Could Pep Guardiola and Jose Mourinho do a better job at Aston Villa and Cardiff than Steve Bruce and Neil Warnock and conversely could Bruce and Warnock do a better job at Manchester City and United? Just to be clear on my stance I am yet to be convinced by Guardiola / Mourinho especially as they both now have to rebuild teams rather than inherit one.
A hypothetical question for the blogs football fans
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Emperor’s new clothes in both instances.
Mourinho had the po’ boy coming up excuse down pat at Porto which is a very well resourced team while Guardiola has always flossed with Stradivarius strings while bathing in asses’ milk at all his clubs. To me, they’re both Bengal lancers
Warnocks success tends to depend on his choice of goal keeper and defenders – he also had about 3/4 strikers in and out on loan but that’s been due to lack of money at teams . I think if he a bigger team he’d have a more consistent Strike force But then. If you have a player out with long term injuries You lose the goals you rely on to win matches
This is a sort of theoretical “Management Style” question.
Some are comfortable operating at the highest level, whilst others will do their best work out of the spotlight.
It’s all about finding the right “fit”
Brendan Rogers was hailed as a saviour when he arrived at Reading, after much good work and plaudits at Chelsea. He didn’t thrive at Reading and left “bu mutual consent” with the club in 20th place.
His subsequent achievements at Swansea, and the early Liverpool reign shows he was a good manager, just not right for that particular club.
He seems to be doing OK at Celtic, but probably couldn’t cut it at a top Premier League club.
Another example of “fit” (this time from the 70s/80s) is John Bond.
Did well at Bournemouth, established Norwich City in Division 1, went to Man City and spent a fortune. Apart from the 1981 FA Cup Final, his most “notable achievement” was overseeing their relegation
Graham Taylor and Steve McLaren also fall into this “fit” category – admirable, almost beyond expectation, performance at small clubs, give ’em a big job and …
Ranieri proved that with the right players adapting to well thought out tactics then anything is possible.
Mourinho’s career stems from winning the Champions League with an unfancied team.
Inter Milan?
Porto
😉
After this afternoon I could do a better job at United! FFS Jose!
Bruce has achieved 4 promotions from the Championship but has also been relegated at least twice if not three times from the Prem. Most likely he will get the shite, sorry Villa, into the playoffs but not automatic.
Mourinho is a big headed cunt who looks like he might be getting payback.
Well as a City fan I can (rarely sadly) say I was at the match this afternoon. For the first 45 minutes (cut to 1 on MOTD I am guessing) we couldn’t pass a kidney stone, and Stones took the return of Komps as his cue to have a bit of a mare. Second 45 we upped the tempo, played with 2 strikers which gave their defence more to think about and they were hanging on a bit at the end. It’s already clear that not only is the PL competitive in a way that Spain or Germany aren’t – tonight the top 5 are separated by a single point – managers such as Puel, Koeman, and Ranieri are making more and more matches have tactical sophistication on both sides.
As to the Pep Revolution, its pretty clear that the back three playing out from the back three stuff is a work in progress. Kolarov and Stones both look less than 100% comfortable receiving the ball under sustained pressure. Southampton were able to compress the space and De Bruyne, Gundogan and Silva had virtually no space to work in. Yes I think he could do a better job at Villa – because the opposition will not be of the quality we’re seeing this year across the PL. Steve Bruce I think could do perhaps as good a job as Mark Hughes, the first post-UAE manager. As good as Mancini, Pellegrini or Guardiola? Not sure.
I’ve just looked back at Hughes’ first choice team and would have been:
Given, Kompany, Zabalata, Toure, Bridge, Barry, Ireland, De Jong, Wright-Phillips, Adebayor, Tevez. I think Warnock or Steve Bruce could have guided that lot to a fifth place finish as Hughes/Mancini did. I’d have liked to see them managing Tevez though.
