Parma’s State of the Nation

[Monty13 2,235]

26 minutes ago, Canary Wundaboy said:

It all comes back to one moment of weakness:

Webber didn’t want to admit he’d screwed up again with the summer recruitment in our 2nd Premier League season. He had to pin the failings on Farke rather than admit that he’d failed to equip him with a squad that was capable of competing. Had he been less bullish before the season started he could have backed away from the situation but he’d given himself no room so a fall guy had to be found and it was easier for him to sack Daniel Farke than admit he’d failed again.

So Farke got the boot, Webber pressed the panic button with the appointment of Dean Smith and out went everything the model had been working towards. All the magic, the cohesion, the model, all of it out the window because Webber had said we could accomplish the impossible (build a premier league survival squad on zero investment and after losing Emi and Skipp) and when it became clear that we couldn’t, he pinned it on Farke.

What a mess.

I don’t think it was weakness. I think Webber believed he’d done what he said and I thought it was pretty clear from Farkes demeanour that he hadn’t bought into it.

IMO the only way Farke was surviving that season was pulling off a miracle I don’t think he believed was possible.

I understand why Webber sacked him, what I don’t understand is why Webber was seemingly never held accountable for his failures.

[Canary Wundaboy 1,359]

3 minutes ago, Monty13 said:

I don’t think it was weakness. I think Webber believed he’d done what he said and I thought it was pretty clear from Farkes demeanour that he hadn’t bought into it.

IMO the only way Farke was surviving that season was pulling off a miracle I don’t think he believed was possible.

I understand why Webber sacked him, what I don’t understand is why Webber was seemingly never held accountable for his failures.

I’d argue that with Buendia gone, Skipp gone and no proper CDM being brought in there was absolutely no way the remaining squad had anywhere near enough to survive. Maybe Farke told Webber privately that was the case, maybe Farke didn’t believe, but to be fair, neither did a lot of the fans.

It’s the lack of accountability for Webber that’s the core issue. His recruitment has failed, his managerial appointments have failed, financially he’s failed (see all the debt) but the ownership have abdicated responsibility and his wife’s on the BoD. It’s a horror show all round.

[Parma Ham's gone mouldy 2,224]

Some excellent points @Canary Wundaboy. 

Parma 

[Jim Smith 2,325]

8 hours ago, Canary Wundaboy said:

It all comes back to one moment of weakness:

Webber didn’t want to admit he’d screwed up again with the summer recruitment in our 2nd Premier League season. He had to pin the failings on Farke rather than admit that he’d failed to equip him with a squad that was capable of competing. Had he been less bullish before the season started he could have backed away from the situation but he’d given himself no room so a fall guy had to be found and it was easier for him to sack Daniel Farke than admit he’d failed again.

So Farke got the boot, Webber pressed the panic button with the appointment of Dean Smith and out went everything the model had been working towards. All the magic, the cohesion, the model, all of it out the window because Webber had said we could accomplish the impossible (build a premier league survival squad on zero investment and after losing Emi and Skipp) and when it became clear that we couldn’t, he pinned it on Farke.

What a mess.

It all comes back to selling Buendia on promotion and the recruitment afterwards. Retain him, find the money for Skipp (or another similar CDM) and secure that centre back we all know we needed and that season looks very different. I even think Todd would have played a lot better with Emi still there are well. Settled side, settled formation bolstered by two or three key signings which incidentally is what Bailey tells us Farke wanted too. 
 

look at the first two major signings Brentford made. First choice CDM target and beat us to Ajer. Neither are regularly in their side now but they did the job in the first half of that prem season. 
 

But we couldn’t do that and partly, in fairness to Webber who I despise, because our owners continue to hold us back as well. Don’t get me wrong I don’t think we should have sold Emi full stop, but having decided he needed to buy what he bought, Webber obviously felt he had to do it to fund his spending spree. 

