Rethinking the future 0 Posted December 30, 2006 Over the past few weeks, many a post has been written about how the current situation is the fault of Worthington, Grant, or the board, and how much better things were back in the 60''s, 70''s, 80''s, and 90''s depending on who was writing.The true cause of the problem lies with the players. They have all the power.To be a successful side (and lets all agree on a definition on what success actually is this season), you do not need the best players, you need a good TEAM.We are arguing about Safri and is he better than others in the squad? It doesnt matter at all if he does not want to be part of a TEAM. Hughs is getting a lot of stick. We are probably all agreed he would never make it at the very highest level, but you can put him anywhere in the side and he will always give it his best shot as he wants to be part of the team, where as others complain about the team formation and that they are not playing in their preferred position and blame everyone else but themselves for poor performances.The problem with parachute money is that there is less motivation for players to give it their best effort every week. For example, if Drury was on £10K/week in the championship before promotion, he would probably earn £20K/week in the prem. He has a good incentive to play well and put himself in the "shop window". When we get relegated, his wages would drop to £15K/week meaning that he still gets good money, but if the side is not successful, he could easily command that money from future employers due to premiership experience. We need to get players who have ambition. Currently, we have all seen that the current squad is short on ambition. It doesn''t matter how good they are, if they cant play together as a team, and have no ambition, then we will not succeed. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Freddy H 0 Posted January 1, 2007 What a great post this is, it completely sums up thepredicament of NCFC very well. Parachute payments have ruined the club.Imagine if you are an average player and it’s the first year after relegation,your contract finishes at the end of the season, or you are new to theclub. You try very hard, putting the effort in, train well and setting upthe odd goal or two, you want to be part of the TEAM; you are then rewardedwith an extended contract of around £5K to £7.5K per week. Bingo you havewon the lottery, your contract extension bags you approx £500,000 for thenext 18 months, thanks to the parachute money. So its now 3-4 months intothe season, a bit cold and wet, you can''t be bothered to run about, cover, slipin a great pass to the forwards, hey I can be rubbish and still pocket my £5K aweek, sod the TEAM I am alright Jack (Paul, Peter, Yousef, Craig, Dickson, Carl, Andy, etc etc).What incentive does the average player have in really giving his all for theteam? If the club is promoted to the Premiership Joe Average is sold andin comes Carlos Kickabout and JohnnyForeigner on £15K a week. No its better for Joe Average to have one goodgame in three, keep it ticking along, win, lose, lose, draw, lose, win. Bugger we missed out on the playoffs but my £500K is safe for another season,thanks Mr Parachute.RTF is spot on, we need players with ambition. All Mouth and Kilt needsto be checking out leagues one, two and Scottish Prem for those ambitiousplayers at clubs that may not make promotion. The real question is can he get them signed on low wages and mould theminto a TEAM. It’s a tough one for AM&K but if he can sort it then wemay start to back him as a decent manager. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
silver fox 0 Posted January 1, 2007 [quote user="Rethinking the future"]Over the past few weeks, many a post has been written about how the current situation is the fault of Worthington, Grant, or the board, and how much better things were back in the 60''s, 70''s, 80''s, and 90''s depending on who was writing. The true cause of the problem lies with the players. They have all the power. To be a successful side (and lets all agree on a definition on what success actually is this season), you do not need the best players, you need a good TEAM. We are arguing about Safri and is he better than others in the squad? It doesnt matter at all if he does not want to be part of a TEAM. Hughs is getting a lot of stick. We are probably all agreed he would never make it at the very highest level, but you can put him anywhere in the side and he will always give it his best shot as he wants to be part of the team, where as others complain about the team formation and that they are not playing in their preferred position and blame everyone else but themselves for poor performances. The problem with parachute money is that there is less motivation for players to give it their best effort every week. For example, if Drury was on £10K/week in the championship before promotion, he would probably earn £20K/week in the prem. He has a good incentive to play well and put himself in the "shop window". When we get relegated, his wages would drop to £15K/week meaning that he still gets good money, but if the side is not successful, he could easily command that money from future employers due to premiership experience. We need to get players who have ambition. Currently, we have all seen that the current squad is short on ambition. It doesn''t matter how good they are, if they cant play together as a team, and have no ambition, then we will not succeed.[/quote]Whilst I agree with a lot of what you say the manager has still got a big part to play in putting a team together. I was impressed when Grant came in and stated that he would not play players out of position, when he had others at the club who could play there, and that he wouldn''t be afraid to give the youngsters a chance. Unfortunately he hasn''t for the main part practised what he preached. If you are a squad member who plays in a certain position, and you see the player occupying that position get injured, you would assume from the managers comments that you would get a chance. With the exception of Eagle this has not happened, and coincidentally he is the only youngster to have been given a start by Grant.The other big issue is that the squad players, like the crowd, can see when a player is not performing week in week out, but they still get in the team. If the team is winning, despite some poor individual performances, then it is not a problem, but this has not been the case with City recently.The manager is the ultimate person for putting a team together and ensuring that he is honest with all his players. It is not an easy task to man manage a group of 25 individuals and try to keep them all happy, but at the end of the day a large chunk of that so called parachute payment goes to the manager, and like the players he needs to earn it. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites