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LJ - A modern coach for a modern age?


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We are all used to Opta stats, but our coach certainly embraces the wide use of technology in his coaching ethos. In recent times we have been made aware of close scrutiny of social media in assessing the character of players, the use of drones and development of a players app for training, and now the desire for a portable video wall at Failand to bring these technologies together. The theory is that today's player, who is technology literate, will better respond to these modern methods than being shouted at. I have no argument with technology literacy. Most 9 year olds would run rings around me IT-wise, as the most technologically advanced tools I had at school was a slide rule and a book of log tables (but we did proper maths where calculators were not allowed). Will this use of technology bring better results? For me the jury's out. There must still be a place for telling a player to get off his arse and get down the wing. 

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I have worked in IT for about 15 years now and the thing that gets me everytime is when people use technology for the sake of using it, if there isnt a problem dont try and fix it - focus on the problems and how to fix them.

If player doesnt understand when you write it on a piece of paper they wont start understanding because its on a TV - if it takes 20 mins to find a piece of paper or 2 mins to look it up on the screen and this gives a player more practice time then those are 2 completely different. The first is not a reason to use technology the second is.

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33 minutes ago, RoystonFoote'snephew said:

Will this use of technology bring better results? For me the jury's out. There must still be a place for telling a player to get off his arse and get down the wing. 

Every little helps...........

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Of course modern technology has huge benefits and there's a reason every major club increasingly uses analysis and technology.

The most important way to benefit from it is correct delivery and feedback to players. The balance has to be right and you wouldn't want to overload them with information as they may switch off. 

 

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1 minute ago, cidered abroad said:

You can use all the modern technology, food and health practices you want to and players will still ask "How many trophies and caps" does the Head Coach/Manager have?

How many LJ?

Players may ask that of Wenger, Mourinho, Bielsa etc - none of them remarkable players themselves. It's not really that relevant.

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49 minutes ago, cidered abroad said:

You can use all the modern technology, food and health practices you want to and players will still ask "How many trophies and caps" does the Head Coach/Manager have?

How many LJ?

If they're as moronic as that they would presumably say the same to the likes of Mourinho, Wenger and Klopp. Indeed Benitez and Wagner, undistinguished players, led teams to promotion last season.

Personally I can do without players with closed minds who regard those things as relevant to coaching ability.

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1 hour ago, NorwichbasedWurzel said:

My concern is that players could be hanging around for a minute whilst the video is uploaded to the wall. If this is used a lot in each session training could become very boring all of a sudden and we all know what happens when a few Tomlin starts moaning....

 

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Wenger came to the prem with no top flight playing experience, at a  time when many top managers had been top players so adopted the same approach as they had experienced as players.

Wenger introduced radical changes to the way players diet and nutrition was managed, which at the time was pretty revolutionary and introduced new and different training approaches. Arsenal were dominant as a result, and now all top clubs have similar facilities in place.

Why would we not want to adopt any new facilities or ideas that might give us an advantage over our rivals, because you can bet other teams will be adopting them? 

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1 hour ago, Phileas Fogg said:

Players may ask that of Wenger, Mourinho, Bielsa etc - none of them remarkable players themselves. It's not really that relevant.

Players very quickly cottoned on to the fact that Wegner and Mourinho's ideas and methods worked. Their teams won things. Thus far, LJ's teams have, mostly, loitered around the lower half of the division they are in. Comparisons to greats of the game are irrelevant in LJ's case.

If you do not think some footballers - chaps like Tomlin - will question or doubt real or perceived deficiencies or lack of credentials in those telling them what to do, I have to question whether you live in a cave?

In any work place you will find this sort of thing. It's human nature.

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9 minutes ago, chinapig said:

If they're as moronic as that they would presumably say the same to the likes of Mourinho, Wenger and Klopp. Indeed Benitez and Wagner, undistinguished players, led teams to promotion last season.

Personally I can do without players with closed minds who regard those things as relevant to coaching ability.

They probably do at every club, especially when the Coach is young and inexperienced. That is when the strength of personality of the coach comes into the equation.

For me it was very apparent with Johnson senior. He, Imo, was fine with lower level players but the higher up the leagues, it becomes much harder for some to manage international quality players. Up to now, I don't see LJ as any different. He's still a novice at this level managerially and I haven't seen any evidence that he can do it at this level. Time will tell, but in the meantime, we are still treading water to stay where we are.

The two signings are interesting but not exciting and we are still going to be relying on players who brought us up from League One to take us forward. The spine of the team at present show little difference with Fielding, Flint, Smith & Pack as probable first choices.

Another season of struggle to come? I hope not.

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1 hour ago, cidered abroad said:

You can use all the modern technology, food and health practices you want to and players will still ask "How many trophies and caps" does the Head Coach/Manager have?

How many LJ?

