Can managers adapt?

[keniget]

@Judge Jules posted the below in one of the other threads:

A manager sticking tightly to his beliefs can be a two-edged sword though. Over recent years too many Liverpool managers - including Rodgers - have ultimately fallen by the wayside because they couldn't or wouldn't adapt sufficiently when things began to go wrong.

It got me wondering. Are we particularly unlucky or is it the case that no manager can really fix things once they start to go badly wrong?

It feels like managers get caught up in a perfect storm of negativity from the supporters, media and players that is very hard to rise above and a change for both club and manager always feels like the only way to move forward.

 

[Aidan O' Neill]

Rodgers was adapting too fucking much.

 

[gkmacca]

There seems a natural process there - certainly at big clubs. You're flexible at the start, because you're working with materials you've inherited. Then you gradually choose your own materials and methods, and it becomes personal, at which point to criticise them is (or feels like it is) to criticise your own judgement. From this point on you either have the strength of character to say there's no shame in self-critique, it's a good thing to change and evolve, and you break things up and revise it, or you dig your heels in, get defensive, take attacks on the team as attacks on your character, and basically start going mad. What it needs is for a Marx to say 'If that's Marxism, I'm no Marxist'. A healthy dialectical vision. The promising thing about Klopp is that he seems to possess the kind of personality that might just help him to smile his way through such changes, but who knows what the pressure will do.

 

[Rosco]

Well I think Rodgers did change things a few times, tactically anyway.
We went from being focused on all out possession, to counter attacking in our good season, back to all out possession and this season started out with some attempt at being more pragmatic.

I think in the modern era the game is overanalysed (in the wrong way) and the role of the manager is scrutinised to a ridiculous degree. The 24/7 nature of football coverage makes it a soap opera with a running narrative which fans seem to take on board and run along with.

If given long enough a good manager could work his way out of a slump - sometimes it is just a matter of luck, injuries etc. The difficulty is when managers buy expensive bad players. In Rodgers case - Lovren, Lallana, Balotelli. Those are three and four year mistakes - it takes a long time to recover from those errors.

 

[jexykrodic]

It takes strength of character and clear thinking to plan and manage change even whilst being successful, the likes of Shankly and Ferguson had this ability. You need people focused on the clubs progression rather than themselves and their own legacy.

 

[737Max]

I think there's an element of stubbornness as well. We've seen it with houllier, then Rafa and now with Rodgers. You know they can adapt but there's that stubbornness in them that they have to do it their way

 

[Rosco]

It takes strength of character and clear thinking to plan and manage change even whilst being successful, the likes of Shankly and Ferguson had this ability. You need people focused on the clubs progression rather than themselves and their own legacy.

I think those characters are fairly rare.

 

[jexykrodic]

I think those characters are fairly rare.

Extremely, and a matter of pure chance if you 'luck out' and hire one.

 

[Rosco]

Extremely, and a matter of pure chance if you 'luck out' and hire one.

Yup. That's one of the reasons I prefer to have the DOF and manager roles separate.

 

[gkmacca]

It takes strength of character and clear thinking to plan and manage change even whilst being successful, the likes of Shankly and Ferguson had this ability. You need people focused on the clubs progression rather than themselves and their own legacy.

In addition to the stubbornness, if you've been successful, is a bit of sentimentality. Shanks has the image of being the ruthless tough guy but most people I've spoken to about his first great side have said he stuck with too many of the team and then had to revamp it at the end of the decade. Kenny, for different reasons, let his last great squad grow old, too.

 

[Squiggles]

Managers who are dedicated to preaching about their vision or philosophy, as Rodgers did, are at greater risk because when it doesn't work the fans, and more importantly the players, begin to question the very fundamentals of their management. Rodgers stated his Plan B was to make Plan A work better and now he is unemployed. I suppose the trick is to have the experience to understand, teach and implement different tactical systems and never come to rely on one key approach. Buying players for a favoured system makes sense economically, but the real test comes when that no longer brings results and ultimately what Rodgers failed to contend with. By the end I don't think he had a clue what to do.

 

[Insignificance]

There seems a natural process there - certainly at big clubs. You're flexible at the start, because you're working with materials you've inherited. Then you gradually choose your own materials and methods, and it becomes personal, at which point to criticise them is (or feels like it is) to criticise your own judgement. From this point on you either have the strength of character to say there's no shame in self-critique, it's a good thing to change and evolve, and you break things up and revise it, or you dig your heels in, get defensive, take attacks on the team as attacks on your character, and basically start going mad. What it needs is for a Marx to say 'If that's Marxism, I'm no Marxist'. A healthy dialectical vision. The promising thing about Klopp is that he seems to possess the kind of personality that might just help him to smile his way through such changes, but who knows what the pressure will do.

