SOD - the reappraisal

[SecretSam]

I feel Sean O'Driscoll is not given the credit he deserves.

There, I've said it. This was triggered by reading the excellent article by Fred Dodgson in the last edition of OSIB, about the rebirth of the academy. SOD took over City at the absolute rock bottom, a horror show of a squad, zero youth development (for all his achievements, GJ almost paid no attention to youth development, for example), and a mess on the pitch. A succession of poor appointments following the end of the Johnson era, wasteful spending on 'name' players...you know the form.

Yes, City went down, and yes, that trajectory continued the next season - but SOD laid the foundations upon which Cott's promotion team was built: he brought in Pack and Flint for buttons, signed JET (who gets zero recognition, yet Jackie gets plaudits), and crucially supported the rebuilding of the academy.

Sure, he was a dour old soul, and City were in free-fall: but the decline had already started, and in his short time he actually started the rebuilding from which City still benefit today.

[pongo88]

He was definitely dour but I agree that he was doing a good job under difficult circumstances. I felt that he was just beginning to turn things around at the moment he was sacked. I suspect he just didn’t get on with SL as he just didn’t project enthusiasm 

[GrahamC]

I was really looking forward to League Two if he’d stayed in charge.

[LondonBristolian]

2 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

I was really looking forward to League Two if he’d stayed in charge.

Paradoxical though it sounds, I think it can be (and is) simultaneously true that we were in freefall on the pitch under SO'D and that he's responsible for putting the foundations in place that ultimately turned things around. I don't think we'd have had the success we had under Cotts had he stayed but I also don't think we'd have had the success we had under Cotts had SO'D not spent eight months wading through the mess the club was in and starting to unpick it.

[Ron W]

We have been harsh on some managers in recent history, especially LJ who did have some good times to go alongside the bad, but there's not much about SOD's tenure to make him one of them, imo.

Putting it simply, he was paid to get results. Let's not forget, he still had almost half a season in the Champ to save us. We got two points from our final nine games and he didn't win a single away match. In League One we weren't doing a great deal better.

Yes there's a lot under the surface which can go unnoticed, and yes some of the players he played did go on to have success later on. How much credit should he take for Flint's progression? He looked like a rabbit in the headlights when he arrived and SOD's style of coaching probably never suited him. SC came in, put him in the middle of a three where he had to win it, head it and kick it and let others bring the ball out from the back. He looked 10x the player.

He has to take full credit for JET's performances because he was really let off the leash and was superb, but that kind of summed up where it went wrong. SOD always said he wanted his players to make their own decisions but that only works in the right environment with the right players, and was letting JET's mercurial talent shine worth it for a lot of underperforming, confused team-mates?

The academy is difficult to quantify - this may be unfair if he did make a significant push for its progression but it would've required the buy-in of the top brass anyway, so do we really know who was the catalyst behind it? If someone is ITK or something has been said publicly then fair enough.

Edited July 14, 2023 by Ron W

[W-S-M Seagull]

9 minutes ago, Ron W said:

The academy is difficult to quantify - this may be unfair if he did make a significant push for its progression but it would've required the buy-in of the top brass anyway, so do we really know who was the catalyst behind it? If someone is ITK or something has been said publicly then fair enough.

Is it? I'm guessing the recent successful academy products that have made it into our first team were in the academy in and around the time he was here? So if he had a significant role in shaping our direction with the academy which I think he did then surely we can partly attribute the success of the academy to him? 

[petehinton]

11 minutes ago, Ron W said:

We have been harsh on some managers in recent history, especially LJ who did have some good times to go alongside the bad, but there's not much about SOD's tenure to make him one of them, imo.

Putting it simply, he was paid to get results. Let's not forget, he still had almost half a season in the Champ to save us. We got two points from our final nine games and he didn't win a single away match. In League One we weren't doing a great deal better.

Yes there's a lot under the surface which can go unnoticed, and yes some of the players he played did go on to have success later on. How much credit should he take for Flint's progression? He looked like a rabbit in the headlights when he arrived and SOD's style of coaching probably never suited him. SC came in, put him in the middle of a three where he had to win it, head it and kick it and let others bring the ball out from the back. He looked 10x the player.