[Jim Smith 2,325]

7 hours ago, Canary Wundaboy said:

I’d argue that with Buendia gone, Skipp gone and no proper CDM being brought in there was absolutely no way the remaining squad had anywhere near enough to survive. Maybe Farke told Webber privately that was the case, maybe Farke didn’t believe, but to be fair, neither did a lot of the fans.

It’s the lack of accountability for Webber that’s the core issue. His recruitment has failed, his managerial appointments have failed, financially he’s failed (see all the debt) but the ownership have abdicated responsibility and his wife’s on the BoD. It’s a horror show all round.

I do agree with you here. There is no accountability because Delia and MWJ have given over complete control of the club day to day to the Webbers. It stinks. And it has, by several accounts, resulted in it not being a great place to work. 

[lake district canary 4,540]

I think it's very telling that Farke insisted he wanted to be manager at Leeds, not head coach - he didn't want to be in a situation again where someone above him could call the shots about footballing stuff. 

[Morph 19]

@Parma Ham's gone mouldy you commented in response to my post:

Quote

By look closely I also mean learn and understand the psychological tendencies and characters of your players. Know their weaknesses. These will soon show up under pressure. And pressure will come soon enough.

Wagner’s team against sunderland looked very much like a managerial-speak ‘look at what I’m (forced to be) working with ‘

It looked horribly weak and callow on paper and worse on grass. The lack of intensity and cohesion in the press at 1-2 down early second half was awful, awful. 

His post match comments used the word ‘players’ a lot too. That was noted. The dressing room will be even less thrilled now I assure you. 

At some level Wagner has to shoulder the majority of the blame in where we are given his intransigence to adapt. It seems to be, these are the tactics we will play irrespective of injuries. And those injuries are likely to happen whether he likes it or not.

Your comment about Wagner acting as if to say look what I have to work with is him trying to push the blame for his woes on to the players. Can’t see that ending well.

It raises another question, where are the leaders on the pitch if the manager has abdicated responsibility? Where’s the professionalism and pride?

Saturday will be toxic if he is still in post.

[ged in the onion bag 856]

Until we get rid of the current recruitment team and employ some competent people, the club should never spend another penny on signing players incl. they’re wages.    
 

The incompetence is quite staggering and now we’re left with an awful ageing squad on long contracts but with no value!    
 

That kind of idiocy puts massive strain on our youth development since the manager will be obliged to play the journeymen.

I’d have massive changes for the next game and the future.  The recruitment team, Webber, Wagner, Duffy, Gibson, Forshaw, McLean, Hernandez, Platcheta and Hwang would be out, those players only to be used in extreme desperation.    

Bringing in youngsters couldn’t be worse, but they’d be willing, have desire and sharper.    Plus we’d be developing something for the future.   

 

[Parma Ham's gone mouldy 2,224]

1 hour ago, Morph said:

@Parma Ham's gone mouldy you commented in response to my post:

At some level Wagner has to shoulder the majority of the blame in where we are given his intransigence to adapt. It seems to be, these are the tactics we will play irrespective of injuries. And those injuries are likely to happen whether he likes it or not.

Your comment about Wagner acting as if to say look what I have to work with is him trying to push the blame for his woes on to the players. Can’t see that ending well.

It raises another question, where are the leaders on the pitch if the manager has abdicated responsibility? Where’s the professionalism and pride?

Saturday will be toxic if he is still in post.

Hmm…maybe, maybe not.

I think I could mount a defence for the Sargent-Bsrnes initial model with what we had. It was interesting, verging on innovative in some ways. 

Making the tactical compromise space the deep centre of the park rang huge alarms bells for me. Even if MacClean is supposed on paper to drop between Centre backs - plus Sara encouraged to rotate in and out of that space - anyone who knows anything about the psychological tendencies of those two players would know that MacClean runs around putting out other people’s fires when he often shouldn’t and Sara simply isn’t positionally diligent. So straight away there you have created a model that won’t really work when people revert to their baseline tendencies. 

I do the opposite. Base the model on the baseline tendencies. Then you can’t get found out. You know what you’ll get.

