Pragmatism vs Perseverance

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How do you want to see the manager respond to iffy results?

Pragmatism
7
32%
Perseverance
15
68%
 
Total votes: 22

Bertie Wooster
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Re: Pragmatism vs Perseverance

Post by Bertie Wooster » Sun Oct 18, 2020 4:54 pm

I can't quite put my finger on it but there is something missing from our team that most other teams that we play seem to have - we certainly lack any leadership on the pitch, but there also appears to be a complete lack of team spirit & togetherness (which is to be expected with a completely new squad). Evatt said it in his post match interview, a lack of fight or running that extra 5 or 10 yards to help your mate out - how many goals this season have we conceded where we have 3 or 4 players either stood still or ambling back and an unmarked player scores.

Perhaps he needs to take them for a night out or have a night together on the piss in the hotel to try & bond ?, but we need an organiser, a talker, someone vocal on the pitch to get this side out of 1st / 2nd gear.

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Re: Pragmatism vs Perseverance

Post by Worthy4England » Sun Oct 18, 2020 5:39 pm

Unless we're Blackburn (so all from the same family) not sure he can "take them out" indoors...he could probably send them all to different pubs...

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Re: Pragmatism vs Perseverance

Post by Dave Sutton's barnet » Sun Oct 18, 2020 5:43 pm

Worthy4England wrote:
Sun Oct 18, 2020 5:39 pm
Unless we're Blackburn (so all from the same family) not sure he can "take them out" indoors...he could probably send them all to different pubs...
...where they'd presumably walk towards the bar, then sideways round a table, then panic a bit and back toward the door, then out through the side exit, while Doyler (who's got the float) walked confidently backwards towards the car park...

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Re: Pragmatism vs Perseverance

Post by Bertie Wooster » Sun Oct 18, 2020 5:45 pm

Dave Sutton's barnet wrote:
Sun Oct 18, 2020 5:43 pm
Worthy4England wrote:
Sun Oct 18, 2020 5:39 pm
Unless we're Blackburn (so all from the same family) not sure he can "take them out" indoors...he could probably send them all to different pubs...
...where they'd presumably walk towards the bar, then sideways round a table, then panic a bit and back toward the door, then out through the side exit, while Doyler (who's got the float) walked confidently backwards towards the car park...
Excellent, this is decent.

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Re: Pragmatism vs Perseverance

Post by LeverEnd » Sun Oct 18, 2020 7:46 pm

And Comley would buy Sarcevic a pint and then give it to a complete stranger.
...

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Worthy4England
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Re: Pragmatism vs Perseverance

Post by Worthy4England » Sun Oct 18, 2020 7:54 pm

Dave Sutton's barnet wrote:
Sun Oct 18, 2020 5:43 pm
Worthy4England wrote:
Sun Oct 18, 2020 5:39 pm
Unless we're Blackburn (so all from the same family) not sure he can "take them out" indoors...he could probably send them all to different pubs...
...where they'd presumably walk towards the bar, then sideways round a table, then panic a bit and back toward the door, then out through the side exit, while Doyler (who's got the float) walked confidently backwards towards the car park...
:lol:

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Re: Pragmatism vs Perseverance

Post by Worthy4England » Tue Nov 03, 2020 10:33 pm

Anyone coming to the dark side yet?

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Re: Pragmatism vs Perseverance

Post by officer_dibble » Tue Nov 03, 2020 10:36 pm

It’s not pragmatism v perseverance now, it’s being so ballsy you’re backing us to scrape 22nd in the hope it sorts itself v had enough of this shit (again)!

Probably not as catchy a thread title?

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Re: Pragmatism vs Perseverance

Post by Worthy4England » Tue Nov 03, 2020 10:49 pm

I'm still on pragmatism, and I'm not quite yet in the "out" camp. Said I'd probably give it until Chrimbo, but it's not looking great.

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Re: Pragmatism vs Perseverance

Post by officer_dibble » Tue Nov 03, 2020 10:58 pm

Cup games a free hit. Thank god we’ve not got a non-league team. Gilkes in goal and a 451/433.

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Re: Pragmatism vs Perseverance

Post by Harry Genshaw » Tue Nov 03, 2020 11:14 pm

Worthy4England wrote:
Tue Nov 03, 2020 10:49 pm
I'm still on pragmatism, and I'm not quite yet in the "out" camp. Said I'd probably give it until Chrimbo, but it's not looking great.
It's about where I'm at.

I can't reconcile the idea of potting him now when we spent quarter of a million quid in tempting him here just 4 months ago.