He has to take full credit for JET's performances because he was really let off the leash and was superb, but that kind of summed up where it went wrong. SOD always said he wanted his players to make their own decisions but that only works in the right environment with the right players, and was letting JET's mercurial talent shine worth it for a lot of underperforming, confused team-mates?

The academy is difficult to quantify - this may be unfair if he did make a significant push for its progression but it would've required the buy-in of the top brass anyway, so do we really know who was the catalyst behind it? If someone is ITK or something has been said publicly then fair enough.

Him and Amy Kington were the main catalysts, but very much driven by SO’D as a key thing for him to sort during his time at the club. Couldn’t believe how under invested and under appreciated it was given the quality of talent in the catchment area.

And now look at how much quality we have in the first time because of the academy…

[marcofisher]

I honestly think he was in the wrong role. He would have been far better in a strategic role rather than man management.

[W-S-M Seagull]

He'd have been very much suited to a DoF role here at the time rather than as manager. 

[Ron W]

@Petehinton I can't find anything online from SO'D talking about the academy but if that's true, good on him. From the majority of roles he's held since leaving us you'd think both he and the clubs employing him think an academy role is far more suited to him, but equally when you're being paid as a first-team head coach, that doesn't make up for the results (and football) he served up.

Edited July 14, 2023 by Ron W

[Henry]

1 minute ago, Ron W said:

It's certainly possible but he was here for less than 12 months, I don't think we can say 10 years on there's a direct correlation between that short time and Conway and Bell being successful.

@petehinton I can't find anything online from SO'D talking about the academy but if that's true, good on him. From the majority of roles he's held since leaving us you'd think both he and the clubs employing him think an academy role is far more suited to him, but equally when you're being paid as a first-team head coach, that doesn't make up for the results (and football) he served up.

You don’t think academy investment might take a while to bear fruit?

[petehinton]

2 minutes ago, Ron W said:

It's certainly possible but he was here for less than 12 months, I don't think we can say 10 years on there's a direct correlation between that short time and for instance Conway and Bell being successful.

@petehinton I can't find anything online from SO'D talking about the academy but if that's true, good on him. From the majority of roles he's held since leaving us you'd think both he and the clubs employing him think an academy role is far more suited to him, but equally when you're being paid as a first-team head coach, that doesn't make up for the results (and football) he served up.

There’s a massive correlation. Upgrade in cat academy = more investment in equipment/facilities, quality of coaches, recruitment….everything. 
 

I believe he used Exeter as an example of how well you can do and what you can save/generate by being academy reliant if it absolutely came down to it. 

[Ron W]

Sorry, too early on a Friday. If he did instigate the change then yeah, he should definitely take some credit for the shape the academy's in now.

[CyderInACan]

28 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

I was really looking forward to League Two if he’d stayed in charge.

I remember a midweek home game against, I think, Shrewsbury where we were utterly, utterly, rubbish and ended up drawing 1-1 by the skin of our teeth. Think Nickey Shorey played for us and it was abundantly clear his legs had gone. We were spiralling out of control & relegation was almost a foregone conclusion had SOD stayed. 

But, as the OP correctly says, we cleared the decks a bit and brought in JET, Pack & Fielding and laid the foundations for the renaissance. 

[W-S-M Seagull]

2 minutes ago, petehinton said:

There’s a massive correlation. Upgrade in cat academy = more investment in equipment/facilities, quality of coaches, recruitment….everything. 
 

I believe he used Exeter as an example of how well you can do and what you can save/generate by being academy reliant if it absolutely came down to it. 

And he was absolutely right. Without what we've done to the academy, we'd have been relegated and in huge financial trouble. Instead we have an academy producing players that's worth tens of millions. 

[Riaz]

Much like Tinnion

As a manager with us, didnt work out - but did excellent work behind the scenes.

[Super]

Truly dreadful. It was a struggle to stay awake during games.

[W-S-M Seagull]

3 minutes ago, Riaz said:

Much like Tinnion

As a manager with us, didnt work out - but did excellent work behind the scenes.

