New Manager

Just an open question really as to why people are so against an ex player getting the job? I'm not saying Hignett or Eaden or anyone else would be a good appointment, but I also don't see why we should stay away from them just because they used to play for us.

If we appointed an ex player that had never played for us would that be better? All successful managers need to start somewhere and how do we know Hignett or Eaden wouldn't be a success? In the last few years there has been plenty of recently retired pros giving management a go in the lower leagues and most of them have been succesful. Johnson, Davis, Robinson, Pressley, Derry, Page just in our league this season. All doing decent jobs.

If you interviewed 4 guys and one of them was the stand out candidate, but he had recently retired and only had a bit of coaching experience on his CV would you overlook him and pay some other guy twice the wages because he had managed a couple of clubs before and was a bit older?

 

There's been plenty of accusations about heart ruling head over Danny Wilson recently. I can't see the difference myself.

 

I'm not against an ex player getting the job - I'm against a candidate, who has never managed a club before, getting the job. We are in a downward spiral and I think it needs an experienced manager with a good track record to maximise the chances of arresting that downward spiral.

All managers do need to start somewhere and we have no evidence to suggest that Hignett or Eaden wouldn't do a good job for us. Equally, we have no evidence to suggest that they would do a good job for us. At least with Rosler, Adkins they have a track record of being successful with clubs at this level.

I would find it difficult to believe that any player who is looking to start out in management can present themselves as the stand-out candidate. Nor would I pay someone twice the amount just because they've managed before. I would have to take into consideration their managerial achievements, how they present themselves in the interview (enthusiasm, vision, willingness to work with set criteria etc.) and whether I felt that they could apply that experience at a club like Barnsley.

That's why I don't favour Hignett, Eden etc.

 

Yes I can see that argument, but its almost like people have thought as it didn't work with Danny it will never work with anyone ever again.

 

I agree. 'Experience' is a really overrated concept in football. It's our most experienced players this season who have been the let down. And three of our last four promotions have been under the lead of first time managers in their 30s. Ron Atkinson is experienced, so should we get him? It's also almost impossible to find an experienced manager at our level who hasn't been sacked at some point in his career.

It's a complete gamble when you take a new manager on, just as much as when you sign a new player. Yes, do the research and try your best to recruit the best man for the job, but there's never any guarantee it's going to work. Not at our level at any rate. At the top, where managers are more or less given a blank cheque book you can pretty much guarantee that someone like Mourinho would do well, but with the constraints of managing lower down the league there's absolutely no guarantee.

Brian Clough did nothing of note at Brighton (apart from an FA Cup humiliation), but then won two European Cups with Forest. We've taken highly rated managers like Paul Hart and Nigel Spackman who both proved to be rubbish at Barnsley. And pretty much none of us wanted Wilson to get the job first time round. So whether a new manager is experienced or a rookie we just have to hope that the vetting process has worked and that the man will be a good fit with what we are trying to achieve.

I personally think that a manager who shows commitment and a hunger to achieve will be the best person for the job and it sounds like Higgy has these qualities.

 

Ok so I think its general consensus that we would like Rosler or Adkins, but if they are out of our budget, which they probably are, is Hignett really a better/worse choice than any of the ex pro's on the list I mentioned at the start of the thread?

I'm not fighting Hignetts corner, but I can see the reaction on here if he is appointed already. My first choice would be Rosler, but even he only really has a couple of years experience in management. Just think people's opinions on here are so extreme and there is very little middle ground.

The same people that are dead against an ex player will be the first on his back if we lose a couple of games saying the board have made a mistake and we should have learnt from it not working with Danny blah blah.

 

There's no all encompassing formula for appointing a successful manager, be they experienced or a rookie. If there was, all clubs would utilise it. It's the easiest thing in the world to choose examples for backing a personal outlook & vision, whilst at the same time conveniently ignoring those who don't.

 

Rosler has 10 years experience managing, mostly in Scandinavia (Lillestrom, Viking and Molde) including 3 years in England (Brentford and Wigan).

 

Oh ok thanks for the info didn't realize that. I guess most people on here will value the spells at Brentford and Wigan over the time in Scandinavia. I don't think the club will pay for Rosler or Adkins and out of the rest of the candidates i'm not sure Hignett is any better or worse.

 

I hope neither Eaden nor Hignett are appointed. Not because I don't think they could do a good job, I really have no idea, although in the case of Eaden he appears to know a hell of a lot more about the game than a lot of managers, which suggests to me he'd probably be good at it. I just don't want to see two people I really like getting slagged off on a daily basis and their reputation destroyed. For the past 12 months I've read all sorts of **** about Danny Wilson, someone I care deeply about and admire greatly both as a man and a football manager. I don't fancy going through all that again with Eaden or Hignett. They'd both be better off well out of it. I'd prefer it if we appoint someone who I've got not real feelings about, who won't be here long enough for me to build up any deep affection, if we go on the past record of our board, which is the best predictor for future behaviour, so when the haters start to hate it won't concern me too much.

 

Excellent point jay

 

If we planned on appointing someone with no managerial experience who never played for us the BBS would go into meltdown. Because Higgy did so well as a player for us this will be overlooked by some people.

 

Unfortunately, the desire to say 'I told you so' seems the be the key objective for several of the more prominent posters, hence they tend to do nothing but knock, usually adopting the 'I'd love him/us to do well, but...' stance, which puts them in a no lose situation.

I do think that I'm the target audience for propaganda though, because every time we need a new manager (usually at least once per year), I tend to worry at some of the names that are thrown out, but as time drags on I sort of come round to the idea and then get disappointed when the person isn't revealed as manager. I had honestly never heard of Lee Johnson until after we had played Oldham a few weeks ago, as he irritated me with his post match comments that were shown on Sky Sports News. When he was linked with the job I was very much against it, but as the week has gone on, and partly due to the stuff the Oldham fan wrote on here, I'm now asking why he hasn't taken the job and I'm probably a little offended that he hasn't already taken over. I did the same with Terry Butcher and Sean O'Driscoll too!