The pub criticism ‘he’s got no Plan B’ is not one I like as it’s rarely true. However I will concede that in Wagner’s case there has appeared a reluctance to move very far - or very quickly - from it until recently. 

The club backed Idah. Quite heavily in strategic terms I’d say. I think we’d all be hard pushed to say he’s delivered. The way they poke and provoke him - in football language and actions - indicates to me that they are desperately trying to light a fire inside him. That just might not be there. I suspect he was a lot more valuable as paper promise than he is now.

Norwich were also on a downward slide before Wagner came. Often the case when you get a job, though there weren’t obvious levers for Norwich to pull to help Wagner. The gamble had been made, now there was only the price to be paid. 

Wagner of course looks a busted flush - in many senses, not least in terms of his footballing ideas for the team - though I think we should avoid another ‘new day silver bullet’ answer that has repeatedly shown to rarely work. 

The Sporting Director role really is important. It really does matter. Especially if the ‘managers are left to manage’

Parma 

Edited October 30, 2023 by Parma Ham's gone mouldy
As for leadership when the chips are down, if you don’t get it with expensive old lags, where on earth is their value?

[king canary 7,624]

9 hours ago, Monty13 said:

I don’t think it was weakness. I think Webber believed he’d done what he said and I thought it was pretty clear from Farkes demeanour that he hadn’t bought into it.

IMO the only way Farke was surviving that season was pulling off a miracle I don’t think he believed was possible.

I understand why Webber sacked him, what I don’t understand is why Webber was seemingly never held accountable for his failures.

This is largely how I see it too. 

Farke isn't blameless for his sacking- he was getting nothing out of the new players Webber had bought in and I find it interesting that a number of them have gone on to have success elsewhere. Rashica was excellent in Turkey, Kabak has been a regular for a solid Bundesliga side, PLM is apparently playing very well in the French top division and Gilmour has shown, with the right set up, that he isn't terrible.

I don't think Webber gave Farke the squad he wanted but Farke seemed to refuse to even try and make it work with the players he had and that couldn't continue. As you say Farke wasn't bought in and it showed. 

This isn't to argue Webber did a good job that summer- I don't think he did- but I don't think he did such a terrible job that 5 points from 11 was the best anyone could do.

Webber's issue to me has always appeared to be ego. I think part of the reason he originally loved this job was he got a chance to show off how smart he can be and achieve what others said was impossible. The 21/22 was supposed to be the jewel in his crown- how he, Stuart Webber, had built a squad capable of competeing in the Premier League on a shoestring budget. How he had plucked an unknown German coach from obscurity, built a squad based on young players and bargain bin signings from unglamerous corners of the footballing world and hung with the big boys. Failure couldn't happen and it certainly couldn't happen in the manner it was happening under Farke- limp defeats and a team on course for even less points than our first attempt under Farke. The failure was refelcting badly on him and the ego couldn't allow that.

I think he saw changing manager and hiring Smith as the best chance to still achieve what he wanted. It clearly didn't and I don't think it is a coincidence that he's seemingly got more prickly with the press, bitterer in interviews and seemingly less invested in the job since then. I believe he had a vision of keeping us up that season and either walking into another job or just walking away, legend in tact. Instead it all fell apart. 

[Morph 19]

Quote

Making the compromise the deep Centre of the park rang huge alarms bells for me. Even if MacClean is supposed on paper to drop between Centre back - plus Sara encouraged to rotate in and out of that space - anyone who knows anything about the psychological tendencies of those two players would know that MacClean runs around putting out other people’s fires when he often shouldn’t and Sara simply isn’t positionally diligent. So straight away there you have created a model that won’t really work when people revert to their baseline tendencies. 

@Parma Ham's gone mouldy that comment suggests to me that you have already noted a flaw in the tactics chosen. If those players will resort to their base tendencies then isn’t it down to the coach to modify his tactics?

Quote

Wagner of course looks a busted flush - in many senses, not least in terms of his footballing ideas for the team - though I think we should avoid another ‘new day silver bullet’ answer that has repeatedly shown to rarely work. 

