Portsmouth part company with the Cowley's

Quoted from Knut Anders Fosters Voles

Due to the incestuous nature of the football industry, the majority of managers are likely to have played football at some level.

Klopp, Wenger, Mourinho, Sven, Warburton etc all played football at various levels, with limited success. Even entrapment victim, Micky Jolley, played youth team football for Barnsley.

There are very few managers with less playing experience than those. Sarri, various Portuguese managers, Houllier, Parreira, Sacchi…

Although as Sacchi said, ‘a jockey doesn’t have to have been born a horse’.  

Most respected football journalists (The Athletic, UK broadsheets etc) are far more knowledgeable about football than most Premier League players and ex-footballer pundits.

I would also take anything Harry Redknapp says with a high degree of scepticism. I am worried most of your football ‘heroes’ have a colourful history in respect of football transfers and tax affairs - allegedly.

Football is one of the worst professions for making it nigh on impossible for those who aren’t ‘from the game’ to make it in the game. There has been change with the advent of stats, analytics and the likes but fundamentally, the likelihood of a non footballer becoming a coach or manager is slim, and if they do, they’re often shunned by the game and those in it.

Aside from the Athletic, most ‘journos’ have a limited knowledge, or superficial knowledge of football, usually only of the premier league…the spaffing over Amrabat in the World Cup proved this. Was excellent at Hellas and is still is, Fiorentina have copulated him about but his ability has never been in question, but surprise surprise, because new neither played for a fashionable/big club or from a well known country they don’t care.

A former colleague who played along side Hurst for most of his career recalls his A license training and remembers Bryan Robson passing the whole thing from essentially the bar. People prepared his stuff for him, they set up drills and all that jazz, when questioned, the response was ‘but he played at the highest level, it’s second nature’.

It’s absolute balderdash in truth, on the same course he remembers a guy who was paying himself through it and was excellent but never ever made it in to the pro game…sad really. There’s probably hundreds of folk out there that could be amazing at it because of their precious professional experiences away from such an incestuous sport.

The Cowleys won’t be short of a quid and I can’t imagine they’re on the phone to supply agency today looking for work…that said, our profession is on its bottom so they’d be welcomed with open arms.

I wonder though, I wonder if the reason they’ve not had the same success is not only because they’re ‘outsiders’ and their style is somewhat basic, I wonder if the adulation and the timing at Lincoln was equally as paramount to it all? Let’s face it, they entered the club at exactly the right time…

Quoted from aldi_01

Football is one of the worst professions for making it nigh on impossible for those who aren’t ‘from the game’ to make it in the game. There has been change with the advent of stats, analytics and the likes but fundamentally, the likelihood of a non footballer becoming a coach or manager is slim, and if they do, they’re often shunned by the game and those in it.

Aside from the Athletic, most ‘journos’ have a limited knowledge, or superficial knowledge of football, usually only of the premier league…the spaffing over Amrabat in the World Cup proved this. Was excellent at Hellas and is still is, Fiorentina have copulated him about but his ability has never been in question, but surprise surprise, because new neither played for a fashionable/big club or from a well known country they don’t care.

A former colleague who played along side Hurst for most of his career recalls his A license training and remembers Bryan Robson passing the whole thing from essentially the bar. People prepared his stuff for him, they set up drills and all that jazz, when questioned, the response was ‘but he played at the highest level, it’s second nature’.

It’s absolute balderdash in truth, on the same course he remembers a guy who was paying himself through it and was excellent but never ever made it in to the pro game…sad really. There’s probably hundreds of folk out there that could be amazing at it because of their precious professional experiences away from such an incestuous sport.

The Cowleys won’t be short of a quid and I can’t imagine they’re on the phone to supply agency today looking for work…that said, our profession is on its bottom so they’d be welcomed with open arms.

I wonder though, I wonder if the reason they’ve not had the same success is not only because they’re ‘outsiders’ and their style is somewhat basic, I wonder if the adulation and the timing at Lincoln was equally as paramount to it all? Let’s face it, they entered the club at exactly the right time…

+1 to this re the average sports journo, 99% of them have a sycophantic fetish for the prem - or more specifically the invented 'big 6' (bizarrely including spurs, whos' trophy cabinet only contains cobwebs and IOU's from Levy) and zero knowledge of anything happening outside of it.   I'd also agree with the closed door approach to coaching at pro level - in a sport that's constantly trying to find an edge on and off the field the sport has a surprisingly blinkered view about coaches from other walks of life who could bring new ideas into it.  I do get it though, if you're the one club taking a risk on going outside the norm and it goes wrong.......

Friend of mine is a Pompey season ticket holder and he was very happy with style of play early on this year, definitely not long ball hoofing, so not sure what went wrong
Makes me smile just thinking about Danny checking his bank statement this morning. Oh dear, I'm down to the last £3-4 million, if things don't improve in the next 25 years I might have to go back to teaching. He's in football now for as long as he wants and he'll still be able to relax and wait for a decent job

Quoted from OddShapedBalls

+1 to this re the average sports journo, 99% of them have a sycophantic fetish for the prem - or more specifically the invented 'big 6' (bizarrely including spurs, whos' trophy cabinet only contains cobwebs and IOU's from Levy) and zero knowledge of anything happening outside of it.   I'd also agree with the closed door approach to coaching at pro level - in a sport that's constantly trying to find an edge on and off the field the sport has a surprisingly blinkered view about coaches from other walks of life who could bring new ideas into it.  I do get it though, if you're the one club taking a risk on going outside the norm and it goes wrong.......

Journo's do my head in, they just regurgitate other stories and invent stuff if it's a slow news day. Then if it's really slow they'll default to something like "hey everybody did you know Wrexham are owned by to blokes from Hollywood, ain't that great?" like it's some kind of new news.

Quoted from aldi_01

A former colleague who played along side Hurst for most of his career recalls his A license training and remembers Bryan Robson passing the whole thing from essentially the bar. People prepared his stuff for him, they set up drills and all that jazz, when questioned, the response was ‘but he played at the highest level, it’s second nature’.

It’s absolute balderdash in truth, on the same course he remembers a guy who was paying himself through it and was excellent but never ever made it in to the pro game…sad really. There’s probably hundreds of folk out there that could be amazing at it because of their precious professional experiences away from such an incestuous sport.
…

Being good at playing the game does help though Aldi. I've been involved in youth coaching at a pro club with the community and some of the players I've trained with aged  14- 15 are really good and you can see if they apply themselves they could make it at some level in professional football. It's not all about technique but the mental discipline as well which is probably more important.  Youngsters have fallen by the wayside due to not having enough of this. Likewise if youth (apply's to pros as well) can see you have something about you ability wise there is instant respect there. Compare it to someone who is not that good at football. Some  people certainly the younger age groups see these coaches as hardly anything and it's an uphill battle. I've seen it first hand. Another true story.I was reading about the all time great Alfredo Di Stefano when he was old and fat. Went to an academy training session in a professional club. The youngsters didn't know who he was whilst the coach did. Coach saw the mocking some of the youngsters were given this old fella. Invited Di Stefano to ping some shots and do some skills. Quality never goes and  as soon as he started playing there was jaw dropping respect straight away from the mockers .

Think the cowleys will now have to reinvent themselves at league 2 level i just dont see them getting a lge 1 job unless it's a mk dons type club , they need to go back to what made them succesful in the first place , long ball hard to beat timewasting it working for steve evans , i dont get this possesion based crap get the ball out wide then in the box make teams defend