Jump to content
IGNORED

McInnes on City - uncomfortable reading...


Olé

Recommended Posts

Didn't see this posted anywhere - interesting reading - from The Times:

“I needed simplicity after Bristol City, which was an absolute ... I can’t say it,” he says. “After Bristol I just needed to strip everything right back, and do the job the way any football manager is supposed to do his job.
“Bristol City had fought relegation for three or four seasons prior to me. I kept the club up in 2012 and, looking back now, that was when I was in my strongest position there. At the end of that season I should have been kicking and screaming to finally get things done properly at that club.
“We had players haemorrhaging money at Ashton Gate, earning 14k or 15k a week which the club couldn’t afford. But I wasn’t convinced the club wanted to deal with the situation. I had four different managers’ signings in the dressing room. It was incredible.
“I remember one of my first days at training; all these players parked their cars and came over the hill towards me in their red training gear. There was maybe 40 or 50 of them — it was like watching Zulus coming towards me. I had to try to ship loads of them out on loan and get the squad down to an acceptable level.
“We managed to keep the club up in 2012, having been way adrift when I arrived there. The board had said, ‘if we go down with Derek McInnes, we’ll come back with Derek McInnes’. I had regiments of players I had to move on, but these guys had nowhere to go. Bristol City was Utopia to them — they were on great money. The club was vastly over-paying its players by thousands of pounds per week.
“Everything at Bristol was a mess, including some of the posturing for power in the boardroom. That’s why I said, at Aberdeen, I just needed simplicity. I needed to get back to doing what a football manager does.
“Bristol City taught me one key lesson — when things are going your way, and you are hot, then insist there and then on getting things done. Because it can all change so quickly. You go from a king to a clown.”

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 minutes ago, Olé said:

Didn't see this posted anywhere - interesting reading - from The Times:

“I needed simplicity after Bristol City, which was an absolute ... I can’t say it,” he says. “After Bristol I just needed to strip everything right back, and do the job the way any football manager is supposed to do his job.
“Bristol City had fought relegation for three or four seasons prior to me. I kept the club up in 2012 and, looking back now, that was when I was in my strongest position there. At the end of that season I should have been kicking and screaming to finally get things done properly at that club.
“We had players haemorrhaging money at Ashton Gate, earning 14k or 15k a week which the club couldn’t afford. But I wasn’t convinced the club wanted to deal with the situation. I had four different managers’ signings in the dressing room. It was incredible.
“I remember one of my first days at training; all these players parked their cars and came over the hill towards me in their red training gear. There was maybe 40 or 50 of them — it was like watching Zulus coming towards me. I had to try to ship loads of them out on loan and get the squad down to an acceptable level.
“We managed to keep the club up in 2012, having been way adrift when I arrived there. The board had said, ‘if we go down with Derek McInnes, we’ll come back with Derek McInnes’. I had regiments of players I had to move on, but these guys had nowhere to go. Bristol City was Utopia to them — they were on great money. The club was vastly over-paying its players by thousands of pounds per week.
“Everything at Bristol was a mess, including some of the posturing for power in the boardroom. That’s why I said, at Aberdeen, I just needed simplicity. I needed to get back to doing what a football manager does.
“Bristol City taught me one key lesson — when things are going your way, and you are hot, then insist there and then on getting things done. Because it can all change so quickly. You go from a king to a clown.”

 

sounds like a fair assessment

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm sure most of this is true and we have all read much the same before but Derrick himself vastly underestimated the championship and brought in some players north of the border that were way below good enough. Basically we had some crap on the books and he brought in more crap using up any spare cash left, so in the end he was way out of his depth not knowing what formation to play or who his best eleven was.

Granted he's doing well up north but the quality is 1st division at best.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In a similar vein when I was flicking through old Times articles on their site I found this Mark Wilson on McInnes and City:

Now this was two years ago and I appreciate stuff has changed since then for sure but nonetheless, similar vein,

Quote

Mark Wilson believes the upturn in the fortunes of Aberdeen is all down to Derek McInnes, who suffered as the manager of Bristol City because the club “was a shambles”.

Wilson is as qualified as any to assess McInnes’s qualities. The defender made his debut at Dundee United a dozen years ago and a year later was joined in the side by McInnes, the then vastly experience midfielder, immediately installed as captain.

The pair went their separate ways in 2006, Wilson to Celtic in a £500,000 transfer and McInnes joining Millwall under Nigel Spackman’s management, but they were reunited at Bristol City two years ago as the club battled with relegation issues and McInnes was sacrificed.

Subsequent murmurings from Ashton Gate suggest they were too hasty in showing their young coach the door, especially as his talents have come to the fore at Aberdeen, currently sitting in second place in the Scottish Premiership and having won the Scottish League Cup two weeks ago.

Dundee United will today attempt to halt Aberdeen’s run of nine wins and a draw from their last 11 games as Wilson admits he is unsurprised at the impact McInnes has made since moving to Pittodrie a year ago.

“At Bristol City, he was at the wrong club at the wrong time,” he said. “They were a shambles. I don’t know if he’s come out and said it, but everyone who was at the club then knew it was.

“His training was brilliant but I don’t think he was given the backing he needed. He had to make a lot of cuts and was sacked far too early. But he’s come back to Scotland, gone to Aberdeen and made a huge difference.”

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for putting this up, @Olé. Important to have his view on things. Although this is his side of things, and he can be expected to defend his corner and paint himself in the best possible light, the way SL is trying to do things now supports his opinion there, I'd say.

The point about being "king" and doing things your way when you are, brings Cotts to mind. He was "king" last May, but then moved from "king to clown" and it would be fascinating to hear his thoughts on this

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is the reason we aren't offering stupid money to players and not being held

to ransom any more also why we had a board room change as well,

 

we tried to to throw money at the problem then and it didn't work now

we are trying to develop players

 

it still doesn't explain his dog shit signings tho'

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's no great surprise. Lansdown has shown he hasn't really got a clue on how to run a successful football club. Yes he's sorted the clubs debt out year after year, however this is the debt that he and people he employs have accumulated. Hopefully lessons have been learnt, highly doubt it though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, screech said:

Did he mention anything about his OCD where he was unable to pick the same team from one week to the next regardless of how well they played?

To be fair Screech one Zulu looks much the same as any other Zulu, so you pick the ones with sharpest spears during training.

it's nothing that we didn't know but to have it confirmed in this way is difficult reading.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...