Intriguing article from David Preece

Apologies if already posted (probably about a year ago!)

http://sabotagetimes.com/reportage/breaking-vaz-the-gruelling-rise-of-west-hams-ricardo-vaz-te/

“Every day in training, whenever he didn’t do as they asked they would give him dogs abuse. Some days it was so ferocious even the rest of us thought they were taking it too far”

“After a prolonged pep talk on the sideline from David Flitcroft, he managed to come on late in the game and score in a 2-0 win at home to Burnley. Then it all just clicked”

I know Preecey is just referring to Hill’s (and Flicker’s) approach to Vaz Te in the article, which obviously worked brilliantly, but I wonder if Flicker/Melon/Scott introduced a different ‘man-management ‘philosophy' to that of Keith Hills? (in January). Keith Hill came across as a bit authoritarian and maybe a ‘arm round shoulder’ ‘matey’ approach from Flicker in January helped give the players more confidence and develop team spirit? It’s just an opinion, probably has no truth in it. No doubting a change in style on the pitch and a couple of astute signings also helped transform us too.

Furthermore, Preecey raises an excellent theory here:

“It happens so often in football. A player might just have two great performances a year but if they are against the same team, their manager will sign them on the back of that.”

John Stead?

 

Hill was a bully, f ing and blinding at players in training, always thought they were good cop bad cop partnership

 

Which one is Flicker? I have seen him be both and a lot more of the nasty one !!

 

Can only say what I saw, hill was a fooking bully and flicker played the good guy.

 

Vaz te himself said it was what he needed. Hard but he probably thanks them for it...

 

It didn't do Vaz Te any harm indeed he praised and thanked Hill and Flitcroft when he went to West Ham.I remember years ago talking To Eric Winstanley and he said some players need an arm around them and he sited David Currie,he also said some need a kick up the backside and I once saw him almost reduce Jovo to tears but it had the desired effect.I suppose it's horses for courses.

 

Not disputing the way Keith and Flicker were with some players, as it's common knowledge. But I know Jacob has nothing but good things to say about the way they treated him. They left him out of a pre season game (Hibs?) and he was pissed off and had it out with Keith. Keith praised him for having the balls to do it and promised him he'd build a team round him if he listened and worked hard for it. The rest is history.
However, not everybody was treated similarly. Or, others didn't react well to their methods. It's management, and you won't please everybody.
I'm assured that Flicker is just like Keith in his ways, worse even, which makes me wonder why results were so different.
Quick answer? Mickey Mellon/Martin Scott.
And I'm not taking owt away from Flicker, but perhaps he and Keith were too similar..? And we now have a few differing approaches.

 

Always makes me chuckle this.

On one hand folk complain that footballers have an easy life and need a kick up the arse.

Then one of our managers gives em one and he's a nasty bully.

 

Management is about the team you build around you.

Clearly Flicker has built a better management team than Keith Hill did.........the playing staff certainly respond better to the current regime and the Club in general is much better for it.

I know there are a few freaks on those board who rate Keith Hill, but he took BFC backwards........and whilst I respect everyone's opinion(s), I won't change my mind on this.

 

I don't really like this story because to me it does reek of bullying. However, there is no doubt that it worked with Vaz Te. His career was going nowhere, hardly any club would touch him with a bargepole and his performances for a number of years had been garbage. Yet within six months he'd earned a very lucrative contract with West Ham, starred for them in their run in to promotion and now plays in the Premier League earning a lot of money.

All well and good, but my question is on how many players did this kind of approach not work?

Witness the beast that was Marlon Harewood in that Leeds game and away to MK Dons in the cup and compare that to the timid fella that was doing nothing in the first half of the season. Kelvin Etuhu's improvement under Flitcroft compared to his performances for Keith Hill was astonishing. We'd had Scott Wiseman for 18 months under Keith Hill. He started out average, got progressively worse and just before Keith left had completely fallen apart. But his performances under Flitcroft were fantastic.

I can't think of a single player that got worse after Keith left, but I believe many in our squad played better, some dramatically so.

You can't make players so much better in such a short space of time like Flitcroft seemed to do. It's impossible. Improvement is a gradual process, it takes years to see the difference, not a couple of weeks. What you can do is give the players more confidence and we played with tons more of that in 2013 than we did at any point during 2012.

Shouting the odds and berating people might work for some players, like it worked for Vaz Te, but it appeared to have a terrible effect on our team as a whole. Look how we played under Keith: tippy-tappy football, scared to play that killer pass in case we gave the ball away, scared to try anything different, constantly going sideways or backwards, getting nowhere, a complete lack of confidence and even a fear throughout the whole team. Keith blamed the fans for that. Repeatedly.

But then look how we played under Flitcroft. It was completely the opposite. The team was full of confidence and we were constantly trying to open up the opposition. It might not always work, but we'd win the ball back and try again. We played without fear in every game we played. What changed? The players were much the same. The fans watching the game were exactly the same. The difference was that Keith had gone.

If a certain type of approach improves one player dramatically, but destroys the confidence of an entire team then I don't think it's a particularly good method.

 

I agree to a point Jay, but i think anyone who has managed or captained a team at football or cricket will have an idea where Keith was going with this. Generally Keith obviously got things wrong with the squad, but if he had an ethos of the team working very hard, then you cant have a player who isnt willing to do that. If you allow a player of two to stroll through training and not do what everyone else is doing you risk players saying "How come he gets treated differently?" It can easily create divisions.

I had it in my cricket team. One lad was talented but regularly turned up late, missed practice and spent too much of the game joking around. It got to the point where i wanted to bowl and bat him regularly, but other players were getting a bit narked at the fact that he'd been getting away with too much. In the end I sat him down and laid down the law. No bullying, just made it clear that he couldnt continue to be given favours despite the fact he wasn't pulling his weight. I then dropped him from the next game and he got the message and came back a much better player.

Ok, not professional football I know, but i knew everyone had to be treated the same and i can understand that with Vaz Te. That part of his game was woeful before he joined us and no doubt other coaches would have tried to get him to work harder, track back and become more of a team player rather than a floaty winger who was allowed a bit of slack. Hill's method was draconian, but it instilled those skills in Vaz Te and i doubt he'll go back to the way he played before.

Anyone getting the chance to manage or captain a team should do so, it makes you look at 'the team' in a very different way, even if it only is village cricket or pub football.

 

To be honest mate, I don't think taking someone to one side and laying down the law is anything like what David Preece is accusing Keith Hill of doing. What you did was good management. I have no doubt that Keith Hill has done exactly the same on numerous occasions during his managerial career. I have no doubt either that some of Keith Hill's methods work. But what Keith did with Vaz Te is a different approach altogether. What I'm suggesting is that although that method worked on that particular player it could well have had a detrimental effect on the squad as a whole.

 

I think there is a public side to Flitcroft and there is what we don't see. I don't know enough to say what's right or wrong about his approach. It looks a bit touchy feely on the surface but I know that certainly isn't the whole picture. I think about the look on Martin Cranie's face, while Flicker was delivering the seminal (even) post Huddersfield dressing room speech. He wasn't swallowing any of that for a second.