Blue Mooner said:
Of course a manager can influence the relative success of a side but he can't make a bad side a good one. How do most managers improve a poorly performing side ? They get their players and personnell in.
So a top class manager cannot get a limited or 'bad' side to play to its strengths - a bit like Stoke for example or motivate the players to believe that they can in fact win games against more gifted sides or employ tactics that a more gifted side is not comfortable with or coaching set pieces that exploit a perceived weakness in the other team or...well I could go on.
To say that a top class manager cannot deliver an overall product that is greater than the sum of its parts is to ignore what happens in football all the time. Hull (to name but one) are delivering performances that are in excess of the individual talents of the football team and doing so for nearly half a season.