Not sure where that leaves the club? If a coach is unable to recognise and adjust his tactics accordingly where do we go? It’s like he’ll continue to try the thing that doesn’t work with the inevitable results. At some point surely the players lose faith in that approach and we get the going through the motions efforts.

The is the broader question here too, that establishing a way of playing has to involve a willingness to adopt the strategy and stick to it, applying it throughout the playing hierarchy to allow continuity if it is to succeed. Wasn’t that what we tried to do with Farke. At some level the SD has to stick to that plan too even when there are bumps in the road. We seem to have simply abandoned that believing it can’t work leaving ourselves in a colossal mess.

[king canary 7,624]

I do also wonder what lessons the club has learned from its first experience in this model for Knapper.

For me, two things....

1. Maybe the SD should have a less all encompassing role. I think it was written somewhere that Webber had significantly more power than most SD's in the UK. In some ways this can be a positive as the club can be shaped in a singular vision but it can also be a negative when there are no checks and balances on this all powerful individual. I'm hoping (paging @shefcanary) that there will be some form of CEO type figure in the mix along with Knapper.
2. The SD shouldn't be front and center when it comes to the press/interviews. Webber set his stall out early on that he was going to a much more public figure than most in his role and it often led to issues. I know people will say 'the fans demanded to hear from Webber' but there is a chicken/egg scenario in that Webber was front and center from the off, setting expectations that he would be heard from. A quick google of 'Kieran Scott interview' throws up very few examples of him sitting down with the press. I think Knapper may be better suited to that style of interaction, or he should get the media training Webber so badly needed.

[shefcanary 2,435]

2 hours ago, Jim Smith said:

It all comes back to selling Buendia on promotion and the recruitment afterwards.

It was going wrong before this. The switch from Farke's preferred 4-2-3-1 to 4-3-3 without a full review of the implications for the academy was when the rot started.

[shefcanary 2,435]

1 hour ago, Morph said:

It raises another question, where are the leaders on the pitch if the manager has abdicated responsibility?

We haven't had a true leader on the pitch since before Farke's appointment. In a way it wasn't needed under Farke initially, only when he was forced to adopt a new structural style. It is why I have been so critical in the past on the reliance on Hanley and McLean to provide this leadership - both are, visibly to me anyway, absolutely crap at providing it. Hanley is extremely self-contained, whereas McLean is almost the exact opposite. Combine their two leadership competencies and you might have a born leader, but having two separate styles just confuses the hell out of colleagues.

The failure to find such a leader is one of Webber's major failings in a way; his reliance on other competencies overlooked the need for a leader. In a way I think Wagner sought to achieve this by recommending the signing of Duffy and Barnes; its a shame the latter got injured, the leadership needed right now might have been provided by him. 

[shefcanary 2,435]

21 minutes ago, king canary said:

I'm hoping (paging @shefcanary) that there will be some form of CEO type figure in the mix along with Knapper.

A true sporting general manager type as employed in the US maybe? I was watching the World Series on iPlayer yesterday and was intrigued by how much time the commentators focussed on both clubs GM's? I am confident that Zoe will make a fine CEO at say a charity or services company, but she is a project manager, not a leader.

We need someone who has created sparks in the past in a team environment who can provide vision and true leadership during times of stress. Not someone who gets buried in Gannt charts and setting individual targets.

[ron obvious 1,514]

5 minutes ago, shefcanary said:

We haven't had a true leader on the pitch since before Farke's appointment. In a way it wasn't needed under Farke initially, only when he was forced to adopt a new structural style. It is why I have been so critical in the past on the reliance on Hanley and McLean to provide this leadership - both are, visibly to me anyway, absolutely crap at providing it. Hanley is extremely self-contained, whereas McLean is almost the exact opposite. Combine their two leadership competencies and you might have a born leader, but having two separate styles just confuses the hell out of colleagues.

The failure to find such a leader is one of Webber's major failings in a way; his reliance on other competencies overlooked the need for a leader. In a way I think Wagner sought to achieve this by recommending the signing of Duffy and Barnes; its a shame the latter got injured, the leadership needed right now might have been provided by him. 