I think someone could get more out of this squad but not a great deal more. We may as well stick for now.
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Re: Pragmatism vs Perseverance

Post by Dave Sutton's barnet » Wed Nov 04, 2020 2:19 pm

One potential option to replace him has gone with Richie Wellens (who I imagine fits the FV idea) leaving Swindon for Salford. Not that I think FV will flick Evatt yet, or (just yet) think they should.

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Re: Pragmatism vs Perseverance

Post by Harry Genshaw » Wed Nov 04, 2020 2:52 pm

I noticed the impoverished mans Warnock, Mick McCarthy, has rocked up in Cyprus this week and Nigel Clough is supposedly off to last nights opponents.

McCarthy particularly, has experience of getting better performances from poor players for limited periods.
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Re: Pragmatism vs Perseverance

Post by nelson66 » Wed Nov 04, 2020 8:53 pm

I'd be happy to stick it out.
The man wants his team to play proper football, not simply points at any cost - we've been there and done that and it didn't end well.
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Re: Pragmatism vs Perseverance

Post by BWFC_Insane » Wed Nov 04, 2020 9:37 pm

nelson66 wrote:
Wed Nov 04, 2020 8:53 pm
I'd be happy to stick it out.
The man wants his team to play proper football, not simply points at any cost - we've been there and done that and it didn't end well.
Didn’t end well? I disagree. We had our greatest period in modern times with he ultimate in pragmatic managers. The managers who seemingly see us as a project and want to play football are consistently the ones who have created a disaster lost the soul of the club and left us watching not only horrible football (ironically) but also the most miserable.

Evatt isn’t playing attractive or exciting football. It’s awful to watch. I’d rather see us organised, hard to beat and good at set pieces. Because at least we’d have some excitement that if we won a corner we might score. Right now we don’t even have that. The closest we get to excited is when our centre backs are playing out from the back and you wonder who is going to feck up and concede a goal or chance....

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Re: Pragmatism vs Perseverance

Post by GhostoftheBok » Thu Nov 05, 2020 9:36 am

I think the argument of "get a pragmatic hoofballer in" miss the commercial side of what is going on here. Obviously the retort to this will be "nobody wants to buy/sponsor you if you're losing all the time", but a major reason to go for a manager like Evatt is branding. Investors and sponsors tend to be drawn to teams that have a reputation for playing attractive football. Fans tend to come and watch more attractive teams. There is money in being known as a team that embodies the Cloughian mantra of "the beautiful game, played beautifully." Burnley have managed to sell a brand of a hard working, plucky underdog to sponsors - but Bolton is too big a club to cultivate that image outside the Premier League.

When you are looking at changing manager you have got to factor in that this is also a rebranding exercise for a business, rather than just a sports issue. How likely is it that the board are going to drop their entire business plan because things haven't gone well in the first couple of months? I'd say it's pretty unlikely.

We might sack Evatt at some stage, most managers fail; but if we do I'd fully expect another model of the same basic machine to be rolled out as the next head coach.

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Re: Pragmatism vs Perseverance

Post by Worthy4England » Thu Nov 05, 2020 10:41 am

GhostoftheBok wrote:
Thu Nov 05, 2020 9:36 am
I think the argument of "get a pragmatic hoofballer in" miss the commercial side of what is going on here. Obviously the retort to this will be "nobody wants to buy/sponsor you if you're losing all the time", but a major reason to go for a manager like Evatt is branding. Investors and sponsors tend to be drawn to teams that have a reputation for playing attractive football. Fans tend to come and watch more attractive teams. There is money in being known as a team that embodies the Cloughian mantra of "the beautiful game, played beautifully." Burnley have managed to sell a brand of a hard working, plucky underdog to sponsors - but Bolton is too big a club to cultivate that image outside the Premier League.

When you are looking at changing manager you have got to factor in that this is also a rebranding exercise for a business, rather than just a sports issue. How likely is it that the board are going to drop their entire business plan because things haven't gone well in the first couple of months? I'd say it's pretty unlikely.

We might sack Evatt at some stage, most managers fail; but if we do I'd fully expect another model of the same basic machine to be rolled out as the next head coach.
You seem to have gone all "internet binary" on this one Ghost - At one end of the spectrum there is "the Evatt way" which produces an attractive end product for investors, sponsors and fans.

The only other option is someone who's delivering unattractive "hoofball".

I don't think those are the options. Nor do I think that it necessarily incorporates some sort of "rebranding". Nor do I think they have to drop an entire business plan.

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Re: Pragmatism vs Perseverance

Post by GhostoftheBok » Thu Nov 05, 2020 10:47 am

Worthy4England wrote:
Thu Nov 05, 2020 10:41 am
You seem to have gone all "internet binary" on this one Ghost - At one end of the spectrum there is "the Evatt way" which produces an attractive end product for investors, sponsors and fans.

