Gurusprovince
Old Manager: Enters club, signs new players to join the old, plays them for a while and then decides on who to sell midseason or end of season.
Young Manager: Enters club. 1 month later, posts a list of 12 players that should look for a new club because he has no plans for them.
Football is changing and should change but boards need to insist on practicality, resourcefulness, and to some extent, loyalty to players in a club.
They should insist on it because while it’s okay to let a manager have players he needs to deliver results, it’s also unwise to allow every new manager ship out players.
If every manager is allowed to ship out 5-10 players to accommodate their own playing style, what happens when you have 3 managers in 7 years? You’d have shipped out 15-30 players in 7 years because of different managers?
It’s why transfer policy and playing styles need to be established by club hierarchy and managers signed to play the footballing style that the club wants.
Football is changing but if transfer policy is driven by every new manager’s playing style, it strips the club of soul and identity.
It’s why I’m optimistic about Manchester United’s new approach and would like to see how it plays out.
Beyond that, it usher’s football into a new era where players have no loyalty at all.
Football is a business, yes, but if players can be pushed out anytime because of a new manager, why should that player not jump ship at the shiniest offers when he has the chance.
When we enter this new era, as usual, we’d be fixated on the problem rather than the failings that led to that problem.
Young, idealistic managers with discombobulated playing styles are the cool thing in football these days but club leaderships need to put their foot down on policies and playing styles or they’d find out soon down the line how much problem not doing so has caused them.
Ndiyo!
Written by James Ogunjimi
That’s why I envy Spanish teams, the board makes these decisions.
Vinicius might have been shipped out if he was in a pl team after that first season.
That question of loyalty has watered down whatever affinity fans had with the clubs they support.
Supporting AC Milan used to mean a subscription to the personality of the club, and the players that help exemplify that ideology.
There’s something ominous in supporting a Chelsea team that was defined by the likes of Kante, Rudiger and Mason mount et al and then waking up just two years down the line to find those players sprinkled across the globe, plying their trade in different leagues.
Without consistency, there can be no identity, and without an identity, you cannot ask for loyalty. Club football is the biggest show of loyalty to anything other than love and family.
There’s a need to balance the capitalist side of football with sentiment, else it’ll be difficult to separate football from a reality show that rewards participants.
You’re absolutely right.
The very fact that you’re listing players you want rid of depreciates the value of those players which hurts the financial aspect of the club.
No one is going to pay top dollar for a player you deem surplus to requirements. Every buying club will be lining up to low-ball the hell out of you.
Very silly thing to do
r3xcid