Yes, I can't see Barnes being happy with the squad mentality at the moment. I can imagine him physically threatening one or two of our players unless they start giving a sh!t. Duffy probably also could, but I think he knows he's finished & can't really be asked any more.

[essex canary 497]

4 minutes ago, shefcanary said:

A true sporting general manager type as employed in the US maybe? I was watching the World Series on iPlayer yesterday and was intrigued by how much time the commentators focussed on both clubs GM's? I am confident that Zoe will make a fine CEO at say a charity or services company, but she is a project manager, not a leader.

We need someone who has created sparks in the past in a team environment who can provide vision and true leadership during times of stress. Not someone who gets buried in Gannt charts and setting individual targets.

An individual target for filing a document at Companies House would be good. Not to mention checking requirements to declare Board members family relationships where appropriate.

[Robert N. LiM 4,426]

13 hours ago, Parma Ham's gone mouldy said:

Questions on the history:

 

Good as always Parma.

One question. Do Burnley's current struggles support the idea that a move from the idealism of Farkeball to something more pragmatic was the right idea, just ineptly put into practice?

 

[Canary Wundaboy 1,359]

57 minutes ago, king canary said:

Webber's issue to me has always appeared to be ego. I think part of the reason he originally loved this job was he got a chance to show off how smart he can be and achieve what others said was impossible. The 21/22 was supposed to be the jewel in his crown- how he, Stuart Webber, had built a squad capable of competeing in the Premier League on a shoestring budget. How he had plucked an unknown German coach from obscurity, built a squad based on young players and bargain bin signings from unglamerous corners of the footballing world and hung with the big boys. Failure couldn't happen and it certainly couldn't happen in the manner it was happening under Farke- limp defeats and a team on course for even less points than our first attempt under Farke. The failure was refelcting badly on him and the ego couldn't allow that.

I think he saw changing manager and hiring Smith as the best chance to still achieve what he wanted. It clearly didn't and I don't think it is a coincidence that he's seemingly got more prickly with the press, bitterer in interviews and seemingly less invested in the job since then. I believe he had a vision of keeping us up that season and either walking into another job or just walking away, legend in tact. Instead it all fell apart. 

Great post. 

[king canary 7,624]

10 minutes ago, shefcanary said:

A true sporting general manager type as employed in the US maybe? I was watching the World Series on iPlayer yesterday and was intrigued by how much time the commentators focussed on both clubs GM's? I am confident that Zoe will make a fine CEO at say a charity or services company, but she is a project manager, not a leader.

We need someone who has created sparks in the past in a team environment who can provide vision and true leadership during times of stress. Not someone who gets buried in Gannt charts and setting individual targets.

I think the American model would be hard to employ over here due to the nature of the league set up. Certainly for NFL teams all personnel, roster and cap decisions are made by th GM (some HC's get more input than others) but the nature of American sports leagues means GM's have more room to work on long term planning because they don't have to fear relegation. 

[PurpleCanary 5,570]

5 hours ago, king canary said:

I do also wonder what lessons the club has learned from its first experience in this model for Knapper.

For me, two things....

1. Maybe the SD should have a less all encompassing role. I think it was written somewhere that Webber had significantly more power than most SD's in the UK. In some ways this can be a positive as the club can be shaped in a singular vision but it can also be a negative when there are no checks and balances on this all powerful individual. I'm hoping (paging @shefcanary) that there will be some form of CEO type figure in the mix along with Knapper.
2. The SD shouldn't be front and center when it comes to the press/interviews. Webber set his stall out early on that he was going to a much more public figure than most in his role and it often led to issues. I know people will say 'the fans demanded to hear from Webber' but there is a chicken/egg scenario in that Webber was front and center from the off, setting expectations that he would be heard from. A quick google of 'Kieran Scott interview' throws up very few examples of him sitting down with the press. I think Knapper may be better suited to that style of interaction, or he should get the media training Webber so badly needed.

i think that is probably true, but only because most SDs are not really SDs. Those clubs still have an old-style manager. Whereas we have a head coach, in the continental style. With the idea that it is the SD who sets the overall footballing ethos, so changing the head coach doesn't mean a wholesale churn of players every time.

