Anyone else see it? Inspiring stuff in my opinion. He talked about the problem of disconnection within the England set-up when he took it over. The disconnect was between players, management board and media, which undermined morale and performance. One of his tasks was to improve the connection and transparency between these three groups; to talk openly about issues which they faced; to inspire positivity of thinking and performing. He particularly compared his penalty miss at the Euros with Eric Dyer's in the World Cup. Southgate went up believing that he would miss. Dyer went up believing that he would score. It was largely down to connectivity and morale-building. Can BFC learn anything here? I think so. I think that 'disconnection' is probably the biggest issue affecting performance on the pitch, engagement of fans, support of media and transparency of ownership at the present time. It is about breeding positivity and connectivity into all those aspects. Supporters who are engaged with the owners/ directors and are kept informed, even about challenging matters, are more likely to give positive support to the players on match-days. Players who are fully understanding of the values of management and directors/owners are going to perform better and so on. I think disconnect is one of our significant issues at the moment and goes a good way to explaining the drop in performances. Problem is - who gets the ball rolling? I would start with a better connection between owners/directors and fans. We need to generate a virtuous cycle, as opposed to a vicious one. Try to get the Southgate lecture if you haven't seen it. It is more than just about football, but it has a lot to say about building the connections between factions. BFC could learn a lot from it.
Thanks for taking the time with this. However, I think BFC's problems basically stem from bad running of the club e.g. bad recruitment. Sort the fundamentals of the playing squad out, entertain fans and any disconnect will largely fizzle away. There's disconnect simply because people are already pi.ssed off and so are much more like to stay away and moan. Players who have skill and work their socks off for the team are what really connects the fans.
Said for a while now there seems to be something fundamentally wrong at the club that stems deeper than the first team, what it is I don’t know but it’s the starting point for a successful club. Sorting the first team out would be good of course but I fear it would just be putting a sticking plaster on.
