How much do mangers count????

larchielads

Do managers make that much of a difference? My point being if Andre Villas Boas was barcelona manger with all the world class players at Barca would he really get any more or less out of those players than say Alex Ferguson or Chris Hughton? I picked those managers as an example but I know a clubs board can sack who ever and whenever they want. All im sayin is can a so called bad manager win the league or have repeative success with world class players or can a "World Class Manager" manage a team like say Wolves(no disrepect) and say challenge for uefa cup or champs league?

~Rebel~

larchielads wrote: »

Do managers make that much of a difference? My point being if Andre Villas Boas was barcelona manger with all the world class players at Barca would he really get any more or less out of those players than say Alex Ferguson or Chris Hughton? I picked those managers as an example but I know a clubs board can sack who ever and whenever they want. All im sayin is can a so called bad manager win the league or have repeative success with world class players or can a "World Class Manager" manage a team like say Wolves(no disrepect) and say challenge for uefa cup or champs league?

A poor manager with amazing talent at his disposal, and little competition, can of course still win a league, but that doesn't mean the manager doesn't make a difference. The manager makes a certain amount of difference. The players make a certain amount of difference. The competition in the league makes up a certain amount of difference. It's the levels of difference between each of these factors which provides the end result.

Without a manager in the equation, players will do what comes naturally, which at a high level will still be pretty good. The manager can take these physical attributes and add formation and structure for each player so that, as a whole, the team is balanced and becomes more than the sum of its parts.

Could a poor manager have come in after Rijkaard left and done equally as good a job as Pep has done? IMO, No. Pep took the raw materials he had and made them a team. The following season, they played very differently to the previous year, especially defensively. They hunted in packs, pressed high up the pitch and played with a extremely high workrate to suffocate the opposition into giving the ball away as soon as physically possible.

At the other end of the spectrum, you have decent managers getting teams to overachieve through discipline and conditioning. Take Hodgson, for example. He did as you suggested, took Fulham to challenging for the Europa League, through a regimented system where everyone knows exactly what they're doing, which makes up for the deficiencies in some of the individuals. This works at that level, but move the same man and the same system to a better team (Liverpool) and it all falls apart because the raw materials are better, so instead of enhancing them, the regimented system limits them.

smokedeels

larchielads wrote: »

Do managers make that much of a difference?

Yeah.

Mick McCarthy isn't going to get relegated from La Liga managing Barcelona but he hasn't got the tactical know how to win the league or the CL with them.

Also, the bigger managers like SAF, Wenger and Mourinho would exert massive control over their clubs. They would be involved in all levels of the clubs football operation.

larchielads

good point(hodgson at liverpool) but it dont mean every manager would over/under achieve does it??????

ColeTrain

~Rebel~

larchielads wrote: »

good point(hodgson at liverpool) but it dont mean every manager would over/under achieve does it??????

Of course not, and is exactly why managers DO make a difference. They're individual people with individual strengths and weaknesses. Over time, they generally find their true level based on these strengths and weaknesses and their capacity to learn and adapt.

TerryTibbs!

How much do mangers count????

Wasn't the lord Jesus born in one.

curry-muff

Lets be honest, as United manager Fergie has lead us to the title on several occasions where we weren't even the best team/squad.

Manager plays a huge part.

For a while I bought into the whole "Pep walked into a squad of world class players, he didn't have to do anything", but eventually I smacked myself and realised what Guardiola has done for Barca.

grenache

How much do managers count?






Probably this much....

Armin_Tamzarian

I guess Jose Mourinho answers that question, especially when Inter won the Champions League.

pickarooney

Avram Grant, though, seemed to do a pretty decent job at Chelsea whereas he's been fairly muck at every other club. AVB isn't suddenly a bad manager after a bad 3/4 season.

Neil3030

TerryTibbs! wrote: »

Wasn't the lord Jesus born in one.

Yeah was just thinking that.

I suppose mangers only count when there's no crib for a bed...

I'm here all week.

v3ttel

pickarooney wrote: »

Avram Grant, though, seemed to do a pretty decent job at Chelsea whereas he's been fairly muck at every other club. AVB isn't suddenly a bad manager after a bad 3/4 season.

Did he really though? I've absolutely no idea how he stumbled into that job.

He inherited a tactically excellent side, with Terry, Lampard, Drogba, Cole at their respective peaks and finished the season completely empty handed.

Finished second in the league (which should have been very minimum expectations at the time).

Fair enough, he got to the Champions League final. He beat Olympiakos, Fenerbahce and Liverpool on the way to the final. The first two teams I would expect that Chelsea side to beat convincingly on any given day, and they scrapped past a team that they'd been finishing consistently above in the Premier league. Hardly ground breaking when you break it down.

Each club he has been at, was more successful before he took over, than during his stay. He won nothing with an excellent Chelsea side, Portsmouth may have been an impossible job, but he took them down without much of a fight. West Ham have the foundations to be a solid Premiership outfit and he took them down.

Not sure how he is doing at Partizan.

EdenHazard

I think manager reputation, the luck the manager has and their personality make the difference. A manager might suit one team and then go to another and not be a fit at all(In case of AVB, I think manager reputation and his personality didn't suit the players he had) Alex Ferguson for example would prob get relegated with the current Wigan team IMO.

At the end of the day it's all down to the players, managers just have to facilitate and create the best atmosphere by which they can go out and achieve.

carlop

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-England-Lose-phenomena-explained/dp/0007301111

In this book they did a study on the difference that a manager makes and I remember the results suggested that generally they don't make that big a difference.