Well, the pressure had Jose poking Barca coaches eyes, so it can be huge. But so far at least Klopp has behaved with dignity, lojalty to his case and entusiasm. Even of the back of a dissapointing season the BVB fans thanked him as a special man.

 

[FoxForceFive]

Well I think Rodgers did change things a few times, tactically anyway.
We went from being focused on all out possession, to counter attacking in our good season, back to all out possession and this season started out with some attempt at being more pragmatic.

I think in the modern era the game is overanalysed (in the wrong way) and the role of the manager is scrutinised to a ridiculous degree. The 24/7 nature of football coverage makes it a soap opera with a running narrative which fans seem to take on board and run along with.

If given long enough a good manager could work his way out of a slump - sometimes it is just a matter of luck, injuries etc. The difficulty is when managers buy expensive bad players. In Rodgers case - Lovren, Lallana, Balotelli. Those are three and four year mistakes - it takes a long time to recover from those errors.

I tend to agree, certainly in part, but I think (especially in this case), that a manager who doesn't have a clear vision of a few different ways of playing & how to get a few teams to play that way out of a normal sized squad is on a hiding to nothing, as their signings will invariably not work.

Rodgers record buying players was bizarre, not just in quality terms, but in what positions he bought in & where he prioritised.

We saw him buy players to play in a system, then change the system weeks later, & in the last couple of windows buying players has seemed pretty random & it's been hard to fathom if he even had a system or systems he wanted to play.

 

[darkstarexodus]

I tend to agree, certainly in part, but I think (especially in this case), that a manager who doesn't have a clear vision of a few different ways of playing & how to get a few teams to play that way out of a normal sized squad is on a hiding to nothing, as their signings will invariably not work.

Rodgers record buying players was bizarre, not just in quality terms, but in what positions he bought in & where he prioritised.

We saw him buy players to play in a system, then change the system weeks later, & in the last couple of windows buying players has seemed pretty random & it's been hard to fathom if he even had a system or systems he wanted to play.

In North American sports it's often considered best practice to acquire the biggest talent you can in the amateur draft - regardless of position. Talent is talent, no matter your needs. And in sports with unlimited substitutions perhaps it makes sense to have overlap and depth - but in football it is a waste of scarce resources.

(This is ignoring that many of our buys were crap in addition to unneeded - but perhaps that has been the thinking behind many of the questionable moves.)

 

[rurikbird]

In addition to the stubbornness, if you've been successful, is a bit of sentimentality. Shanks has the image of being the ruthless tough guy but most people I've spoken to about his first great side have said he stuck with too many of the team and then had to revamp it at the end of the decade. Kenny, for different reasons, let his last great squad grow old, too.

Ancelotti couldn't bring himself to rebuild his great AC Milan team even when it was clear they were on their last legs. Although perhaps you couldn't blame him as he managed to win the CL even with this aging squad.

 

[moron]

Yes they can if they follow a very focussed formula every year. This has been proved by many great managers of the past and Yes I do include Alex Ferguson. I actually believe that in many seasons his squad was weaker than others in terms of talent and skill BUT he got his teams to play in a specific way that suited the premier league and got results - and by doing what counts .... WINNING. In his time as manager - he got through at least 3 to 4 rebuilds of his team and got them to play to a specific style which got him the titles. If we as Liverpool supporters can stomach the red shite for one second and view everything objectively you will understand this. Don't tell me that he had world class talent - because we all know we had an abundance of talent with the Spice boys team compared to Man U at the time - we were just ill -disciplined.

The problem with Rodgers lately was that he was adapting too much as has been pointed out in this thread - to the point where I believe the players and the fans did not really know what we were trying to achieve from game to game. But getting back to the general question - can managers adapt ? - don't tell me that Rafa could not adapt given the squad he inherited in his first season - yes we got Alonso, and Luis but the majority of the squad included the likes of Djimi Traore/Igor Bisccan/Pussy Smicer/Salif, but by making them disciplined he got us to win the CL, a cup final, and came 5th in the league that season. That is an example of a manager adapting to make best use of a load of what I consider shit players. But we all know and witnessed a GH like flaw in his character when he refused to change or use the right players with the necessary skill when it was needed in later years - that is something Ferguson was never afraid to do - even to his most loyal players - he would dump them when he knew they were passed it.