Mails: How Premier League managers deal with problems

Daniel Storey

We’re nearly there. The light at the end of the tunnel is growing all the time. Keep those mails coming to theeditor@football365.com…

 

When did Arsenal’s decline begin?
I believe there is more than a single defining factor for the decline of Arsenal, but one can point to several:

1. The 2005 departure of Patrick Vieira following the FA cup final. Not only did a long trophy drought follow, but Wenger never really replaced him since then.

2. The 2006 defeat to Barcelona. Rather than continuing his pragmatic style that brought him to the final, Wenger tried to emulate them, playing football the right way, tippy-tappy, buying small, technical players, etc. Also, something might have happened mentally in Wenger’s management since that defeat. AC Milan 2008 aside, we never knocked out a true European powerhouse since then as well.

3. Moving to the Emirates. It may benefit the club financially in the long run, but for the following few years, marquee signings became a rarity due to financial constraints. That shouldn’t be an excuse for failure however but it did affect on pitch performances. There is also the symbolic factor: Arsenal’s interests shifted to just doing good enough for sustainability & corporate interests.

4. The 2007 departure of David Dein. This ruined the checks & balances at the club, with the current board too weak to fire Wenger. He has become one of the most powerful managers in the world; many a manager would be fired following 8-2, 6-0, 5-1,5-1,5-1,… defeats in recent years. Rather than the team being “invincible”, it is Wenger’s position that seems so 13-14 years later.

5. The sales of Cesc Fabregas, van Persie, Samir Nasri, & others to clubs that should be regarded as rivals as well as the seemingly inevitable sale of Sanchez. This rubber-stamped Arsenal’s status as a feeder club either through financial inferiority or lack of ambition.

6. The 8-2 defeat to Manchester United, 6-0 defeat to Chelsea, the 10-2 defeat to Bayern, & other heavy defeats have crippling mental effects.

There are many other moments that could be considered watershed moments, but those always come to my mind.
Mamoon S

 

How Premier League managers deal with problems
Arsene Wenger- Deny that there is a problem. Keep talking about ‘mental strength’. Make a weird ‘I’m eating a lemon while thinking about theoretical physics’ face.

Jurgen Klopp- Try to laugh it off. If that doesn’t work, make a tongue-in-cheek, vaguely amusing comment that only partially acknowledges the problem, and be sure to include a swear. “Haha, well it’s not fucking ideal that we have no left back, I tell you”. That sort of thing

Jose Mourinho – Make a long list of anyone who might conceivably be to blame for the problem, no matter how remote. The referee. FIFA. The transfer window. Climate change. Luke Shaw. Arsene Wenger. Kylie Minogue. Write these on little pieces of paper. Pick one, and loudly blame everything on that party.

Pep Guardiola – Stare directly at the person asking about the problem with the fiery wrath of a thousand suns. Say absolutely nothing until they go away.

Ronald Koeman- Fold arms. Shrug. Agree that it’s all a bit sh*t.

Mauricio Pochettino – Attempt to smile. Fail. Give up, and go off to fix the problem.
Joe (problem solver) FFC

 

Liverpool answers
Who does everyone have in their midfield for this weekend? Can or Henderson? I’d like to seen Can personally. I think he’s grown from game to game since coming into the position and I’d like to see if he can continue his good form.

On the topic of who replaces Lallana, I’d like to see Firmino slide back into that spot. I know he’s just travelled 6,000 miles, or however much it was, but I think his pressing and creativity is good enough to fill the void.

Maybe we will all get a nice surprise and see Grujic!
Brian (I hope Coutinho decides to show up) LFC

 

Did Conte just choose the right club?
As we wait for the glorious return of proper football I have a question – would Conte have made another team champions at the same speed he did it with Chelsea?

I think Liverpool lack the talent, too much needs to change at Arsenal, Spurs are possibly at their peak already given the players and money they have so that leaves Man Utd and Man City. Would he have done a better job than Pep or Mourinho with the players they have?

It’s worth remembering Chelsea were total turd at the start of this season and it prompted him to change to find a solution. Pep has been very committed to his approach, regardless of the players, whilst Mourinho didn’t seem to have an approach at all until December.
Minty, LFC

 

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A long one on West Ham and Bilic
I think Peter Goldstein hit it on the head with his piece about West Ham and Bilic yesterday. It is a bit of a mad house at the moment and some of the fans are contributing to that with unreal expectations.

Last season was as beautiful as it was unexpected. All of the top teams underperformed which gave us a platform to build confidence with some cracking performances at home and more importantly away.

This year there has been too much disruption to really get any kind of continuity or momentum and it has really hurt us. What with the constant moaning about how far some seats are from a pitch (yes it is that stupid, if you simplify it) It has been a bit of a season to forget for us.

I really agree that defence has been the issue for us this year. The right back situation has been well documented although I don’t really agree with the assessment of the ‘mistakes’ with Jenkinson and Tomkins.

Tomkins was never going to stay as he wanted to be first choice centre half. Although he had played at right back he never performed at his best there and ultimately didn’t want to be a right back. To get 12m for a defender who wasn’t in your top 2/3 at the time was pretty decent business. In all fairness Palace were pretty rotten at the back with him in there until Allardyce has eventually got them singing from the same hymn sheet.

With Jenkinson he had a great first season with us but then his performances seemed to drop off and then he suffered a serious injury so he wasn’t really a viable option either. I like Byram but agree that he needs time and probably isn’t the best player to utilise when you are struggling.

I have seen a lot of moans on social media about the club, the stadium etc and I tend not to join in on it as I am a supporter first and foremost and not a club owner or have any expertise in managing a football team. But one thing I am slightly worried about is our transfer policy. Namely do we even have one? and if so who is actually in charge of it?

