Legod Third Coming

Therotically brilliant, until Steve comes to you and says, I could do a better job than Eddie Duck...

My gut feel is that we are where your clubs were ten/fifteen years ago. We now have big owners, mutli-nationals, Americans even (!!). What we genuinely need is a 'draft' system or some focus on real home-grown talent (not players bussed in from Lithuania or stolen from a smaller club). I think it won't be long before teams like United and Chelsea are petitioning for a new league structure - games in China and India. Football will eat itself. I'm sure of that more than I'm sure how we'll perform this year...

But to be fair, I can cite all the clubs who have been promoted from this Division over the past decade without DoFs as my evidence. There are a lot of them. And as a gambler my compulsion is to back sure things, not possibles...

I apologise if misrepresented you my friend - it was not intentional (and I was answering some other points in my response to you, in my defence!) I agree a high-level of commitment to an academy is essential but given our current position and recent events I don't see any evidence that Pardew was in any way not committed to an academy? You may not be suggesting he wasn't, but it undermines an argument in favour of him being fired because he was very willing to play youngsters - Mills, Martin and Chamberlain for starters. The only evidence I have of clubs attempting to operate as you outline are clubs like Crewe who are destined to circulate the lower leagues because the minute a player gets any first-team time, they get snapped up. I'm not arguing in favour of current football finances, but the sad reality is you do have to buy success in the current model and finance it accordingly. I just don't believe that sustainability and success go together in football today. How can they in the current model? If ALL clubs were forced to adopt a home-grown model I would agree with you and I personally would love to see it happen. But if we want Premiership football (the Chairman's ambition not mine - I will stop going if we get there), we have to buy that success. For me the big problem is a man talking about a 3/5 year plan and sustainability in the same breath. I would argue that Pardew built a very good foundation that we will now have to rebuild. It may be quick, it may not. Will the next manager be given the time to work within a sustainable model?

What evidence do you have that a foreign structure will work in Division Three of English football?

No my friend, I understand what the job is - read my posts. I question why we need one. Did we need one last year? Did we need one in 2003? Explain to me what a DoF will do for us? And further: What experience Les Reed has to do the job? What roles do you think he will undertake? What experience does he have of recruiting managers and how successful have they been working for him? I'm serious and enjoy this debate. I fail to see why we need one, that is all. (And my posts about Mourinho are on the basis that the DoFs in those clubs clearly do nothing that Jose doesn't want them to or he would not have accepted the job - see his career for evidence) I think you will find the idea that Madrid said 'this is the job, this is the man you report to and this is the limit of your responsibility Jose' is a bloody nonsense. The guy will have outlined his requirements and let them bend to him. That's the value of success. And Madrid will have been bloody delighted to accommodate him on the basis they might now win something again!

And I'm pretty sure he wouldn't work for Les Reed so best not tap him up just yet!

But you won't find a team in the world that can be successful purely from breeding its own playing staff. Inevitably, the best ones will always be sold or may choose to leave. Look at Fabregas - joined Arsenal from the Barcelona coaching set up!! Players hold all the cards. Breeding to sell was Rupert's mechanism for financing the club. Sadly it was and is doomed to fail for the reasons you outline very eloquently above - we won't be able to afford to keep them. It's not a case of the management being hostile to this approach. Why would they be? Ferguson loves the United Academy - it gave him Beckham, Giggs, Scholes and Neville. What is essential is a successful first team. It's all very well people holding up European clubs where such and such an approach works. We're a third division football club (18th in that division). Our top priority is not building a sustainable future for this league, it is (according to our Chairman) promotion, otherwise we have no future. Well, promotion means this: Finding the best manager Backing him with cash (as much as can be afforded) Letting him do his job. This is the proven model (honest) that underpins the success of every club in the short term. Then, if you want to change the infrastructure, do it from a position of strength while you are winning football matches... I honestly cannot recall a successful club who first rebuilt the infrastructure of the club and then went about finding and securing the best manager available. It simply doesn't make sense if you think about it. Training ground infrastructure, policies, managerial chains of command - these don't win football matches in the short term. They evolve to support a succesful club, don't they? Doesn't a succesful manager help to build this anyway? Either through a direct contribution of knowledge and expertise, or (in the case of Manchester United) because his actions on the pitch are what creates success off the pitch. People are quick to forget us rolling United over some years ago and causing Ron Atkinson to lose his job at Old Trafford. The man they appointed has enabled their success. HE built the infrastructure of that club because his success on the pitch funded it. His management and tactical nous on the pitch attracted the investment. His footballers paved the way for that club to leapfrog Liverpool in the modern era to become the biggest brand in world football. Chelsea could have had the same - really they could. They might win things with Ancelotti, they could have rivalled United and Barcelona with the Portuguese. I too want us to be sustainably successful. But it defies all logic and history to assume that a DoF brings stability. Inter will not be as succesful with Benetiz as with Mourinho - at least I would be stunned senseless if they are. So what good does the DoF do in those circumstances? Tell me? Good managers are the secret of football success surely??

Ok, but why am I trusting the future of my football club to a guy who singularly failed in his previous roles?!! If you're asking me to choose Reed over Pardew as to who was best for the future of the club... hmmm.. convinced I ain't!

