Is there ever a time when a manager should call it a day?

Submitted by John Milburn CMgr MCMI on Wed, 30/06/2010 - 09:01

After a succession of England managers with different management styles (Hoodle who focused on strategy, Sven who tended to let the team run the show and Capello who took an authoritarian approach) have failed to win in major competitions do you think there's ever a time when whatever the manager does if his team aren't performing there's nothing he can do?

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Submitted by Mike Petrook CMgr MCMI on Wed, 30/06/2010 - 09:12

Absolutely not. You often hear players trotting out the cliche that 'once they cross teh white line' it's up to them. Of course that's true to a point - and it's important that players take responsibility for their actions - but the reality is that players play to the style demanded by their manager ... and the formation can be adjusted at any point in a game, whether by substitutions or different positional approaches.

Draw a parallel in the workplace. If something isn't working, a good manager doesn't just say 'Oh well, you tried, better luck next time'. They work with their team to find alternative approaches to a problem. In other words they provide a sense of direction, they manage their resources and make use of the information to hand.

Perhaps the answer, in football, is the same as in business. We need a root and branch change to the way skills are developed. On one hand develop the skills of players and ont he other, ensure managers are up-skilled too. Don't make the mistake of giving someone a management role, just because they are technically brilliant - make sure they have the skills in place to swim, not sink.

Submitted by John Milburn CMgr MCMI on Wed, 30/06/2010 - 09:46 Profile image

I agree with the comment that:

"If something isn't working, a good manager doesn't just say 'Oh well, you tried, better luck next time'. They work with their team to find alternative approaches to a problem. In other words they provide a sense of direction, they manage their resources and make use of the information to hand."

but they also have the option to use performance management techniques to improve an individual's performance or, in the worst case, get rid of them. Maybe there's a need to let a few of the big name players go for the benefit of the team?

Submitted by Mike Petrook CMgr MCMI on Wed, 30/06/2010 - 10:16

Turnover of staff is never a a bad thing ... so long as it's carefully managed. You don't want to lose an entire team in one go - you need some consistency.

I wonder what other members of the community think?

Submitted by John Milburn CMgr MCMI on Thu, 01/07/2010 - 07:54 Profile image

Maybe we could take a leaf out of the Nigerian's book. Their President has banned the team from playing for 2 years so they can reorganise. Perhaps there could be an argument for taking the short term hit for the long term benefit?

Submitted by Matt Chapman on Wed, 07/07/2010 - 08:57

Slight difference between business and football though isn't there? Certainly in managing a national team. I mean in business you can hire/fire your team to get exactly what you want. In such a circumstance the responsibility rests much more on the manager as they are crafting the team, so if the team fails then it's kinda their responsibility.

In national football however you're stuck with what you have to a large extent so I think there is a limit in what the manager can do in such circumstances.

Submitted by Paul Finnegan CMgr FCMI on Mon, 12/07/2010 - 17:27 Profile image

As a group of individuals they have tremendous talent. So why is it that when they come together as a team we don't see the synergy we would hope for. Perhaps they are not together enough? However to me this revolves somehow around aspects such as self belief, belief in colleagues and an all round positive mental attitude........ An ever critical media amalysing every aspect does not help but as professionals the players and the coaching team need to find a way to rise above this and through positive attitudes let the undoubted talent start to show itself. Oh if only it was that easy...........

Submitted by Colin Millar MCMI on Mon, 12/07/2010 - 21:57 Profile image

I'm curious - what would have constituted the England national squad having "not failed"? I think the whole pretext to this conversation is exactly what success and failure is.

There was a lot of talk about varying expectations - 2nd round; quarter finals; semi finals and even winning the trophy but how much of that was based on an honest assessment of the skills and resources available to the manager and how much was about unfounded optimism or even (dare I suggest it) arrogance?

Fifa rankings going into the tournament put England 8th, so by that assessment they underperformed slightly. However other teams underperformed and yet more overperformed based on these rankings, so that just goes to show it's a "best guess".

Successive managers with differing styles have tried and failed so perhaps there's a reluctance to accept that the players available for the England squad just aren't of the required standard? Fabio & Sven have both demonstrated their calibre in the club fora, have they suddenly became worthless managers?

This is the accepted wisdom for a massive number of international football teams and England at least managed to get to the finals in South Africa but perhaps to expect more was just unrealistic regardless of who the manager was.

If that was the assessment in the business world, what would we be doing? Sacking the manager or setting about with gap analysis and creating a long term strategy for future success?

International managers get a few weeks to prepare their team. After a few weeks in your new job, would you be comfortable with a few million people passing judgement on your abilities?

Submitted by Jim Vasey CMgr MCMI on Wed, 14/07/2010 - 14:14 Profile image

Let me say first of all that I'm a Scot, so my view of events will be different from England supporters' views.

I think there's an element of 'self fulfilling prophecy' here. On what exactly are the FIFA rankings based? On performance in world cup qualifying and tournament matches? Because if you think about it, England will always do well in these because their ranking position seeds them such that their opposition will nearly always be weaker teams, and because they do well against these teams, they retain their ranking (hence the 'self fulfilling prophecy'). And on the back of a very successful qualifying campaign, they automatically became 'world beaters'. Irronically, they have actually gone up to 7th place, on the back of the abysmal displays by the Italians!

Next, the English media and TV pundits have to bear a lot of responsibility for the way they hype-up the team ahead of these tournaments, and then take great delight in cutting their legs from them when they fail to live up to expectation. Two examples. After drawing against the USA and Algeria, England put in a decent performance against Slovenia - the headings next day are "Now the world fears us"! And after the team gets eliminated, we see the whole thing all over again in the campaign to get Howard Webb the final. He was also, in my view, over-hyped, and his performance reflected this. Certainly, it was not an easy game to referee, but a lot of that, in my view, is down to the way he handled it and failed to exert his authority at key points in the match.

Coming back to the question of changing the manager, I don't see what this would accomplish. As managers ourselves we can all recognise that our teams (and we ourselves) can learn from making mistakes, so why not Capello?

Submitted by Paul Johnson on Wed, 28/07/2010 - 23:33 Profile image