Fonte and Snodgrass are half decent players and seem to be good lads but ultimately we have pretty much spent the Payet money on these two which in my eyes screams panic buy. I am grateful for the David’s for trying to get the club on a level footing and push us on but it is the disjointed nature of our transfer dealings which seems to be holding us back. This normally would be at the door of the manager but it does seem that Gold & Sullivan have more than just a fleeting interest and a ink filled pen in relation to these deals.

I would ideally like to see players like Burke, Oxford and Cullen given a chance in the team but what with loan deal conditions and the slightly precarious nature of our league position and form I can understand why it doesn’t seem like the right time. But sometimes you just need to take a risk and believe in them.

I don’t think we will go down this year but there needs to be some changes in the way we do business. Sacking Bilic would be a bit mad in my opinion but he does need to show that this is just a blip and bring in the right personnel and system which helps establish us as a consistent top 8 team.
Ross Jenkins WHUFC

 

On the Rio Ferdinand documentary
I’ve just finished watching the excellent BBC documentary about Rio Ferdinand coping with being a single parent and coping with bereavement, and I found it a very powerful, thought provoking documentary and kudos to Rio for allowing cameras into his life for a very personal and potentially intrusive story.

Time and time again, what struck me is how often people use footballers’ wealth as a stick to beat them with, as though footballers like Rio can use their money to cushion emotional trauma. I like to think that I would be fairly normal if I met someone like Rio, who as a Man Utd fan I have huge respect for, because at the end of the day they’re just people.

However, a lot of people don’t see this and watching this documentary they’d (hopefully) realise that Rio’s wealth has not made it any easier for him to cope with his loss, and you can see he’s still hurting. You can see he has the same worries as other parents, and he worries about how this is affecting his children.

My hope is that more people can watch this documentary, or other public recordings such as when Frank Lampard called into LBC to set the record straight on some pretty low accusations when he was divorcing his ex-wife, and realise that money doesn’t immunise footballers from problems, and creates problems that most people don’t have and be more sympathetic towards footballers as people.

Another thought I had was how much more I respected Rio for being in the documentary than for his footballing career. Any tosser can play football, and some tossers become very good at it (see John Terry). However, it’s no secret that football does have a macho, ‘lad’ culture and so watching Rio share a very personal loss, and being so vulnerable on camera having come from that (and also growing up in Peckham etc) I imagine in the hope that his profile and this documentary will help others, particularly men who statistically (a point made in the documentary) are much less likely to seek help, realise they are not alone and seek help made me respect him much more than his footballing prowess.

Well done, Rio, and I hope you feel happy again one day.
Daniel, Cambridge

 

Burn for Batty
I was surprised to read in your overcapped XI that David Batty had 42 caps. However, imagine my astonishment when when one of your erstwhile readers, using the alias ‘GP’, wrote in to defend such a travesty.

Yes David Batty was a bit of grit often needed but can he really be deserving of that amount of caps? Especially when you consider that at the same time we had a far classier bit of grit (sea salt if you will) in the form of Paul Ince aka The Guv’nor. A bonus bit of trivia for you, Paul Ince’s cousin is Nigel Benn whose nickname is The Dark Destroyer.

Other countries at the same time had quality gritty players like Gattuso (pseudonym Rino) or Edgar Davids (stage name Pitbull) and we gave Batty 42 caps?! The real travesty is that in making space for Batty was the endless shift to the left of Paul Scholes (whose monicker was Scholesy).

How much of Scholesy’s match winning creativity was lost by accommodating the grit of Batty in those 42 games?

Yes Batty did win the league twice, but so did David May. May even won the Champions League.

Though to be fair to Batty, at least he did get to punch Graeme Le Saux in the face.
GH

 

And an undercapped XI
Frequent reader, first time mailer. I very much enjoyed reading the overcapped XI piece, generally agree with most of that team. Then I saw a comment which said it would be interesting to see an under capped XI and I had to have a go.

Here’s the caveats – this was a few minutes, off the the top of my head crack at it. I struggled for full backs. The team is in the main a mixture of players either unfortunate because of injury or because they were right place, wrong time and had their paths blocked by better players.

GK: Chris Kirkland – surely would have pushed Robinson and got plenty more caps in early/mid 2000’s if his back wasn’t made of glass
RB: Lee Dixon – wasn’t he behind Paul Parker at one point? Enough said
LB: Julian Dicks – bit of a barrel scraper, but never got any senior international recognition for being a solid, goal scoring defender
CB: Jonathan Woodgate – Upson and Lescott have nearly 50 caps between them. He only has 7 more than Anthony Gardner
CB: Steve Bruce – 0 caps????
RM: Paul Merson – 21 caps doesn’t seem enough. Kieron Dyer and Jermaine Jenas are the reasons why
CM: Jamie Redknapp – 17 caps. See above
CM: Lee Bowyer – controversial inclusion but ability wise 1 cap. See above (again)
LM: Lee Sharpe – got to be considered unlucky only to have 8 caps with the dearth of decent, English left footed players in the 90’s
AM/S: Matt Le Tissier – genious of a player
S: Robbie Fowler – damn that Shearer and Sheringham

Honourable mentions to Les Ferdinand, Steve Mcmanaman, Ledley King, Dean Ashton and Tom Huddlestone among many, many others.
Steve, York

 

Or just have four assistants?
Is there any reason why the assistant refs can’t run the entire length of the field? They are in communication with headsets, they could both help make decisions.

Now they are professional, why not have them training to work together to call offside. One watches when the ball is played, the other is watching the one making a run. The one who is watching the player calls it.

They could alternate that by still having a designated end, where they are the nominated ref for calling the offside.
Guy, Melbourne