Some interesting thoughts but would Jose or Pep be able to instantly inspire lower league as well as they manipulate / motivate hyper sensitive millionaires, or not as it seems at the moment….. Calling @Bingo-Little
I must say I do like Guardiola’s management philosophy, which goes roughly: pick the wealthiest team in a given league, and then manage that team.
I would really love to see Guardiola or Mourinho take on a Championship – say – side, give them a 5-year remit and see how they do. My money would be on Mourinho to do better, given his work with Porto.
I think you’re right. Mourinho in his mind is re-enacting How Steeple Sinderby Wanderers won the FA cup even at MU. Pep I think would have less success with a back 3 /no forwards approach at Rotherham.
It’s all reputation, innit?
I don’t believe that Mourinho is necessarily a better coach than Bruce but he has an international reputation that players respect and attracts the good ones to the club. In addition, his track record means that owners are willing to risk larger amounts in the transfer market.
Guardiola is relatively unproven having been gifted tremendous quality players, head and shoulders above others in their respective leagues. However, Champions League trophies don’t lie. We’ll soon see how his tactical genius applies to the Premier League.
The elephant in the room for Guardiola’s method is that it needs the very highest quality players to make it work. He had those at Barca and Bayern, but doesn’t yet at Citeh. It remains to be seen if they can recruit the people he needs to make it work here. The general style in England will also make it more difficult, teams are inclined to press and harry rather than sit back and let a team play in front of them. The best place left tfor his method to work unconditionally is PSG, in the only place he hasn’t been with a club that far outstrips the local competition in buying power and guaranteed Champions League potential.
Mourinho seems a busted flush to me. He has his method, it worked at Porto, and at Chelsea the first time. Seems to be getting diminishing returns every move since. Mannited might just finish him off (he said, hopefully).
True that, as my son would say. As a City fan it seems that every week brings news of another player who has incurred the Wrath Of Pep. Yaya frozen out straight away, Hart and Nasri (few tears for the latter) dispatched on loan. Komps is seemingly part of the past rather than the future (lots of tears – a fine man as well as a footballer) and today maybe even Serge. Who doesn’t really do the tracking back – thinking about his hamstrings – and the high press. He doesn’t do tiki-taka as why would you not run at the goal and shoot at it? He just puts the ball in the net better than anyone else in the PL. The Greavsie de nos jours. We are in a tough love phase of our relationship with Pep – the first date swooning is clearly all over. As to whether he’ll get (mimimum I think in Pepworld) a new right-back, leftback, MF schemer and pressing/harrying/tikitakiing/goalscoring forward we’ll see.
Yep, Citeh will come unstuck if the dogmatic stance on playing out from the back remains. The keeper seems out of the Jens Lehman “how dare you not give me the space I demand?” mould and will lose them half a dozen goals this season, similar to what happened last week against Barelona.
Noticable how Bravo in the second half passed it to Kolarov who…hoofed it upfield. Or even hoofed it upfield himself.
One final thought @dave-amitri – Rafa Benitez is pretty close to being in the the Pep/Jose class has and has managed Real, Inter and Liverpool….and seems to be doing the trick in the Championship. So I think Pep or Jose could definitely make a difference at a Newcastle or Villa in the Championship – Rotherham or Burton perhaps not so much
Enthusiasm might also be a factor.
Leicester, Benitez at Newcastle, Klopp at Liverpool.
The current Man. Utd. manager looks for all the world as if someone’s just stolen his Bryan Adams collection.
@mosleymoles Rafa is an interesting one isn’t he? Took the job on and the board and seems to be creating some momentum. As it’s Newcastle expect a derailment at some point but a strong Newcastle is always a good thing. He failed at Liverpool i.e. never won the league, failed at real Madrid i.e. never won the Champions league but I still think he’s done more real “managing” than the fantasy stuff Pep and Jose engage in. @deramdaze Agree re Mourinho he seems to be so out of touch now in a way that even Fergie never was, a complete yesterdays man, a broken, unwound cassette in a digital world…….