I've even come round to Paulo Di Canio. He will really shake things up, but as our club has been in such a malaise for the past 8 years is that a bad thing? His win percentage at Swindon was over 50% and he did well in keeping Sunderland up. He was only 5 games into the next season when he got sacked. Apparently he upset the players, but as most BBSers think that Premiership players are a bunch of workshy, overpaid prima donnas is that a bad thing? From what I know about Di Canio he is a passionate, generous, driven, principled bloke and throughout his career he has been one of the more commited players around, putting twice as much effort into training as his teammates. If his positive attributes can be pointed in the right direction and he can keep a lid on the more negative aspects of his character he may just be what we need.

The big issue, of course, is Di Canio's politics. Whilst I also don't like his support of the Italian fascist movement, I think some people are a little wide of the mark with all the racist accusations. They're just putting two and two together and thinking that because he did the salute he is therefore a Nazi and Nazis were racist to the extreme, therefore Di Canio is a racist. If he gets the job I'd be grateful to him for never mentioning his political leanings, because the connetations of these are very offensive to us all, but there are some major differences between the Italian fascist movement and Hitler's mob, so don't make the mistake of referring to Di Canio as a racist Nazi just because the Nazis stole the salute.

Having said all that, I would prefer, should he be given the job, that some sort of gagging clause is inserted into his contract about discussing his politics and that any outward displays of his support for his political leanings will result in his dismissal, if it is possible or legal to do this. Whilst we can argue about the meaning of his salute it would only be taken one way by the more moronic elements of British football fans and that is not something anybody would want encouraging.

 

I have to say I go through the same thought process with most managers linked with us and end up seeing the positives in their appointment. Guess that is just my general outlook on the reds and everybody is different. First time I became aware of Johnson was during the Ched Evans and I saw him getting interviewd on Sky Sports. Thought it was one of the players at first, but he spoke very well and I thought he dealt with the whole thing superbly.

Love how a thread about Hignett/Eaden is now discussing whether or not Di Canio is a Nazi...!

 

If they do a Good job then they will be praised.
If it's more Carp the dissenters will express there displeasure.

 

He's not a Nazi, he's just a very naughty boy!

That's the way threads go sometimes. There used to be a time when, if you left a thread running for long enough, it always ended up being a discussion of why the manager never picks Bobby Hassell!

I just want people to dislike Di Canio's politics for the right reasons and not get all Daily Mail about it! But I've now got so used to the idea of him getting the job that I'll be perversely disappointed if it's not him. Even though I don't particularly want him as manager. I'd like Mick McCarthy, but as that won't happen I'd settle for Uwe Rosler.

 

It's not politics though, it's an ideology. It's not like voting UKip. In a few weeks millions of people in this country will vote Ukip. Some of those will be racist, some will actually be fascists, but many won't have a racist thought in their head. They'll vote that way as a protest, or because they're fed up with mainstream politics, or they have concerns about immigration, they'll vote that way for many reasons. I'll argue all day that they're misguided and that UKip are bleeding useless, no different to the other political parties in many ways and much worse in others, but not that they're racist for voting Ukip. Fascism is different. Central to the ideology in all forms of fascism is that the ethnic group they belong are superior to others. This is not a take it or leave it aspect of fascism, it's core to the belief. If you're superior then others must be inferior and when you view people as inferior you get inequality and, when things go badly, genocide.

I'm not part of the thought police. Paolo Di Canio can think what the hell he likes, so long as he doesn't act in a way that discriminates, and to be fair to him, that's what he's tried to do as he's sought to distance himself from the comments he made as a younger man. But I don't think for a minute he's changed his opinion, he's just intelligent enough to realise that if he wants a career in the game he loves then he's got to toe the line to a certain extent and conform to what society expects of him. Fine, except...

The Barnsley manager isn't just a spokesman for the club, he's a spokesman for the whole town and the most high profile one we have. Ask any one who has no connection with Barnsley who is the leader of Barnsley council or our mayor or any of our politicians and they'd really struggle. Ask them the name of the football manager we sacked last week and while you won't get everyone knowing his name, you'll get significantly more than those who know the names of the political leaders. Wilson was trending on Twitter for a good while last Thursday.

I do not want a fascist, an ideology that is based on discrimination, being the most high profile spokesperson, not just for the football club I love, I could easily walk away from that while he was here, which wouldn't be too long, but also for the town I was born, brought up in and where I still live. A town that gave me the values I have, that told me in no uncertain terms that fascism is wrong.

 

I don't necessarily agree with that. One of the main differences between Italian fascism and Nazism (if that is a word!), is that Nazism believed in the superiority of the Aryan race, whilst Italian fascists believed in the superiority of the Italian nation. Both are poor ideoligies, but Italian fascism wasn't solely based on race.

 

You are probably right about the reaction on here if that were to happen, but i'm not sure why. None of us on here get the privilege of interviewing the candidates so why write a new guy off because he doesn't have experience on his side? It's like experience is the only criteria some people are looking for. Even more strangely it seems the same people that want experience as a must are the ones that were so local about getting Danny out, who had bags of the stuff.

 

I'd argue that although the actions of the Italian fascist were not as severe as the Nazis, their ideology was even more insular, even more strict. I don't know your ethnic background but if I took a guess, I'd go for white British. As am I. We'd be OK if the Nazis had won. We can fit in to that Aryan ideal. However, we are not and never will be Ramonitas and as such will always be viewed as inferior. Or, more likely, shot.