Why are English managers so garbage?

[bluethrunthru]

80's - 90's - early 2000's the mantra was "box to box midfielders" players who could run - no mention of visions - ability to spot a pass and execute it - that was an English managers emphasis - meanwhile Cruyff and a young Pep begged to differ

 

[BringBackSwales]

Norwegian and Dutch (post-Cruyf) managers are probably worse

 

[pace89]

Loads of reasons but the English / British traditional working class and lower middle class suspicion of expertise and intellectualism has a lot to do with it. Bourgeois middle class university educated types were never part of English football so we never had much of a culture of curiosity in football. It‘s a broad generalisation but a fairly well established feature of wider British society as well as football. Combined with upper class, public school arrogance, a certainty in their own superiority and a fondness for skilled amateurs over trained professionals and you’ve got a recipe for fuckwitedness. It’s bad enough in football but it’s how the country’s been run for the last decade.

If Pep had been English the old school managers and coaches would have laughed him out of career before he ever had a chance to implement an idea more complicated than playing in the opposition half, getting runners in the channels, or putting the ball in the fucking box.

The English football establishment spent decades convinced that football is a simple game which is won by whichever XI plays better on the day and tactics just confuse players. Playing with your heart on your sleeve (Alan Ball) and giving your all for the shirt (Stuart Pearce) are the key ingredients to success according to the English brains trust.

At best a lot of English coaches and managers are conservative and afraid to try new things, at worst a significant number seem to be as thick as fuck.

 

[salfordbluetrue]

English managers do not get a chance at the big clubs, because of the money involved there will always be someone better, they also lack European experience, we have very few managers abroad. For me it is an FA problem that they should rectify, by making it mandatory that every foreign manager, has to have an English assistant manager, then it is up to them to learn.

 

[bluethrunthru]

In my opinion in my lifetime the English manager the one we should have had was Cloughie - he was the Pep of his time - instead we got Ron Greenwood .......

 

[Lupo]

It's honestly weird... Howe is the only decent one currently who is getting results AND playing nice football.

The league (PL) is being taken over by Spaniards. Spaniards, Italians and Germans all produce excellent managers. English produce nothing.

Gary O’Neil is doing ok at our place for a novice and I was a real sceptic in the early days of gis tenure

 

[Bruno39]

Eddie Howe's doing quite well.

Last season he was doing something quite clever with Joelinton and Willock rotation on the LW/LCM that I've never seen anyone pick up on. It was like we played with 1.5 left-wingers to cover for Burn's lack of offensive ability, and somehow 3.5 midfielders at the same time.

This hiding of Spurs went under the radar at the time as well. 5-0 up inside 20mins. We also battered Sheff U away mercilessly, which is on-brand for Howe (Birmingham 8-0 away when managing Bournemouth).

He's the best English manager by a long way at the moment. A trait non-NUFC fans won't see is that we'll scrap to a 1-0 lead, then actually become more attacking and try and take the game away from teams - Villa 5, Sheff U 8, Schar killing off PSG with a screamer, 5-0 in 20mins against Spurs.

 

[Ithryn Luin]

One or two English managers have evolved but sadly many are still old school.

I remember a tale about Sam Ellis at Blackpool in the 1980's being lauded by his players for demonstrating how to shit into a paper cup placed on the floor whilst squatting over it on a table in the canteen. The laddish mentality is never far from the surface in ex English players who become managers.

 

[Gazza]

When we were kids playing football on any waste bit of grass, playing until it was so dark that you couldn't see the ball anymore (you should try it nowadays kids, it's fun) we would all play the 'Pep' way. There were no centres after goals, you just restarted from behind the goal and played it through to who just happened to be up front at the time - anybody played in any position. You were called a goal hanger if you stayed up front too long and goodness forbid if you scored with a toe-bunger.
Then, when someone was deemed good enough we got a place in the school team and everything changed, the ball was treated like a ticking bomb to be got rid off at the first opportunity and lumped down the pitch. Therefore the bigger the player the more successful in this 'system'.
It didn't get better as you got older, unless you grew dramatically, same shite, skill was second to physique.
So.... it's going to take this generation of English footballers to mature into the 'Pep' style of manager before we see any difference in a system that was ingrained for over 50 years.

 

[bluebanana83]

Exactly how it was in the 90s at school for me.

I remember playing for the school team and got a bollocking playing at centre half for passing across my box to my other centre half who was in space. I was told in no uncertain terms I was to launch into the channels for the wingers.

This then becomes ingrained in you that your role was to just get stuck in and stop the forwards and clear it. Not bring it out or move into space. So when you don’t have the ball you become static rather than constantly moving and creating passing angles for team mates.

Then they wonder why until now English players especially those further back were awful at passing, technique etc because you literally might have only had a few actual touches of the ball all game.