Interesting insight on Scholes' departure ...

[Clarets4me]

Today in the " Telegraph " , full text here as it's behind a paywall ....


" The surprise is that it lasted as long as it did for Paul Scholes at Oldham. Thirty-one days after being appointed as manager and telling reporters he would not have taken the job were he not sure he would have total control over playing matters, he walked out of Boundary Park last week shaking his head at the manner in which his control turned out to be substantially less than total. Scoring the winner in the last moments of a Manchester derby at the Etihad in 2010 suddenly appeared a lot easier than negotiating the course of modern football management.

That takes to five the number of managers Abdallah Lemsagam, the Oldham owner, has seen off the premises in the past 18 months. Scholes, not financially dependent on the job, was able to jump before he could be pushed. But it felt, even at his inaugural press conference, when he sat in the club’s hospitality suite awkwardly failing to appear at ease alongside the owner, that his stay at the club close to his heart was always going to be short.

Though, as he departs to spend more time in the television studio, the haste of his exit feels less of an aberration, more of a trend. So far this season, 36 League managers have lost their jobs; 20 of those to be shown the door had been in the job for less than a year. Never the most secure of callings, management is fast becoming the football equivalent of lion taming: long-service medals are not something to anticipate.

The first thing Scholes was obliged to negotiate when he took up the managerial position at Oldham was that the owner employs his brother, Mohamed, as director of football. Having a relative of the boss staring over his shoulder was never going to be the easiest of positions to be in. And when the new manager discovered that, without consulting him, Mohamed had offered 12 players new contracts for next season, long before he had made any decisions about the future make-up of his squad, he realised any hope of fashioning things his way was a chimera.

It is hard to put out the team you want when you are not in charge of deciding who should be in the squad. This was less a poker hand he had been dealt, more a pair of handcuffs. There is not much about which Scholes would find himself in agreement with his least favourite Manchester United manager, Jose Mourinho, but on this they are of one mind: a director of football reduces a manager’s room for manoeuvre. Where there is a director of football, the manager is never going to stick around for long.

At a club of United’s international heft, where the clamour for such an appointment seems to increase every time the team are beaten, there is an argument it might prove a helpful addition to the overall operation. Provided, that is, recruitment decisions are taken in full consultation with the man in charge of the playing side. At Oldham, having the owner’s brother decide who is going to play next season without actually asking advice from the manager, however, merely added another nail in the coffin of the coach’s independence. This was less interference more emasculation.

Even down the divisions, the days of the impresario manager, controlling everything about a club from the centre-forward’s length of contract to the brand of pies on sale at half-time, are on the wane.

Owners with the tightest of budgets are evermore frequently employing someone above the manager to keep a beady fiscal eye on such matters.

In the process, a cycle is developing: owners bring in directors of football to provide a touch of continuity because they know the manager is not going to be around long, which in turn merely accelerates the speed with which managers are dispensed.

What has long happened at clubs such as Chelsea, where the owner’s representative presides over a revolving door managerial recruitment policy, is becoming ever more the norm. Continuity comes from upstairs, not from the dugout.

Scholes went to Boundary Park with the assumption he would have the same power over day-to-day running as his mentor Sir Alex Ferguson did in his day. He discovered that in the modern game he would have about as much control as Theresa May does over the direction of Brexit. The difference is, when he realised quite how powerless he was, he walked. "

[randomclaret2]

Did he not know that the owner's brother was Director of Football ?

[South West Claret.]

Today in the " Telegraph " , full text here as it's behind a paywall ....


" The surprise is that it lasted as long as it did for Paul Scholes at Oldham. Thirty-one days after being appointed as manager and telling reporters he would not have taken the job were he not sure he would have total control over playing matters, he walked out of Boundary Park last week shaking his head at the manner in which his control turned out to be substantially less than total. Scoring the winner in the last moments of a Manchester derby at the Etihad in 2010 suddenly appeared a lot easier than negotiating the course of modern football management.

That takes to five the number of managers Abdallah Lemsagam, the Oldham owner, has seen off the premises in the past 18 months. Scholes, not financially dependent on the job, was able to jump before he could be pushed. But it felt, even at his inaugural press conference, when he sat in the club’s hospitality suite awkwardly failing to appear at ease alongside the owner, that his stay at the club close to his heart was always going to be short.

Though, as he departs to spend more time in the television studio, the haste of his exit feels less of an aberration, more of a trend. So far this season, 36 League managers have lost their jobs; 20 of those to be shown the door had been in the job for less than a year. Never the most secure of callings, management is fast becoming the football equivalent of lion taming: long-service medals are not something to anticipate.

