Dear Mark,
I love my team and I want you to succeed, so in a spirit of goodwill I am now offering you this free football manager lesson 1 (The Basics) absolutely free of charge.
Feel free to study it and learn from it. Wishing you every success in the future, Citoeast.
Leadership
Be a Leader – by making decisions and occasionally show you are the leader – by getting your arse off bench during games and into the manager zone, to give direction to the players.
Maybe, just maybe, even get one of those ridiculous earpieces Phil Brown has, just to make it look like your the manager even if you haven’t got a clue.
Leadership is all about taking Personal Responsibility – Do not blame the players after the game for not ‘seeing it out’; take personal responsibility for failing to make the substitutions and tactical changes that were needed to see the game through to a winning conclusion.
Form & Loyalty
If a player is playing week in week out like a headless chicken and is clearly an ongoing liability– DO NOT CONTINUE TO PLAY HIM, play Sylvinho instead, or even an Academy lad (who surely could do no worse).
Play in form players – If players play consistently lazily, and blatantly fail to perform on match day drop them. No matter that you bought them, and at ridiculously inflated prices in some cases, loyalty is fine but can cost a manager his employment.
Barry, Lescott, Adebayor, Tevez and Bridge are half the team. Ask yourself ‘should I show some bollocks and kick their lazy, totally out of form arses onto the bench?’ to show I do not accept less than the very best.
Tactics
Apply basic commonsense – When a player is on blistering form and running his defender ragged, do not switch him to his wrong side, the left side and then bring on a left footer and put him on the right.
Understand substitutes can change a game – You have 7 substitutes 3 of which you can bring on during a game. Use them wisely; there is no bonus points if you leave two unused.
Making one totally daft and bewildering substitution during a game only confuses the players and unbalances the team.
How about when we are 3 – 2 up, after a mediocre run of 4 draws, lucky ones at that given our performances, you bring on DeJong just to shore things up for the last 15 minutes and see the game safely out.
Do not allow Bridge to venture forward, tell him to stay back in defence and hold a tight line, assuming he knows how?
Play to your strengths and use your best formation, that means 4 – 3 – 3, BTW.
Awareness
React to opponents’ tactics – e.g. When Owen Coyle and Co. targets a young Ref. For constant ear bashing (thus influencing decisions in their favour) respond likewise.
Take early action – do not wait until the titanic hits the sea floor before sending out a mayday; put more simply, start kicking arses and wringing changes, or shouting out orders, before we go 1 then 2 goals down.
When the opposition manager realises they are losing the midfield battle, and shores it up with substitutes react and change our formation, tactics, or make matching/counter substitutions.
Training
Train the players how to play during the space between games, introduce the defenders to each other, this tends to work well.
Teach the players how to pass and move TO EACH OTHER, not just give it abig boot upfield.
Ok that's it I hope this has not been too confusing for you Mark, it may help if you got a backroom staff who actually knew something about football, winning football that is.
Anyway enjoy your well earned break in Dubai, explaining to the Sheikh why boot it upfield is different to what you accused Dunne and the rest of our team last year of doing (hence why he and they were rubbish) and why your £3 trillion pounds defence is worse than our defence has ever been and not quite as good as poundstretcher Birminghams.
Oh by the way, do not mention Tal Ben Haim to the Sheikh, he was quite upset about that, oh and the Terry thing, and in fact any player we have bought of your old team Chelsea (Roman Abramovich pissing himself laughing all the way to the bank). SWP excepted, he was one of ours really.
I love my team and I want you to succeed, so in a spirit of goodwill I am now offering you this free football manager lesson 1 (The Basics) absolutely free of charge.
Feel free to study it and learn from it. Wishing you every success in the future, Citoeast.
Leadership
Be a Leader – by making decisions and occasionally show you are the leader – by getting your arse off bench during games and into the manager zone, to give direction to the players.
Maybe, just maybe, even get one of those ridiculous earpieces Phil Brown has, just to make it look like your the manager even if you haven’t got a clue.
Leadership is all about taking Personal Responsibility – Do not blame the players after the game for not ‘seeing it out’; take personal responsibility for failing to make the substitutions and tactical changes that were needed to see the game through to a winning conclusion.
Form & Loyalty
If a player is playing week in week out like a headless chicken and is clearly an ongoing liability– DO NOT CONTINUE TO PLAY HIM, play Sylvinho instead, or even an Academy lad (who surely could do no worse).
Play in form players – If players play consistently lazily, and blatantly fail to perform on match day drop them. No matter that you bought them, and at ridiculously inflated prices in some cases, loyalty is fine but can cost a manager his employment.
Barry, Lescott, Adebayor, Tevez and Bridge are half the team. Ask yourself ‘should I show some bollocks and kick their lazy, totally out of form arses onto the bench?’ to show I do not accept less than the very best.
Tactics
Apply basic commonsense – When a player is on blistering form and running his defender ragged, do not switch him to his wrong side, the left side and then bring on a left footer and put him on the right.
Understand substitutes can change a game – You have 7 substitutes 3 of which you can bring on during a game. Use them wisely; there is no bonus points if you leave two unused.
Making one totally daft and bewildering substitution during a game only confuses the players and unbalances the team.
How about when we are 3 – 2 up, after a mediocre run of 4 draws, lucky ones at that given our performances, you bring on DeJong just to shore things up for the last 15 minutes and see the game safely out.
Do not allow Bridge to venture forward, tell him to stay back in defence and hold a tight line, assuming he knows how?
Play to your strengths and use your best formation, that means 4 – 3 – 3, BTW.
Awareness
React to opponents’ tactics – e.g. When Owen Coyle and Co. targets a young Ref. For constant ear bashing (thus influencing decisions in their favour) respond likewise.
Take early action – do not wait until the titanic hits the sea floor before sending out a mayday; put more simply, start kicking arses and wringing changes, or shouting out orders, before we go 1 then 2 goals down.
When the opposition manager realises they are losing the midfield battle, and shores it up with substitutes react and change our formation, tactics, or make matching/counter substitutions.
Training
Train the players how to play during the space between games, introduce the defenders to each other, this tends to work well.
Teach the players how to pass and move TO EACH OTHER, not just give it abig boot upfield.
Ok that's it I hope this has not been too confusing for you Mark, it may help if you got a backroom staff who actually knew something about football, winning football that is.
Anyway enjoy your well earned break in Dubai, explaining to the Sheikh why boot it upfield is different to what you accused Dunne and the rest of our team last year of doing (hence why he and they were rubbish) and why your £3 trillion pounds defence is worse than our defence has ever been and not quite as good as poundstretcher Birminghams.
Oh by the way, do not mention Tal Ben Haim to the Sheikh, he was quite upset about that, oh and the Terry thing, and in fact any player we have bought of your old team Chelsea (Roman Abramovich pissing himself laughing all the way to the bank). SWP excepted, he was one of ours really.