@dave-amitri Dudek Finnan Carragher Hypia Traore Alonso Garcia Gerrard Riise Kewell Baros v dida Cafu Stam Nesta Maldini Pirlo Kaka Seedorf Gattuso Crespo Shevchenko. It’s always a debate as to what effect managers can have other than subs once a match starts, but no question that he took a fair to middling PL side – only Gerrard and possibly Alonso would have got in the Milan side – and won the CL with it. I say all this as a City fan, he overachieved with that side. As Mourinho (playing against a much weaker opponent) did with Porto. Pep and since Porto Mourinho have never over-achieved bearing in mind the quality of the resources available.
Can’t disagree with that, I wonder how Chelsea feel having had him and let him go?
The Chelsea faithful remain a tad divided over how to regard Jose.
I’m in the ‘glad he’s gone’ camp, and I genuinely consider it’s sign of Man U’s desperation that they wanted him.
I don’t think he’ll succeed at OT & reckon the eventual implosion will be even more unseemly than when Chelsea sacked him.
As for Rafa, he’s regarded as an aberration and universally detested. The fact he won trophies counts for nothing. He wasn’t wecome from day one & everyone cheered when he went.
He’s a decent if uninspiring manager, whose success is essentially about playing the percentages & achieving solid results.
He’s beloved at Anfield, largely due to the ‘Miracle of Instanbul’, yet success that night was down to the tactics book being abandoned in the 2nd half after his side were shredded in the first.
I think that night led Liverpool to keep him on well after his sell by date, essentially because nobody wanted to show him the door.
OOAA but they’re wrong.
Point of order; Guardiola’s first season at Barcelona was one of the greatest managerial over achievements of all time.
We seem to be in a classically English phase right now of down playing Pep’s abilities until he truly “proves himself” by winning the premier league, and delighting in every faint mis-step along the way. Partly because of this, I think an awful lot of people have forgotten exactly what happened to Barca in Guardiola’s first year there, or otherwise convinced themselves that the ascent of that side would have occurred no matter who was in situ. That being the case, let’s recap….
2007/08 saw Barcelona finish a distant third in La Liga, fully 18 points behind Real Madrid and without winning any of the other competitions they entered. In fact, they won only three of their last fifteen domestic fixtures.
The side had a listless feel to it – Ronaldinho and Deco were the great talismans charged with running the midfield, but their off field proclivities meant that “running” was some way down their list of priorities.
Absolutely nobody was looking at that side and predicting that they’d sweep all before them the following year. It was simply unthinkable. Particularly when they handed the reigns to a rookie coach.
The art of football management is complicated. It involves multiple layers – acquiring new players, managing the ones you have and implementing your tactics. It’s fair to say that Guardiola nailed each of those three layers in 2008/9 to a degree that’s almost startling. In his very first press conference he announced that Ronaldinho (still just 27 and a global superstar) and Deco were finished at the club. This was partly reflective of their on pitch efforts (or lack thereof), but also partly a means to protect the 19 year old Leo Messi, who had been taken under Ronaldinho’s increasingly ample wing and was being introduced to some bad habits at an impressionable age.
Next, Guardiola brought in the players he needed. Gerard Pique (who has been on and off the best centre back in Europe for the subsequent 8 years) was shipped back from Man Utd for peanuts. Dani Alves was bought for a small fortune. Most importantly of all, Andres Iniesta, Pedro and Sergio Busquets were promoted to the first team. That latter name is particularly significant; people were stunned when Guardiola began to drop Yaya Toure for the gangly Busquets at defensive midfield, but that decision has subsequently been proved correct a thousand times over. Busquets is one of the smartest footballers of his generation and was a key part of the platform on which Barca’s success has been built. Guardiola also placed greater emphasis on Messi and, critically, devised a stringent new training regime which would free him from the recurrent niggling injuries which had plagued him to that point.
