old me (not so humble!) has been able to predict pretty much every signing that would flop. Football clubs these days can’t see the wood for the trees. They are too data-driven, too obsessed with stats. Those things help but it is character that points to the success of a player and it so often gets ignored. Watching the Champions league final on Saturday I knew Eze and Gabriel would miss their penalties. How did I know? Eze is talented but not serious enough and Gabriel is too emotional.
Honoured to have an article dedicated to my post although I don’t believe the club actually have any plan. Sullivan has had no plan for 16 years so why would that change now? The only hope is that Kretinsky can take control of the club and has a long term plan. Of course many clubs adopt short-term thinking and West Ham is more guilty than anyone. I echo the sentiments that Nuno isn’t good enough but at the same time I’m glad he’s still there as I’m sure Sullivan would do much worse. A lot of club owners these days just sack managers with little or no improvement. There really isn’t a plethora of talented managers out there. If Fergie was managing today he would have been fired after 2 seasons. It takes time and patience to build a team/squad, and modern owners have zero patience and/or hire managers (coaches?) lacking vision.
Nuno is not good enough for West Ham, no one questions him about his tactics or why he bought Pablo??? Why is he so defensive ?? We got relegated because of NUNO.
The problem with this model is that when the manager changes you have to rip up and start again.
The DoF model is about the club being sustainable between managerial changes. You have a Club style of play, Club footballing philosophy, and players signed are Club players not manager’s players.
When you recruit a head coach, as for players, you recruit a manager to play the Club style and work with the Club’s players.
This is the only way to be sustainable and avoid colossal turn over of playing staff over and over. The Ferguson model is fine for managers who will stay in post for 10 years plus, but modern football doesn’t work like that.
Clubs can’t afford to buv and sell entire squads every time a manager changes…so you need the DoF sustainable model.
The Head Coach’s job is to work we with the Club’s players…and if they can’t they leave and you get in someone who plays the way the Club looks to who can.
The DoF sets the strategy and ethos and works with the recruitment team to build the squad and identify the players and managers that fit.
Until those commenting about this in the WHO social media space understand this model properly, it’s not possible to critique or comment about what the Club is doing as right or wrong. Gonzo’s video earlier was a classic….said the manager shouldn’t dictate the DoF….but then detailed a scenario he described as ‘right’ where the manager tells the DoF the type of player we wants. Complete and understand bilge. That is not the DoF model.
Modern football doesn’t work like that? Actually that’s when modern football does work. Pep was at City for 10 years and although I disagree that he was some kind of genius and with the money he had he should have won more than just 1 Champions league trophy he won 20 trophies in 10 years. I’d say that’s pretty successful. For 12 years Real Madrid mainly had either Ancelotti and Zidane as manager and in that time they won 6 champions league trophies. A bit different but Zidane was Ancelotti’s assistant initially so there was a continuity of ideas. Real’s success in that period was down to consistency. This proves that when the manager changes you don’t necessarily ‘have to rip up and start again’, but of course you need a plan in place first. If you want an example at a smaller club Thomas Frank was at Brentford for almost 9 years and he took them from a mid-table Championship club to a mid-table Premier League club that will play in Europe next season largely thanks to the squad he built.
It’s a bad thing because you have to remake the whole structure every time the manager is sacked. Short term thinking at its worst.