Yeah cos our squad is full of trophy-laden top class internationals isn't it! WTF 

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1 hour ago, Jack Dawe said:

Players very quickly cottoned on to the fact that Wegner and Mourinho's ideas and methods worked. Their teams won things. Thus far, LJ's teams have, mostly, loitered around the lower half of the division they are in. Comparisons to greats of the game are irrelevant in LJ's case.

Not really, the likes of Mourinho, Wenger etc had to start somewhere. They've spent many more years in the game than LJ. I don't think it's as important a factor as some would like to believe. Cotterill had a pretty unspectacular playing career really, nothing particularly special anyway. We never used to get this about him.

Quote

If you do not think some footballers - chaps like Tomlin - will question or doubt real or perceived deficiencies or lack of credentials in those telling them what to do,

Maybe, maybe not. We've got no idea so it's pointless speculating. I don't know if Tomlin is intelligent enough to even care really, doesn't come across like it.

Quote

I have to question whether you live in a cave?

?

 

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When Gary Johnson starting believing that the secret to successful management was Prozone that was the beginning of the end for him.

Any idiot can analyse a game with tech and pick a side accordingly and it doesn't work.

Good football management is about good man management and tactical ability; neither of which can particularly be taught but they can be gained by experience.

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Maybe its a help, Im old and the Times' are changing. Still its in the head for each player to understand the game. If i see my team mate is in a good position i pass the ball. The germans use the new tecknique, 1.8 sec and then pass the ball. 4 years ago they had 2.6 sec before they passes the ball. Anything that can help our team is welcome. Einstein predicted long ago that machines would controll our minds. IT is great, we have to be aware that its not only positives in the year 2017.

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4 hours ago, RoystonFoote'snephew said:

We are all used to Opta stats, but our coach certainly embraces the wide use of technology in his coaching ethos. In recent times we have been made aware of close scrutiny of social media in assessing the character of players, the use of drones and development of a players app for training, and now the desire for a portable video wall at Failand to bring these technologies together. The theory is that today's player, who is technology literate, will better respond to these modern methods than being shouted at. I have no argument with technology literacy. Most 9 year olds would run rings around me IT-wise, as the most technologically advanced tools I had at school was a slide rule and a book of log tables (but we did proper maths where calculators were not allowed). Will this use of technology bring better results? For me the jury's out. There must still be a place for telling a player to get off his arse and get down the wing. 

Will this use of technology bring better results? They are just tools used by Coaches / Managers like Sam Allardyce who would be considered old skool. In the right hands the marginal gains can lead to better results. Goals are scored due to the analysis of data on teams identify weaknesses.

The theory is they are monitoring tools. Its hard to argue with factual data that states you have run less metres, your passing stats are down, and in 360% reviews identify a obvious weakness when using different areas of the foot to control a ball. Confronted with such the psychology a player can take ownership of his improvement, or not. 

Graham Taylor employed individuals to carry put statistical analysis at Watford thirty years ago. It is a case of new tools old ideas.

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I believe Clive Woodward had some interesting coaching ideas and didn't Glen Hoddle bring in a medium or psychic or something.

For me, keep it simple.  Defenders pass the ball to midfielders, midfielders pass the ball to forwards and forwards stick it in the net. Wasn't that Brian Clough's phylosophy and he was quite successful.

Our squad seemed to lack strength and stamina last season, so those are key areas to work on in training.

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A lot of this approach smacks of Bullshit Baffles Brains.

Most coaches are ex-footballers and we - as a country - are oversupplied with people who've done Sports Science degrees, who spout lots of theory and espouse lots of technology which baffles, but sounds exciting, to coaches and club owners.

The old saying is football is a simple game, made complicated by idiots.  

I'm not a Luddite and I do realise that there have been great advances made in nutrition, fitness and so forth, but I think the "complicated approach" can and often is, taken too far.

To be a good manager you need to really understand the game, have great contacts, and - crucially - understand human psychology.  No amount of video walls can teach you man management. 

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4 minutes ago, Red-Robbo said:

A lot of this approach smacks of Bullshit Baffles Brains.

Most coaches are ex-footballers and we - as a country - are oversupplied with people who've done Sports Science degrees, who spout lots of theory and espouse lots of technology which baffles, but sounds exciting, to coaches and club owners.

The old saying is football is a simple game, made complicated by idiots.  

I'm not a Luddite and I do realise that there have been great advances made in nutrition, fitness and so forth, but I think the "complicated approach" can and often is, taken too far.

To be a good manager you need to really understand the game, have great contacts, and - crucially - understand human psychology.  No amount of video walls can teach you man management. 

All this Prozone mumbo jumbo, and "technical areas"...ffs it's a game, not putting men on Mars! Makes football more joyless. The curse of filthy lucre.

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9 minutes ago, Red-Robbo said:

A lot of this approach smacks of Bullshit Baffles Brains.