To be fair I don't disagree that it can work. What I fail to see is why it's required unless you have a Chairman abdicating the role? Most Chairman in the UK fulfil what is a normal continental DoF role - leaving the UK DoF as a 'senior manager' overseeing the football manager which fails more often than it succeeds. So for my part I would say, why change what wasn't broken? And why should we be one of the few clubs to 'trial' this approach in the UK? Arsenal, the club I admire most, have no need for a DoF other than people employed at Wenger's behest. They have a superb youth set-up, they play sensational football and the manager understands the limitations on his club's finances. Why not model ourselves on Arsenal? The reason I do not believe it will work with us is that we are unlikely to attract a manager used to working within this framework and nor am I convinced that we need it, given our priorirites and the vaguries of football at this level. For years people would say we should employ a continental approach, yet English clubs with an English approach with a traditional, club-leading, club-building manager dominated European competition. I hate the idea of managers being referred to as coaches - the two are totally different roles. Totally. You wouldn't find Fergie showing a guy how to cross the ball. Yet he 'manages' that club as the most succesful manager of the modern era. Likewise Jose. I fear that people like you who refer to 'Head Coaches' don't have enough respect for the manager role. You talk about stability in the event of their departure. With respect, if a manager leaves and there is no impact on the team, they were a pretty unimpressive manager... Managers maketh football clubs. Not Chairmen, not DoFs, not players. Leaders lead.

Which is why Inter won the Champion's League and Chelsea didn't.

Is it? You think someone comes to Mourinho and says we will/won't buy this player? Really?? And how about the reason why we don't need to adopt a European model is that we're in England? Maybe we should also ask the coach driver to drive on the right, that seems to work very well for Barcelona.

Absolutely spot on. Martin has the runner covered and Fonte doesn't do his job... Seems strange, he was a rock when he came in.

The people you mention are primarily there to buy and sell players and run 'the football side of the club' because the clubs concerned are run by Presidents on a rotational basis...They are usually businessmen with other interests, or media magnates. They aren't running the club day-to-day. Therefore you have to have some consistency within the framework and fabric of the club. It is the same role a Chairman does for most clubs in the UK. I don't believe Cortese is also the Italian president, perhaps he is... If a Chairman chooses to divest himself of this role, fine. But the idea of some glorious 'system' that can overcome the fragility of managerial changes is a nonsense. That's why Madrid won feck all and have now realised you have to invest in the best manager available, irrespective of a DoF - and if you think he will take direction on how to run a football team, forget it.

Can you imagine any decent manager being prepared to work under the direction of an Academy Head? Let's look at how football works. A manager has to work to HIS methods - they are all unique human beings. There is no coaching manual that defines the right way to manage is there? Otherwise, why don't they all read it and then win all their games? They can't. Because leadership, motivation, inspiration - these are not skills, they are traits. What do you think Mourinho learnt more from, a coaching manual or Sir Bobby Robson? The very idea that there can be a club style is at best far fetched. Unless you think managers can be made in a mould? Mk 1 leaves so you appoint Mk II, is that it? Or do you clone them? But equally, why the hell does there have to be a production line from Academy to first team? Are we saying that young footballers have to be trained a certain way for each club? Again, this is nonsense. Footballers can or can't play football. These days they are ALL taught better ball control, and better technical skills. Liverpool's Academy is run by Dutch coaches - I don't see them dictating Roy Hodgson's style? Nor do I see him giving a stuff about them - other than hoping the deliver him a diamond or two. Young footballers fall by the wayside - that's the nature of all sport. Cream rises. Some will make it. Who genuinely believes you can progress a cohort from 10 -18, kickabout to league winners? Name the teams and sports where this occurs? It would be ridiculous to imagine that from the first team down, the entire club need to be focused on producing a footballer who can play at left back in six years time... I am against a DoF, unless appointed by and or with the manager. It is inevitable that he will involve himself in first team affairs and in war, you can have one leader - not a committee, not a discussion, not a consensus. Leadership. And one final point. Ours is a youth set-up that delivered the two most promising footballers in the Premiership today. Bale and Walcott. Were it not for 'forwad-thinking/innovation', today they could have been plying their trade with US in the Premiership...

Mate when the manager of Exeter City rules himself out, you know it's going to be a long slog...

No DD just the end of our season.

Not clueless but pulled off our best player? Hmmm...

First fact you've posted disguised as a rumour...

Hardly. He was already a qualified coach before he became Bobby Robson's assistant (and interpreter), learning from one of the greatest managers of all time. He then studied under Van Gaal, an equally adept European manager, before taking on Benfica. He had years working with great players in the presence of great managers... He didn't fall out of language school and win the Champion's League the next day...

We disagree on many things but this never. Two year's running pre-season whas been wasted.

True for most people in our situation. But CB we don't even NEED a sponsor... I read a good article in Director recently which said the best way to be a big company was to act like one... Hell, I'm no marketing guru, but if Cortese is thinking big, it can't be all bad. And if you want your brand to be Coke, maybe you should PM me some time!

There won't be time to do that...!

Whoever gets the job, they will never have dealt with the pressure they will get here. We're putting the same kind of pressure on a manager that only managers of the ilk of Ferguson and Mourinho and Ancelotti have dealt with. Even Wenger is under less pressure than our manager.

Sure, sponsors will want their media value. And the sponsors will exert pressure to have this 'fixed', but they may well have been brought into the strategy. They might even be on a share of the media income. I think these days standout can be achieved a whole host of ways. In a media rich environment I like the idea of us being a 'south coast club' and then people having to go to google to find out who The Sun are talking about! Most people know, of course, and just laugh it off. You know what Oscar Wilde said, "there's only one thing worse than being talked about..."