In practice it hasn't worked out exactly like that recently, because the club decided that events needed to be reacted to. In short we dumped Farke and Farkeball because it had failed twice in the Premier League. And leaving aside the wisdom or not of that decision the club has since been flailing around, as someone says in a James Bond film, like a kite caught in a hurricane.

I don't think recent events have shown the SD needs to have less power/extent of influence. That our SD model has failed. I want Knapper to have an over-arching vision on how we play football, and to stick to that. Continuity. Otherwise we are just like any other club.

As to a CEO, we have one of those in Zoe Webber. I have no idea if she is powerful enough or - leaving aside elements of her performance  over the new shares, and all that entailed - good or bad at her job. What the board of directors has been missing, and I am with Shef on this, is not so much a powerful CEO as a talented and activist chairman.

They don't actually have to be chairlman per se, but be able to scrutinise all the major plans and decisions. We had such in Bowkett and then Balls. Seeminly not now, but perhaps either Attanasio or the forthcoming second American will fulfil that role. Despite everything, the basics at the club are solid. But there has been a distinct lack of rigour.

Edited October 30, 2023 by PurpleCanary

[nutty nigel 7,554]

3 hours ago, Jim Smith said:

It all comes back to selling Buendia on promotion and the recruitment afterwards. Retain him, find the money for Skipp (or another similar CDM) and secure that centre back we all know we needed and that season looks very different. I even think Todd would have played a lot better with Emi still there are well. Settled side, settled formation bolstered by two or three key signings which incidentally is what Bailey tells us Farke wanted too. 
 

look at the first two major signings Brentford made. First choice CDM target and beat us to Ajer. Neither are regularly in their side now but they did the job in the first half of that prem season. 
 

But we couldn’t do that and partly, in fairness to Webber who I despise, because our owners continue to hold us back as well. Don’t get me wrong I don’t think we should have sold Emi full stop, but having decided he needed to buy what he bought, Webber obviously felt he had to do it to fund his spending spree. 

You despise him?

 

[Robert N. LiM 4,426]

1 hour ago, PurpleCanary said:

With the idea that it is the SD who sets the overall footballing ethos, so changing the head coach doesn't mean a wholesale change of players every time.

 

1 hour ago, PurpleCanary said:

the club decided that events needed to be reacted to. In short we dumped Farke and Farkeball because it had failed twice in the Premier League. And leaving aside the wisdom or not of that decision

 

1 hour ago, PurpleCanary said:

 I want Knapper to have an over-arching vision on how we play football, and to stick to that. Continuity. Otherwise we are just like any other club.

In theory I agree with all of this. And what I loved at the time, and am still mourning now, is that we did have a distinct identity: the self-funding club trying to compete with the oligarchs and petrostates through a coherent footballing philosophy and noise-cancelling headphones. For a while it looked like it might work, and it was glorious. Cantwell's goal against Man City!

But, and this is the point of my question to @Parma Ham's gone mouldy above, what happens when that model hits its ceiling? Do you accept that, stick with it, continue to fly in the face of the TalkSport idiots laughing at the yo-yo club that's 'not even trying to compete'? Do you do your best to explain to the fans that even though you keep finishing bottom of the PL, you're going to stick with the same strategy? Or do you change it?

Obviously that attempt at changing failed. And now we're mired in Championship mediocrity (hopefully!) and our USP has gone. But in such circumstances it's easy to imagine that the counterfactual would have been a third straight Championship title in the swaggering Farkeball style, and then a much better go at the PL the third time around. But do we really believe that? Sans Buendía? With an ageing Pukki deprived of his partner in crime? Much more likely that DF would have been struggling in the Championship after another purgatorial season in the PL, that the fans would have been calling for his head. I'm not sure we'd be in a very different position now.