The first thing Scholes was obliged to negotiate when he took up the managerial position at Oldham was that the owner employs his brother, Mohamed, as director of football. Having a relative of the boss staring over his shoulder was never going to be the easiest of positions to be in. And when the new manager discovered that, without consulting him, Mohamed had offered 12 players new contracts for next season, long before he had made any decisions about the future make-up of his squad, he realised any hope of fashioning things his way was a chimera.

It is hard to put out the team you want when you are not in charge of deciding who should be in the squad. This was less a poker hand he had been dealt, more a pair of handcuffs. There is not much about which Scholes would find himself in agreement with his least favourite Manchester United manager, Jose Mourinho, but on this they are of one mind: a director of
football reduces a manager’s room for manoeuvre. Where there is a director of football, the manager is never going to stick around for long.

At a club of United’s international heft, where the clamour for such an appointment seems to increase every time the team are beaten, there is an argument it might prove a helpful addition to the overall operation. Provided, that is, recruitment decisions are taken in full consultation with the man in charge of the playing side. At Oldham, having the owner’s brother decide who is going to play next season without actually asking advice from the manager, however, merely added another nail in the coffin of the coach’s independence. This was less interference more emasculation.

Even down the divisions, the days of the impresario manager, controlling everything about a club from the centre-forward’s length of contract to the brand of pies on sale at half-time, are on the wane.

Owners with the tightest of budgets are evermore frequently employing someone above the manager to keep a beady fiscal eye on such matters.

In the process, a cycle is developing: owners bring in directors of football to provide a touch of continuity because they know the manager is not going to be around long, which in turn merely accelerates the speed with which managers are dispensed.

What has long happened at clubs such as Chelsea, where the owner’s representative presides over a revolving door managerial recruitment policy, is becoming ever more the norm. Continuity comes from upstairs, not from the dugout.

Scholes went to Boundary Park with the assumption he would have the same power over day-to-day running as his mentor Sir Alex Ferguson did in his day. He discovered that in the modern game he would have about as much control as Theresa May does over the direction of Brexit. The difference is, when he realised quite how powerless he was, he walked. "

Thanks for that C4M a very good read and completely agree with Scholes decision to go, I would have done the same unless it was against my financial interests.

[thatdberight]

That article has almost no content. It's a series of conjectures, commentary on football in general and extrapolations from one fact; a fact which, as others have pointed out, Scholes knew beforehand. Perhaps there was undue interference from the owner. That article doesn't even start to get to it.

[Dark Cloud]

Oh there is definitely undue interference from the owner. The player who they sold to Mansfield recently was quite vocal and extremely disparaging about the owner and the goings on, once he'd left.
I wonder how much the shenanigans there impacted on Dummigan's surprise exit back to Ireland?

[Clarets4me]

Did he not know that the owner's brother was Director of Football ?

He probably did, but I very much doubt Paul Scholes accepted a job where he'd been told beforehand, " You will be the Coach, and my brother, Mohammed, who has had no experience in Professional football, will be your Director of Football, and will tell you which players we will be offering new contracts to, and who we will be signing "

I suspect someone was economical with the truth just to get him through the door ...

[Tricky Trevor]

It wasn’t the fact the brother was director of football. It was the fact the brother gave 12 players new contracts before Scholes had had a chance to assess his squad and see what changes he might like to make.

[Spike]

a manager with zero people's skills was never gonna work

[not waving]

The bit that struck me was the implication that a Director of football puts a squeeze on the manager's ability to be as free as he would want to be.

Is the appointment of the Burnley Director of football a positioning that enables Sean to consider leaving at some time in the future with the DoF in place to steer the replacement?

[Sutton-Claret]

I used to speak to Darren Kelly (one time Oldham manager) on the school yard. One day he said the club had signed David Dunn without his knowledge and he had to play him...... just imagine that

[Long Time Lurker]

The problem with a lot of Technical Directors is that their reach exceeds their grasp or to put it more correctly their egotistical desire to run the big show outstrips their actual football knowledge. Don't get me wrong, some of them are good at their job, but a great many of them are second rate scouts with a minor god complex and a predictable bag of underhanded tricks. A big ego often goes hand in hand with leadership ability, but the best leaders know when to step back and let other people step forward if their skill set and knowledge will give the best chance of success in a given scenario.

In this case the Director of Football was also the owners brother, which raises the serious question of nepotism. Did he get the job because of his ability, experience and proven track record or did he get it because of the family connection. If it's the latter and he is responsible for making important football decisions above and beyond the manager you might as well hire an inflatable manager and blow him up with a foot pump to stand on the sidelines at every match and tactical meeting.

I'm not averse to the benefits of Technical Directors, Sporting Directors, Directors of Football, Great All Knowing Gurus of the Game or whatever people in that position want to call themselves to fan the flames of their own egos. The problem is that because of their hiring and firing remits they want a position in the Hierarchy that is above the manager, even though they generally say they that their job is to assist the manager. In a results based business in which on the pitch performance has a big influence over a clubs future they should be on par with the manager or below them.

The problem is that such individuals tend to have more experience with the business side of football than the playing side and that can cause multiple problems.

If a manager says he or she wants a new midfielder the corporate JOAT (Jack of all trades) can draw up a list of players. Now, these players might be financially acceptable, but unacceptable in terms of playing ability. The manager is then allowed to choose one of them or none of them. So the manager picks one of them, who doesn't perform, and the manager carries the can because he decided what the team needed and picked from what was offered. If the manager doesn't pick one he or she gets blamed for not adding to the squad. It's like playing cards, if you are given a hand of really bad cards, that were picked and not randomly dealt, it isn't your fault if you lose. It is the person who gave you the cards that is to blame. Except in the football arena the manager is in the front line and the fans always call for their head first.

What I can't understand is why the corporate JOAT's always seem to keep their jobs for longer than they should. To my mind if they bring in a manager who doesn't work out then you don't just sack the manager you should also sack the person that hired them. It always seems to take an excessive amount of time before the finger of blame points beyond the manager. However, when it comes to transfer dealings and a clubs overall strategic vision the finger of blame should be firmly pointed at the JOAT first, because that is what they are primarily responsible for.

In terms of football the ascendancy of the JOAT's has been very rapid and it is probably due to the fact that football is now more and more a business. To a growing extent the JOAT's are becoming a valuable necessity, but like anything you can get good ones and bad ones. You can hire a charlatan who relies upon talking a good job or you can get someone who can actually do a good job. It really can go either way.

Unfortunately if a club makes the big mistake of hiring a charlatan they can destroy a club and all the hard work that went into building it up within a few years because of the level of influence they have over every aspect of the decision making process.

Ideally the manager and the JOAT should work together to benefit each other and the club, with the manager taking the lead in all of the football decisions. The JOAT is a support position that exists to take the weight off the manager and the Chairman, nothing more. And in a results based business if things go badly the manager and the JOAT are given their papers at the same time. The best way to ensure they work together is to make them aware that their fortunes are tied together and both of their heads are on the same chopping block, with the Chairman wielding the axe.

Scholes was only in the job long enough to make one big decision, but he made the right decision. If Mohammed wants to pick the team he can manage the team.

[Long Time Lurker]

Is the appointment of the Burnley Director of football a positioning that enables Sean to consider leaving at some time in the future with the DoF in place to steer the replacement?

Supposedly, but if it ever comes to that let us hope he can do it quicker than he did at Fulham.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/footb ... ymons.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

However, in that case he wasn't looking to bring in a new manager he wanted to appoint a Head Coach. In the end he hired Slavisa Jokanovic after a long delay. Although Slavisa also had to contend with a DOF who was keen to take the lead in terms of picking his squad for him.

https://www.westlondonsport.com/fulham/ ... ute-108917" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This short article and video makes something of a mockery of the other thread asking who our next manager would be if Sean should leave. I suspect we would be after a Head Coach and not a Manager.

https://cottagersconfidential.sbnation. ... ger-Fulham" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Hopefully it won't come to that. Sean is an honest and honourable man and one of my greatest fears is that he would see it as his duty to fall on his sword if the worst should happen this season. The clamour from knee jerk fans could possibly propel that thought into his consciousness.

To my mind that could be devastating and up or down he needs to stay with us until we have a better handle on Rigg, what he is about and whether he is up to the job of protecting and building upon all the Garlick, Sean and everyone associated with the club has built.

[ClaretTony]

I’m still here

[Tricky Trevor]

Hopefully it won't come to that. Sean is an honest and honourable man and one of my greatest fears is that he would see it as his duty to fall on his sword if the worst should happen this season. The clamour from knee jerk fans could possibly propel that thought into his consciousness.
To my mind that could be devastating and up or down he needs to stay with us until we have a better handle on Rigg, what he is about.

I mentioned this on another thread and I agree. He’s got us up twice, he is undoubtedly the man to do it a third time. He has also had us playing much better football in the Championship but appears to think we need to be more solid in the PL. With the squad he has I couldn’t argue with him.

[Woodleyclaret]

Scholes is the latest in a long line of ex Man U stars who bombed at management. Who could forget our ill fated appointment of Martin Buchan?

[AndrewJB]

I think it's entirely right and appropriate that there be degrees of oversight over a manager, and transparency within a club. There's nothing wrong with a manager having opinions on the brand of pie to serve, or a club ethos, or how a club conducts relations with the community in which it resides (and indeed there should be a means by which these opinions can be passed forward) - but those things shouldn't be the responsibility of the manager.