Leadership?

[sir baconface]

See my previous post. Hart was anything but a natural leader. Ask yourself this; if anyone in your job shouted at you the way Joe shouts at players, how would you perform? Would it inspire you to work harder or would you say "fuck that guy"?

We're classy on here, mate. Nobody on this forum would be so impolite ;)

 

[MCFC1993]

Pep is pretty much the leader but I agree, when we go 1-0 down we need someone to grab the team by the scruff of the neck. When Everton went 1-0 up, I looked around to see who was trying to get the team going again, Pep was the first person I saw trying to motivate the team and then Stones and De Bruyne followed suit. We need someone like Vinny though for when the going gets really tough, hopefully he's close to returning and hopefully he stays fit long term.

 

[gomoich]

We miss having Vinny leading us on the pitch.
I was a bit disappointed with a few of the players laughing and joking with Messi at the final whistle. I know they may be good friends and were congratulating him on the 3 goals but you should not be doing that on the pitch after a defeat.
I don't think Vinny would have that.

 

[bugsyblue]

This isn't particularly in response to last night (I thought we played fairly well on the whole, but were undone by individual errors), but a more general point about the team this season.

In the past we had a really strong spine, and leaders all over the field: Hart, Kompany, Zabaleta, Barry, Toure, Tevez etc. You could see it on Tunnel Cam, where they'd be cajoling each other before games and the opposition would look apprehensive.

The squad is arguably stronger now, but there seems to be a distinct lack of leaders in the team. The captaincy changes hands on an almost match-by-match basis, and there doesn't seem to be anyone who drags the team through when we're up against it.

Maybe the game has changed, and that sort of tub-thumping rhetoric isn't as important any more, or is it something lacking in the squad that needs to be addressed in the summer?

The difference is Pep is our leader and for all his greatness maybe this is a fault of his. He does seem to struggle to control those big personalities. To be fair you can say the same thing about Barca now. Who is really a leader for them? Suarez maybe, he's very Tevez like in that. Busquets is no more a leader than Ferds for me. Ditto Iniesta than Silva. I believe Stones will grow into a strong leader for us and KDB will in some form too. It would be nice to have a Godin type leader next to Stones though too.

 

[NQCitizen]

I think Sterling can be added to that list,he's a proper little fighter.Stones too has some fire in his belly.

Sterling is a decent shout actually, wonder what happened to the blokes around me in 305 last season who wouldn't stop calling him a fairy? Seem to have disappeared, getting worried about them.

Stones just seems almost oblivious to pressure and I'm not sure it's as much a good thing as a bad thing. While kolarov and Zaba have been easy targets stones hasn't been great in a while either.

 

[OB1]

You must have missed all the huge "fuck sake mangala!" or "Savic! Savic! Savic!" shouts over and over again. Very, very clear certain players couldn't stand playing with Joe behind them. Hart was great at lots of things, but inspiring and raising the game of those around him through words certainly wasnt one of them. Hence why I compared him to Rooney. There's a very archaic and English school of thought that to lead you need to get up in people's faces and shout and agitate them. When I began coaching it was a natural default. I quickly learned from those better than me that that is not the way you lead people. And they are completely related to business. People are people. There's good reason sports coaches call in top CEO's to learn how they lead, and companies call in sports coaches to teach it from their pov. I've had long talks with major CEO's of huge, huge companies on the topic, one of whom quit his position for 4 years to go be understudy at a sports team to learn more about people leadership as he felt his way was the wrong way, and this was a man that was hugely successful but lead his people by shouting and agitating. Even with all his success, he knew there was a better way.

If Joe Hart was such a great leader why did 2 of our last 2 managers attempt to offload him?

The problem with threads like this is that too many people do not understand what leadership is; it most definitely is not about having a captain with a loud voice or some such cliche. Indeed, it is not even about who wears the armband. As some people have noted, the leader of the team is Pep but to be a top top side, you ideally need several players with leadership qualities. However, and they can be linked, the most important thing is mental strength and I question constantly the mettle of City's players but don't know the answer.

 

[Marvin]

The problem with threads like this is that too many people do not understand what leadership is; it most definitely is not about having a captain with a loud voice or some such cliche. Indeed, it is not even about who wears the armband. As some people have noted, the leader of the team is Pep but to be a top top side, you ideally need several players with leadership qualities. However, and they can be linked, the most important thing is mental strength and I question constantly the mettle of City's players but don't know the answer.

That maybe a good definition of leadership, but it's a bit of a leap to pin the errors on mental weakness which is presumably why this topic exists

 

[cibaman]

The problem with threads like this is that too many people do not understand what leadership is; it most definitely is not about having a captain with a loud voice or some such cliche. Indeed, it is not even about who wears the armband. As some people have noted, the leader of the team is Pep but to be a top top side, you ideally need several players with leadership qualities. However, and they can be linked, the most important thing is mental strength and I question constantly the mettle of City's players but don't know the answer.

One of the best leaders I've seen at City was Tony Book. And he never said a word.

 

[OB1]

That maybe a good definition of leadership, but it's a bit of a leap to pin the errors on mental weakness which is presumably why this topic exists

Not sure what definition you are referring to but I don't think it is a leap to think that some, not all errors, are down the mental weakness. Such weakness comes in a variety of forms and includes, for instance, being able to concentrate from start to finish of a high pressure game. Where the line is drawn between the physical and mental when it comes to consistency in sport is for more expert people than me to say but I don't recall ever hearing of any science to,suggest no link exists; happy to be educated.

 

[meltonblue]

I've been thinking about this a lot recently. I'm not sure it's leadership as such, but individual and collective composure when in high pressure situations.

Given the good attacking.situations we got ourselves into last, our final ball or shots seemed rushed. Ditto in defence, it wasn't positioning that lost us the goals, it was a lack of composure by individual players and them rushing their decision.

Barca were nowhere near their best last night, yet they had the composure at the right moments to take their chances. A lot of that is down to experience and comes with time, some of it is down to quality too, where I think we are still lacking in certain areas.

What I didn't see last night though was heads drop, we continued playing and fighting right to the end and I really do believe we deserved a goal. Plenty of teams would have capitulated far more than we did (and conceded goals through lack of positional awareness more as a consequence rather than individual errors).

Its that composure and consistency that we haven't quite got yet. As much as Barca have the three up top that answer the former, they have Busquets, Rakitic and Iniesta providing the latter. They don't make many mistakes at points when it really matters.

Those two are more important than leadership for me as they have a greater impact on trust and confidence for a team than an individual with motivational skills can.