A stupid question about football, please don't shoot me

[karohemd]

Why do they always sack the coach/manager when a team plays badly and not the crap players? Surely it was them who missed goals/let opponents through/screwed up/whatever. OK, the coach is responsible for the strategy but hardly if the players can't hit the ball.

Oh, and using unfavourable match conditions that apply to both sides equally (weather, state of pitch etc.) is no valid excuse. :oÞ

*ducks from the onslaught of comments this will undoubtedly provoke*

ETA: Told you it was a stupid question, but at least some seem to share my opinion that the players have some share of the blame, too.
Cheers for the insights.

Comments

[kmrikky.livejournal.com]

because, week in week out, the players who grace the pitch for england perform more than adequately alongside some of the best of the rest of the world in the premiership. Take steven gerrard, Liverpool feature many foreign internationals, but Stevie G is widely regarded as their best player. Rooney, hargreaves, carrick and brown I can tell you as a Man U fan are all good to world class. Indeed on paper, we have a great side. Compare that to germany, who beyond the likes of Klose (who I admit is a great player), Ballack and Schweinsteiger peobably dont have the depth and class england do. And yet achieve so much more.

Why ? Because the coach IS vital. Look at Bolton over recent years. Led by the canny sam allardyce they managed to qualify for the Uefa cup despite a fraction of the resources of the other premiership teams. He leaves and immediately they collapse and now almost certainly will be relegated. It's the coach who shapes the team into something that works as a unit. This McClaren has singularly failed to do.

There ARE some weakenesses in england, but we should have qualified. In fact we should have done so easily. Instead we've become a laughing stock.

[a1exxandra.livejournal.com]

Richard has said this a lot more eloquently...but yes, basically the coach needs to create a team from a disparate bunch of players, play them in the best positions, foster a sense of strategy between them...this current team have the talent but not any of the above!
Playing someone in the wrong place, or selecting a player over another who may be better suited or fitter, all have negative impacts....and those decisions belong to the coach.

[a1exxandra.livejournal.com]

plus, you know, he is widely seen as having been a poor, rushed appointment who never really had the right skills and abilities to manage a national side...and unfortunately events have proven that view correct...

[psychokatuk.livejournal.com]

Having absolutely no interest in, or knowledge of football, I'd say it's probably because it's easier to sack just one person, Mr Manager, rather than a team of 11 players!

From what I've heard on the news and in work this morning, they'll have no problem replacing him... it seems like every bloke with an opinion could have done a better job (or so they all think!)

Still, I'm as bad with my opinions on F1 (and I can't even drive!) *grin*

[georgechance.livejournal.com]

Actually I will look at it from a different point of view. The owner pays good money to have a winning team, he can't really fire the team (he then won't have one) but he can get rid of the coach who is one person and try to get someone that can get the players playing their best.

If it is not working, you have to change something. So the coach is first, then trades and acquisitions for players came after the season.

[kmrikky.livejournal.com]

One key thing to consider, beyond the technical side of the game, is a coaches ability to instill spirit and morale in his team. Compare Croatias Slavan Bilic, Jose Mourinho or Alex Ferguson. Great managers make their presence and personality felt. McClaren HAS no personality. To see him standing there, a pathetic and forlorn figure sheltering under his brolly, while Bilic roared on his team from the sidelines was embarassing.

Football fans know that some of the true greats of management have a reputation for giving "the hairdryer" treatment to players who are letting the side down. It's that "mel gibson in braveheart" type motivation that is part of the gung ho appeal of the game. McClaren was less william wallace and more wheres wally ? .

[devalmont.livejournal.com]

"McClaren was less william wallace and more wheres wally ?"

LOL. That sounds like a Hansenism!

[derekct.livejournal.com]

I feel the problem is England player's don't play with passion. Also the fans need to get behind them.

[kmrikky.livejournal.com]

The fans were 100% behind them until they made total idiots of themselves.

[derekct.livejournal.com]

Actually compared to the Tartan Army the support is shocking. Even when your team is doing bad you still support them.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Players do get dropped too -- but the chances are that most of them really are the best who are available. The judgement is usually that the manager isn't getting the best out of the resources available, whether by picking the wrong guys, playing the wrong tactics, motivating them poorly or whatever. Often this is borne out if a new manager comes in and does much better with basically the same players. (Not always, of course!)

[suchid.livejournal.com]

A) The Manager is employed by the Football Association to meet certain objectives. Qualify for the Euros, World Cup, make it to the Quarter Finals, whatever it might be; if the Manager does not meet those objectives, then he's not fulfilled his contract.

B) The players are employed by their clubs to play football. International players are selected to represent the country, they aren't being paid by the FA to do it and there's no contract between them that either side is obligated to play them or play for them.

C) The Manager isn't responsible solely for this recently past Croatia match, there were at least two other fixtures where England did not perform that, had we won, would've seen us qualfiy. Case in point: Croatia, twice, and FYRMacedonia. That's three fixtures he didn't pick the right team, strategy, motivate the players enough to go out and win. That's 9 missed points. And enough to have qualified.

D) Players don't tend to take the brunt of it because the Manager gets sacked, a new one comes in and only realistically has the best of a country to choose from, which regardless if they're underperforming are better than most in the rest of the country, otherwise they'd be in the team. Therefore- a new manager comes in, picks the same players the old manager had to choose from and has to be better at strategy, motivation and getting the best out of them. If a Manager can't do that, they shouldn't be in the job.

The players should take their side of the blame. Many of them are being paid £25,000 p/w to play football. If any other person was paid £25,000 p/w to do their job and they screwed up, they'd be sacked as well... so we need to do something about the players as well.

[mooglemania.livejournal.com]

foot..........ball.....?

[mr-malk.livejournal.com]

If he was indeed responsible, he deserves some credit if you ask me. Hopefully this will reduce the amount of vacuous, football related crap with which we are deluged over the next few months.

As for the players, they probably played badly because they were dizzy from looking at all the zeroes in their ridiculously over-inflated pay-cheques.

Roll on the Cricket Season!

[whiskeylover.livejournal.com]

Hahahahahahhaaaahahaa

hihihi,

Sorry, but the whole thing cracked me up something chronic... :D

[pmoodie.livejournal.com]

Hey, it's not the question that's stupid, it's football that's stupid! :D

[morgenstern23.livejournal.com]

I agree wholeheartedly with the above comment!

[pmoodie.livejournal.com]

I had my usual thing today where some random bloke (well, the guy who was cutting my hair) asked me "Did you see the game last night?" and I had no idea there had even been a game!

For me, football is something that happens to other people.

[eryx-uk.livejournal.com]

I have no clue. Its absolutely stupid. You cannot blame the manager when the team doesn't perform. Last night was a perfect example of that.

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

Cos we need a scapegoat to deflect attention from the fact that we are crap at football.

IAWTC

[derekct.livejournal.com]

British Team is not England. Since each country in the UK has a team: Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England.

[briggsy.livejournal.com]

The manager chose the team, he made the mistake of picking an internationally inexperienced goalkeeper for the most important match in over a year for England. The goalkeeper doesn't just keep goal, he orders the defence about into an effective unit, and he sees the entire match.

England looked good in attack, although quite dispirited after the poor start. We certainly aren't crap at football; despite the managerial shortcomings we only just missed out. However our players never seemed to be in the right place when the ball was cleared or richocheted.

In the end it was quite gutting to know that we should have qualified, that our players are good enough, but that the management was so poor it negated it all.