I think virtually everyone would agree that the summer after the second Farke promotion was a disaster, and it all unravelled from there. But I think it's also true that the way English football is currently set up is exceptionally inhospitable for a club trying to do things the way we were. Everything has to go right. It's really difficult to get it right, and it only takes a couple of mistakes, setbacks or moments of ill luck for it all to come crashing down.

I get why people are angry. But I reflect on the last few years more in sorrow than anger.

[komakino 272]

2 hours ago, king canary said:

This is largely how I see it too. 

Farke isn't blameless for his sacking- he was getting nothing out of the new players Webber had bought in and I find it interesting that a number of them have gone on to have success elsewhere. Rashica was excellent in Turkey, Kabak has been a regular for a solid Bundesliga side, PLM is apparently playing very well in the French top division and Gilmour has shown, with the right set up, that he isn't terrible.

I don't think Webber gave Farke the squad he wanted but Farke seemed to refuse to even try and make it work with the players he had and that couldn't continue. As you say Farke wasn't bought in and it showed. 

This isn't to argue Webber did a good job that summer- I don't think he did- but I don't think he did such a terrible job that 5 points from 11 was the best anyone could do.

Webber's issue to me has always appeared to be ego. I think part of the reason he originally loved this job was he got a chance to show off how smart he can be and achieve what others said was impossible. The 21/22 was supposed to be the jewel in his crown- how he, Stuart Webber, had built a squad capable of competeing in the Premier League on a shoestring budget. How he had plucked an unknown German coach from obscurity, built a squad based on young players and bargain bin signings from unglamerous corners of the footballing world and hung with the big boys. Failure couldn't happen and it certainly couldn't happen in the manner it was happening under Farke- limp defeats and a team on course for even less points than our first attempt under Farke. The failure was refelcting badly on him and the ego couldn't allow that.

I think he saw changing manager and hiring Smith as the best chance to still achieve what he wanted. It clearly didn't and I don't think it is a coincidence that he's seemingly got more prickly with the press, bitterer in interviews and seemingly less invested in the job since then. I believe he had a vision of keeping us up that season and either walking into another job or just walking away, legend in tact. Instead it all fell apart. 

None of Farke's targets were purchased, so from his perspective, the Sporting Director let him down. 

Webber was concerned that Farke's squad were having too many injuries, so that justified him in buying many players where the logic would have been to pay larger wages to fill the big holes left by Skipp and Buendia instead. 

For me and some others, Webber's recruitment for the last EPL campaign was the worst ever for which the club has never recovered. 

[Parma Ham's gone mouldy 2,224]

2 hours ago, Robert N. LiM said:

Good as always Parma.

One question. Do Burnley's current struggles support the idea that a move from the idealism of Farkeball to something more pragmatic was the right idea, just ineptly put into practice?

 

Excellent Robert. That is precisely the case study to look at.

Burnley were pragmatic, defensively-organized, good at set pieces, clear methodology even.

Why on earth would they shift to positional play?

Why did they move away from what we are now trying to create, whilst moving towards what we rejected?

Both things cannot simultaneously be right can they?

Parma 

[Robert N. LiM 4,426]

13 minutes ago, Parma Ham's gone mouldy said:

Excellent Robert. That is precisely the case study to look at.

Burnley were pragmatic, defensively-organized, good at set pieces, clear methodology even.

Why on earth would they shift to positional play?

Why did they move away from what we are now trying to create, whilst moving towards what we rejected?

Both things cannot simultaneously be right can they?

Parma 

Are these rhetorical questions?!

 

It's interesting, isn't it? Because they survived for a number of years in the PL playing very pragmatic football, as you describe. They got a lot of criticism for doing so. Anti-football, they called it. So if you're a pauper club trying to play like Farke NCFC, you are naïve; if you play Dycheball you are 'anti-football'. If your club is bankrolled by Mohamed bin Salman, you're lauded to the skies (perhaps not surprisingly given what happens to journalists who criticise MBS, but that's another story...)