Tactically, Guardiola revolutionised Barca. They did not play “tiki taka” under Frank Rijkaard. They pressed nowhere near as hard, and they were far less prone to the sort of experimentation which Guardiola regularly deployed to win games. Xavi was pushed further forward than previously in his career, Messi was given license to roam, Dani Alves was frequently asked to play as a full back and winger at the same time, which he did with aplomb. Guardiola spent over a year prior to his managerial career commencing travelling the globe and building a philosophy, largely based on that of Mario Bielsa. When he arrived at Barcelona he deployed a series of ideas about how the game should be played that he’d been brewing for some time, and he also ignored a number of sacred cows in doing so – before Guardiola the trend had been for midfielders who looked like Yaya Toure. After, they all began to look like Xavi, and defenders were expected to play out from the back. I could go on.
Did he over achieve? Well, he won virtually every trophy possible, including the Copa Del Rey, the champs league and la Liga. He put 20 points on his team’s domestic league total (they scored 29 goals more and conceded 8 less, despite taking only a point from their first two games). They wiped the floor with virtually everyone they played that season, and did so playing with enormous style and invention – they basically arrived as a fully formed and conceived side who were five years ahead of their opposition tactically. It was the greatest team performance not just in Barcelona history, but in Spanish football history, and there had been zero sign it was coming the season prior – in fact, the idea would have been laughable, such a shambles had the late period Rijkaard side become. For true perspective; in May 2009 Guardiola’s Barcelona played what may have been Alex Ferguson’s strongest ever XIs in the champs league final. Utd had won it the season before, and were favourites to do so again. Barca played them off the park so badly that night that individual Utd players admitted to being scarred by the experience years later and Ferguson reportedly considered retirement. They spanked probably the best side in Europe on the biggest stage of all, having already won all their domestic trophies. Just unthinkable.
People can argue that with the group of players he had, Guardiola was always going to win things. But that’s a profound misunderstanding of what happened in that season, and isn’t reflected in the views of the players themselves. Nobody ever looks at, say, the great Utd treble side of 99 and suggests that it was easy for Ferguson because he had that outstanding crop of young talent, and rightly so.
I don’t know where Guardiola’s career will end up, I don’t know where city will finish this season. What I do know is that I watched the transition from Rijkaard to Guardiola in real time, and that it remains the greatest managerial achievement of my lifetime – a virtually perfect season at the first time of asking, with revolutionary tactics and enormous flair, all achieved from the ashes of an almighty mess.
Sorry for the long one, just been a bit irked by some of the derision heaped Pep’s way in the press lately and don’t want history to be rewritten, because that Barca side were one of the great delights of my life, and I don’t even support Barcelona.
As for the OP – ask that question anywhere else in Europe and you’d be (rightly) laughed at.
I’d like to make a case for George Graham here. He’s been forgotten about and yet at every club he managed he’s made a positive difference and has always improved players. At Millwall, Arsenal, Leeds United and Spurs. Yes he has a liking for scufflers but he’s had success and it’s not all been the boring stuff. He sorts out the defence and then works on the rest. I thought his two Arsenal championship winning teams were good to watch, he took over an almighty mess at Leeds United and then the season after he got us into Europe. He was largely responsible for turning Lucas Radebe into one of the best centre backs in the league, He would never reach Guardiola like levels of beautiful football and would probably leave Messi on the bench for some awkward away game, but he deserves to be fondly remembered as a quality manager.
He’s probably been airbrushed out of history because he is one of the few managers who has been proven to be corrupt.
And making Dirty Leeds a winning side is something to be deplored, not celebrated.
No mention yet for Pochettino at Spurs. As a long suffering supporter who has seen so many false dawns, he is definitely the real deal when it comes to building and managing a team. But…he was the perfect ‘fit’ for Spurs because of their situation financially – a shrewd eye for talent, an improver of players who buy in to the philosophy, exactly what was required while the new stadium is being built.