I'm wondering if it was SOD that brought Tinnion back here? It must have been around that sort of time he 1st came back here?

[Steve Watts]

He was left with a bloody awful squad and couldn't get the best out of what he took on.  He did say in interviews that he was tasked with reshaping the setup I believe (I think this was the birth of the 5 pillars), and conceded that he likely wouldn't still be here to see those changes happen. 

Yes, some much of the football under him was dire, and he was a really dour manager to listen to, but he was a very intelligent guy whose interviews were well worth reading rather than listening to as what he had to say was always really interesting.

[CyderInACan]

Yet this was he bloke who was in charge of a JET-inspired Doncaster that tore us a new one at AG

[cidercity1987]

Overall I think SOD was given a poor hand here and off the pitch appeared to do a great job. On the pitch however was a disaster and he took us right to the bottom of the third tier

Move forward 8 years or so to the trough of another cycle, early 2021 City also an absolute shocker on the pitch and heading towards a relegation battle in the very least

Mr Pearson comes in, has a similarly great effect off the pitch but most importantly kept us in the league in 2021 and 2022, bottoming out at lower mid table in the Champ

The comparisons are there for all to see

 

 

[BCFC_Dan]

SO'D's time is essentially Pearson's but with worse luck.

He came in to save a decaying squad from relegation to league one. It was actually all going really well until Jon Stead got injured, then it fell apart. He started the rebuild the next season but seemed to lack the personality to re-energise the club. Technically he was spot on, but he couldn't enthuse players like Cotterill could, and we simply didn't have the time for the players we had to develop themselves.

I see a lot of similarities between SO'D and Pearson. Both can come across as abrasive, and both expect players to work things out for themselves. Cotterill got results by telling the players exactly what to do at every moment and making things simple for them. SO'D and Pearson expect them to learn to figure it out for themselves, which takes time.

Pearson nearly took us down at the start of his tenure. He relied heavily on the points that Dean Holden had already picked up. SO'D didn't have that luxury, and lost an absolutely key player in Jon Stead. Look at the record before and after the Middlesbrough game when Stead was injured. It's striking.

it's impossible to say whether SO'D would have kept the team up and improved it if Stead hadn't been injured, but he'd have had more time and less pressure undertaking the rebuild in the Championship. Battling relegation obviously isn't easy, but nor is being expected to win every game.

[Alex_BCFC]

He put the foundations in place - just wasn’t a great ‘fans’ manager. He was starting to turn the results around at the end. 

[Selred]

2 minutes ago, Alex_BCFC said:

He was starting to turn the results around at the end. 

2 wins in 18 games... 

[Lorenzos Only Goal]

I liked him he was just the wrong guy at the wrong time.  His thinking was sound we were just on fire at the time and needed to steady the ship not reinvent the ship.

[22A]

17 minutes ago, Lorenzos Only Goal said:

I liked him he was just the wrong guy at the wrong time.  

I remember reading at the time, City had been after Sean for a few years. When he was available, City had a Manager in place. When we didn't SOD had not long taken on another club.

Eventually City'sdirectors got their man, but as you say; the wrong time.

[italian dave]

47 minutes ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

I'm wondering if it was SOD that brought Tinnion back here? It must have been around that sort of time he 1st came back here?

I think he did. I’ve found a link to a BBC () article which says (June 2013) that ‘SOD has overhauled his back room staff and Brian Tinnion was announced as….’ But the link to the whole article isn’t working!

One massively positive legacy of his time here. 

[spudski]

12 minutes ago, 22A said:

I remember reading at the time, City had been after Sean for a few years. When he was available, City had a Manager in place. When we didn't SOD had not long taken on another club.

Eventually City'sdirectors got their man, but as you say; the wrong time.

We turned him down 15 months before we appointed him.

[Monkeh]

Don't remind me of sod, I've never seen city as poor as they were under him, aimless confused no pattern no shape, no attacking sense,

Thank god cotts came in and pretty much fixed it over night

[supercidered]

1 hour ago, Super said:

Truly dreadful. It was a struggle to stay awake during games.

It was worse than that.

It was a struggle to stay awake during pre and post match interviews!