Most coaches are ex-footballers and we - as a country - are oversupplied with people who've done Sports Science degrees, who spout lots of theory and espouse lots of technology which baffles, but sounds exciting, to coaches and club owners.

The old saying is football is a simple game, made complicated by idiots.  

I'm not a Luddite and I do realise that there have been great advances made in nutrition, fitness and so forth, but I think the "complicated approach" can and often is, taken too far.

To be a good manager you need to really understand the game, have great contacts, and - crucially - understand human psychology.  No amount of video walls can teach you man management. 

It is the other way around.

Technology can be used to simplify football. Data is often inarguable, a player has performed to a required standard in training, or decided to take an easy ride and knocked off early.

Human beings all understand things differently.  We do not all share the same manner of learning. One person is linear another is not. One person will respond to being bawled at , another may benefit from shadowing and another being shown a pie chart highlighting outside of left foot touch is poor = Improve left foot. 

To be a good manager you need to crucially understand human psychology ... Yes and these tools provide feedback, knowledge which in the right hands are assistance. And if you are interested in sports psychology anchoring, goal-setting, visualisation techniques easily work alongside technological tools e.g. Highlighting positives with a simple viewing of a screen taking seconds.

It is simple stuff.

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I work in a technical capacity (computer programmer) and I have some mates that work on the kind of tools that these footballers use, so I'll chime in with the limited knowledge I've gained from them after speaking over a few pints.

As far as I have been told, this is the norm across the country, and has been for a while now. Big Sam had been doing a lot of this stuff for the better part of a decade, and the second commercial drones were available he had the distributor come to the training ground and plan out how they'd be used.

The technology is the easy part. It's all down to whether you're smart with your purchases, and use the right tools for the right job. A lot of clubs have spent hundreds of thousands on bleeding-edge tech, only for the data analysts at the club to essentially build a leaderboard of who the fastest players are, passing accuracy, etc. That's the sort of thing you can do with two people, a counter, and a stopwatch. Going back to Big Sam, the reason he has had such success with what are essentially crap teams is because he knows how to make his squads efficient. Players with natural fitness are pushed to the limit, unfit but technical players are drilled to maximise their effectiveness, and he coaches confidence in his methods. The best coaches don't buy the best tool to get the best out of their players, the best coaches buy the right tools, and that's the key difference.

Bristol isn't referred to as the San Francisco of the UK for nothing. It's a technical hub, and the technical knowledge and research is all available here. It just needs to be utilised correctly.

 

 

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15 minutes ago, Cowshed said:

It is the other way around.

Technology can be used to simplify football. Data is often inarguable, a player has performed to a required standard in training, or decided to take an easy ride and knocked off early.

Human beings all understand things differently.  We do not all share the same manner of learning. One person is linear another is not. One person will respond to being bawled at , another may benefit from shadowing and another being shown a pie chart highlighting outside of left foot touch is poor = Improve left foot. 

To be a good manager you need to crucially understand human psychology ... Yes and these tools provide feedback, knowledge which in the right hands are assistance. And if you are interested in sports psychology anchoring, goal-setting, visualisation techniques easily work alongside technological tools e.g. Highlighting positives with a simple viewing of a screen taking seconds.

It is simple stuff.

Man Management = Knows how to handle people.

process Management = Knows how to handle Processes but not people

you very rarely find one who can do both effectively.

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7 minutes ago, reddoh said:

Man Management = Knows how to handle people.

process Management = Knows how to handle Processes but not people

you very rarely find one who can do both effectively.

Not sure that I agree with your definition of process management - to be a good process manager you have to understand people.  There are a lot of decent man managers who don't understand the need for good process management though.  The key, as you say, is to be effective at both.

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26 minutes ago, Cowshed said:

It is the other way around.

Technology can be used to simplify football. Data is often inarguable, a player has performed to a required standard in training, or decided to take an easy ride and knocked off early.

Human beings all understand things differently.  We do not all share the same manner of learning. One person is linear another is not. One person will respond to being bawled at , another may benefit from shadowing and another being shown a pie chart highlighting outside of left foot touch is poor = Improve left foot. 

To be a good manager you need to crucially understand human psychology ... Yes and these tools provide feedback, knowledge which in the right hands are assistance. And if you are interested in sports psychology anchoring, goal-setting, visualisation techniques easily work alongside technological tools e.g. Highlighting positives with a simple viewing of a screen taking seconds.

It is simple stuff.

Interesting argument, but I really don't think you can teach man management skills. There is no shortcut. You either have the empathy and instinct or you don't. 

I've seen this in so many jobs, and I have no reason to believe that it would operate any differently in sport.

It's sometimes something that can develop as one ages, but the unfortunate corollary is you can sometimes become "set in your ways" and resistant to change. Again, I'm talking about any type of manager here, not just football.

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