Managers and their Dogmas
A hastily changed thing because of Everton
Originally, this was going to be about Aberdeen and Hibs and their similar issues to the ones about to be mentioned in this piece, however I then saw that Everton are weighing up between Marcelo Bielsa and Sam Allardyce as their choice to replace Frank Lampard and such a stark and obvious example of what I wanted to mention anyway leapt forwards to support my point.
The initial key premise was that managers like Jim Goodwin and Lee Johnson were essentially on a hiding to nothing given other issues at their respective clubs - namely that there appears to have been a distinct lack of joined up thinking above their posts that means rating their managerial spells is a burdensome task.
Rating Frank Lampard’s spell at Everton is less so but Lampard’s woes are explainable by the same factors - that those above them aren’t working as well as they should be. Everton’s woes since the departure of Carlo Ancelotti are more or less entirely self inflicted and a result of poor decision making from the board. Rafa Benitez is no bad manager but was obviously never going to go down well with Everton fans given that Benitez’s public image is indelibly associated with Liverpool and he has never done anything to play that down. While Frank Lampard “kept Everton up”, it should be noted that in the immediate aftermath of sacking Benitez, Everton won 6 points from the following 30 - precisely one point more than they’ve earned in their last ten games but such is the fine line between glory and ignominy.
That Frank Lampard, a manager who was at best mediocre with Chelsea and whose spell at Derby looks all the worse the more it becomes clear that the club were playing fast and loose with financial fair play, failed wasn’t hugely surprising. That it is suggested his successor be either Marcelo Bielsa - the most dogmatic coach in the world - or Sam Allardyce - the most pragmatic coach in the world - suggests the club don’t know what they want to be.
They need only look down to Brighton to see what they should be - it is not just that Brighton are a better side under De Zerbi than Potter, but that they De Zerbi was long admired and identified and was brought in because he fitted in. There was no consideration that playing style or overarching strategy be dispensed with - simply that the plan was good and to bring in someone to fit the plan. Changes to that plan become organic and natural rather than sudden and drastic.
That’s not what’s going on at Everton. Or at Hibs. Or at Aberdeen.
Managers/Head Coaches are, in 2023, spokes as part of a wheel. A decade ago, in many cases, they were the wheels themselves. Go back a further decade and almost all clubs were authoritarian in nature in some manner. Football hasn’t democratised, it has specialised as clubs realise that it isn’t beneficial to have single points of failure in club operations and as people who came through as the first wave of specialisation in football now reach positions where they can set the strategy rather than follow, evolve or subvert it. This, clearly, is at a transitional point given we have not yet reached the point where everyone does it all full-heartedly. There is, ultimately, no one right answer on how to play football and a side that wants to play route one is as capable of winning a game as a side who wants to go full Guardiola because if things behind the scenes work seamlessly, everyone commits to it and the right people are in place, everything is able to work.
Clubs do, on occasion, think short term. Clubs do, on occasion, think simply “what can we do to win games” and not “how will we win games”. Brighton do not have the best style, but they do have the most adhered to. The replacement of a head coach should be part of an organised succession plan that is based around the second of those questions not the first - this is why De Zerbi works. When you see the media talk about Everton’s choices as managers who are on two opposite sides of the spectrum of pragmatism (although Allardyce has always been far more adaptable than he is often given credit for), what you really talk about is a board who have no idea of a succession plan. Sacking a manager and replacing them with someone similar (who then succeeds) is a reflection on the individual - sometimes pieces don’t fit. Sacking a manager and replacing them with someone wildly different is a reflection on those choosing the manager.
This is not to say that Everton should somehow be wedded to Lampardism, whatever exactly that was, but that they (and any club) should be wedded to something. Top down, bottom up, side to side - whatever leadership structure a club wants, it has to pull in one direction. That direction can change and evolve over time but shocks to the system are, invariably, short-termist in the extreme.
And Everton may pay for that with their long held top flight status.