I wonder if Burnley also failed to ignore the noise? Or did they feel that their anti-football, while successful in ensuring PL survival for many years, was existentially pointless and went for something grander. Well, it ain't working so far... But they stick with Kompany, and I'd love to see them succeed.

[hogesar 9,705]

1 hour ago, nutty nigel said:

You despise him?

 

I was told in no uncertain terms by posters on here that no-one "hated" Webber.....

[Midlands Yellow 4,012]

2 minutes ago, hogesar said:

I was told in no uncertain terms by posters on here that no-one "hated" Webber.....

Wasn’t that Delia? 

[Parma Ham's gone mouldy 2,224]

Some excellent posts from @king canary @Robert N. LiM and @PurpleCanary all leading into something I wanted to add and didn’t get round to. 

In Europe there are multiple, well-established examples of what a Sporting Director is and does. And also -crucially - why he or she exists.

Old school managers were typically ex-players and brought in their mates. There was a real gravy train of money, little corporate oversight (who knew?) and you used the fans to push the board for money to buy players they couldn’t afford to keep you in the job six months longer. You often brought in players from before because then you had more of the changing room ‘onside’ for longer. 

There were a few Director of Football roles first in the UK, which typically saw an old sweat provide a reporting - and eye on the training pitch - link to the board, whose money was being splurged. 

A Sporting Director role addresses the issue of that revolving door of mercenary managers, pushing you to spend money - any money, on somebody new, sexy, the key piece of the puzzle! - that created a revolving door of instability, high costs and lack of meaningful oversight. 

So the Sporting Director created an over-arching vision of how to approach the game according to the club, culture and parameters he finds. 

He then works with a scouting team, data analysis team, academy, loans, other clubs, to present interesting options to the head coach - all within an agreed framework. The blueprint is thus pretty sacrosanct and key. 

The Head Coach you employ has to like it, buy into it, fit with it naturally. The players will all be suited to it, have a fairly clear place within it, a profile of skills that suit it.

Financially any purchases are thus ‘for the good of the club’ and should be useful to any future head coach also. Rarely is short-termism, keep-me-in-a-Job-ism, or ‘my mate says’ on the agenda. There is a conveyor belt of seamless, logical, pre-planned recruitment, sales and development. Events of course happen, though knee-jerkism is minimised. 

I think it is instructive here to introduce the concept of the (European) Technical Director here. This may shine a light on where some demarcation lines sit. 

A Technical Director might be the one to look at Structural developments for the good of the club. They might decide that investment is needed in the Academy or training pitches, they might feel that a hydro-pool is required, a Soccerbot, they might deal with regulators, they might work on developing facilities.

I mention this because a Sporting Director typically wouldn’t or doesn’t. 
 

A good example of such Corporate structure in action might be to place ourselves in a board meeting where training ground investment is on the agenda.

The Sporting Director wants to buy an expensive weapon. He has the Head Coach’s backing. The Technical Director feels that redevelopment of the training facilities is long overdue. Both arguments have merit. 

The Board deliberate - there is a only one pot of money of course - and they ultimately decide where the limited funds shall be directed. 

Otherwise of course you get a ‘land grab’. Where one person with one role stretches their power and influence into all corners of the company. Ironically in a grotesque mirroring of the footballing problem we first identified as the reason for the Sporting Director role! 
 

..funny old game saint…but ‘we let the managers manage’

Parma 

Edited October 30, 2023 by Parma Ham's gone mouldy
If I was feeling mischevious, might it be very unfair to suggest that Webber land-grabbed a bit of training ground development glory from Zoe? He may have said ‘yes’ instead of buying a young reserve winger, though is that really all to his credit?

[Morph 19]

Good to see another thoughtful and considered thread.

Question is does a Farkeball v2 (say) and overarching vision and strategy get us to the promised land and fixed there or is it simply all pie in the sky?

I think the monied clubs have to leave the English game if there is any hope for the rest.

Are we happy to be a yo yo club like the early Farke successes or do we have to be something different?