Should I stay or should I go now

Who would be a professional football manger in this current football climate?

You only have to see the difference a few weeks has made since Steve Bruce was hounded out of St James’s Park by his own people, to see what the stress of it all does to your health. Yes he will have received a healthy payout from the new owners, but money can’t buy you a health token like you get in computer games. 

 

I was watching the Tottenham vs Manchester United match on Sky Sports this weekend and just watched in disbelief the reaction from the Spurs fans to the substitution of Lucas Moura after 54 minutes. The cameras went straight to Nuno Santo, the Spurs boss who just stood on the touchline motionless. He will have known that the cameras were likely to be on him, however that substitution appears to be the moment his short time at Spurs was coming to an end. He had four good years at Wolves and left there to go to Spurs and lasted for 18 games in all competitions with a 44% win rate and 9^th in the EPL. We all know the EPL is a fantasy world but to have a manager effectively sacked on the command of his own fans is an interesting development.

 

I read an excellent article by Martin Samuel in a national paper this morning and he was discussing that clubs like Arsenal, West Ham and now Spurs have struggled in bigger stadiums and that it has made situations worse when fans turn on their own, indicating the more fans you have, the louder it is and makes the situation even worse. I am not sure this is actually true, however it made me think how that logic applies for us at Plough Lane. We have a stadium that is double the size of Kingsmeadow and you could actually fit all of Kingsmeadow in our West Stand. Anyone that has been to Plough Lane will instantly recognise the increased noise it creates form fans because of the additional people and the stadium design. 

 

Will that be something that could hinder managers and players alike in the future though? The older fans amongst us will remember going to places like Old Trafford, Highbury and Elland Road knowing that if we stayed in the game for the first 20 minutes, the fans would more than likely turn on their team and it made the game a bit easier. We have a young team and playing a new, exciting type of football under Robbo and this needs the player and probably the Head Coach to have confidence that the fans are behind them and allow them to express themselves. Robbo has a win rate of 33% since he was made Head Coach at the start of the year and a 35% win rate for this season. Of course the EPL is a high pressured environment with serious money being played for and the chairman are quicker to replace managers than the lower leagues. This season has seen only one team press the panic button in League One, with Nigel Adkins being dismissed a couple of weeks ago. He had a 25% win rate this season after being appointed in March this year with a win rate of 50% for the remainder of the season. Yes Charlton were struggling, however is this enough time for a CEO to decide that the manager is to be dismissed. 

 

I strongly believe that you have to give managers time to get their feet in the door and have a chance to influence results. It is a belief of some EFL chairman that managers need between 2-3 transfer windows for them to start moulding the team and it being ‘their team’. In Adkins case, he would have had only one transfer window and he was out! We are fortunate that our CEO’s and DTB have been very supportive of all our managers and treated them with respect and given them the time they needed. Maybe with the exception of Glyn Hodges who I felt was really unlucky to be dismissed so soon, however I feel that we were heavily influenced by moving into Plough Lane and the pandemic meaning we simply couldn’t drop out of League One. During Glyn’s 15 months in charge his win rate was 24% and his final season he had a 27% win rate before he was sacked at the end of January 2021 after a 1-0 home defeat. 

 

It got me thinking of our previous managers win rates since we returned to the league. 

 

§  Terry Brown: 47% win rate 

§  Neal Ardley: 32% win rate 

§  Wally Downes: 31% win rate

 

 Terry leads the win rate, but this also includes the start of his journey with us in non-league where we won a lot more games. 

 

How do we measure the performance of a manager/head coach at Wimbledon? 

 

We have many metrics that can be used such as win rate, end of season league table, budget table position vs league position and maybe, more recently, the development of our youth team and the numbers from academy to 1^st team starters. It got me thinking what is most important to me and how I measure the success moving forward. I strongly believe in development and players moving from academy to first team and its not something we have been massively successful in over the years. We have had players in the 1^st team squad but I have never felt until last season under Robbo that the managers at the time had the confidence or conviction to make them regular 1^st team players. We had some players sneak in like Will Nightingale, Anthony Hartigan and Toby Sibbick, who we sold for a decent fee to Barnsley. I am old school and remember the days in the EPL when we sold our best players for a hefty profit to keep afloat, used the money to recruit from lower leagues, promote a good number from our academy and I see no reason why we can’t use that model in the current set up. 

 

To do this we all need to be supportive and understanding to Robbo, our CEO and DTB and back them when things are challenging. I have felt that previous managers never felt comfortable enough to believe in our youth and that’s probably down to job security. We don’t pay mega bucks and managers need to earn a living and keep their jobs. When push comes to shove, do you play a young Alfie Egan in midfield or go for the safety option of Liam Trotter (other midfielders were available) to get you a much needed win? It feels that the appointment of Robbo back in January was a change of structure and maybe objectives for the Head Coach. Robbo was confident he had the backing of Joe Palmer and the DTB to change our management structure, style of play, and team selection. I was fortunate to be at the training ground in the summer and I was struck by the number of people we have in the management team and back room staff that heavily influence the performance on the pitch. We are not worried to trial things and the introduction of a restart coach and more recently a sub coach is showing how we are developing and looking into those extra one percents that all great teams look for in any sport. Robbo famously introduced Ayoub Assal as a late finisher when we were 1-0 down at Shrewsbury one cold midweek day in March and he scored the equaliser and the rest is history. I doubt that Neal or Terry would have made that substitution or even had him on the bench to have to make that call. 

 

You could argue that we are in a challenging situation at the moment under Robbo with key injuries and some of our younger players out of form. 

 

§  1 win from the last 8

§  Lost 5 from the last 8 

§  Failed to score in 4 of the last 8. 

 

But how do you measure that against the budget we have and the ethos of playing attractive, progressive football with one of the youngest squads in League One and the Football League as a whole. Robbo is developing players on the job when other clubs with bigger budgets would be sending these youngsters out on loan to gain experience first. 

 

We have players as young as 19 playing in a tough league and they are not always going to be able to play at such a high intensity or standard for the 46 game league season. We will see dip in form and we will see them having to be rested to make sure they don’t get any long term injuries. We go into a transfer window where we are more than likely to see a player go out of the door rather than a new player arriving.

 

For us all to see the benefit of Robbo’s approach we will need to measure this over a good 2-3 seasons and that will be looking at the development of players, maybe transfer fees received and also his final league position. We can’t be seen to judge him in October/November like other teams have and will around us and press the panic button.

 

Its something we have been really good at over the years and the only sadness I have is seeing Terry Brown on the touchline at the end of the defeat to Torquay at Kingsmeadow and Neal Ardley on the touchline at Haringey Borough, soaked and deep in thought after a 1-0 win. I don’t want to see our managers finishing their time with us after a defeat and in both situations they probably should have left at the end of the previous season as legends and receive the warm round of applause from the fans. 

 

Managers being sacked is nothing knew and every manager knows that this is the likely ending for them at some point, but I am glad that my club treat managers with respect, our fans support them to the end, and our managers don’t end their time at the club by fans booing a substitution as happened in North London on Sunday afternoon. 

Please let me know what you think in the comments section and share with your friends and fellow fans if you enjoy the blog.