The only other option is someone who's delivering unattractive "hoofball".

I don't think those are the options. Nor do I think that it necessarily incorporates some sort of "rebranding". Nor do I think they have to drop an entire business plan.
Mick McCarthy's name cropped up in a thread earlier. There are quite a few fans online who are becoming vocal about "four four bloody two" and "gerrit to a big lad."

I'm not suggesting that sacking Evatt would have to see us go to hoofball, I am actually saying the opposite - that if we sacked Evatt the guy coming in probably wouldn't look to fix the issues in the way some people assume it has to be fixed.

You can sack Evatt and stick to the brand they are looking to build, but you can't do it with Mick McCarthy or similar.

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Re: Pragmatism vs Perseverance

Post by BWFC_Insane » Thu Nov 05, 2020 10:58 am

GhostoftheBok wrote:
Thu Nov 05, 2020 9:36 am
I think the argument of "get a pragmatic hoofballer in" miss the commercial side of what is going on here. Obviously the retort to this will be "nobody wants to buy/sponsor you if you're losing all the time", but a major reason to go for a manager like Evatt is branding. Investors and sponsors tend to be drawn to teams that have a reputation for playing attractive football. Fans tend to come and watch more attractive teams. There is money in being known as a team that embodies the Cloughian mantra of "the beautiful game, played beautifully." Burnley have managed to sell a brand of a hard working, plucky underdog to sponsors - but Bolton is too big a club to cultivate that image outside the Premier League.

When you are looking at changing manager you have got to factor in that this is also a rebranding exercise for a business, rather than just a sports issue. How likely is it that the board are going to drop their entire business plan because things haven't gone well in the first couple of months? I'd say it's pretty unlikely.

We might sack Evatt at some stage, most managers fail; but if we do I'd fully expect another model of the same basic machine to be rolled out as the next head coach.
I think you are right. But I think its massively the wrong way to think about a football club.

Firstly this distinction of pragmatic hoofballer vs puritan is sort of taking an extreme view. There is a difference and a balance between assembling a basic team ask them to play out from the back when it doesn't suit them watch slow, pedestrian sideways football, littered with mistakes and defeats and hire John Beck as your next manager. A huge chasm in there.

The fundamental problem with the 'brand' and 'project' view is that I've never seen a club actually do it successfully from a low position where it wasn't the result of just landing on an exceptional manager OR just finding the outstanding talent either in the youth setup or from a transfer. So regardless of how as a club you might want to be perceived or otherwise the bottom line is an outstanding manager will make the difference, whether that's an Allardyce or a Mourinho, a Rodgers, a Pep or a Neil Warnock. All managers who at their own levels with their own way have shown themselves to be outstanding at what they do. I don't believe that you can organically change over time without those elements - just because the manager, owners or whoever want it. You can almost certainly remain in league 2 or worse playing clunky, dull, football that your players aren't able to translate into results because they are too limited or whatever.

For me the red flag is whenever clubs look long term but disregard the short term. You see it a lot with them thinking they've found the magic brand and on the pitch solution only to disregard the fact that in the short term they get mullered week by week. And it falls apart. Good and great managers understand the need for a short term view whilst also focussing on improving the club on a longer term basis. Especially when the bottom line is your a Northern town club supported by hardworking folk who want a team that embodies that and wins some games of football along the way. We all want exciting football but that was provided in spades in different ways by a variety of managers - its not really linked to the style of play but to the calibre of player you've got and their confidence to express themselves. For me the very best football I've seen was in the run in to the West Ham Vs Bolton relegation season - Okocha probably played the football of his career and we were absolutely electric to watch in that run in, most of the time - but we also had the ability to dig in at Southampton for a horribly tense 0-0. I'm not sure we played out from the back much or did anything expansive we just were a great watch because we hit form and had outstanding players.

You could say the same about the league one promotion campaign before Christmas - we were outstanding at times, Gillingham at home was it where we won 4-0 scored one of the best goals I've seen and Ameobi and Clough and Madine and Vela were all on top form and for that level, on that form very good indeed. When we lost a couple of players for the second half of the season we had to find a different way to win games - and it wasn't nearly as pretty. But we could have said 'its a brand we play like this regardless' and failed to go up.

I do think a long term view is important but its built on quicksand if the short term isn't looked after too.

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Re: Pragmatism vs Perseverance

Post by The_Gun » Thu Nov 05, 2020 11:15 am

What you seem to be overlooking, BWFCI, is that Evatt successfully built a team at Barrow without finding outstanding talent in their youth set-up, or spending lots in the transfer market. So by your logic, their success must be down to him being an exceptional manager.

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