Do you trust the judgement of the man who said this?

[pablo73]

We have a great squad and we owe them a Head Coach who will bring out the best in them and allow them to flourish and enjoy a strong, exciting finish to the season.

"We are in the fortunate position of having within our Club a talented coach in Tim Sherwood.

"We believe Tim has both the knowledge and the drive to take the squad forward."

Sherwood is getting abused left, right and centre (much of it deserved I have to say), but let's focus for minute on the man who appointed him and reflect on the statement above. I thought the bolded statement was at best very optimistic at the time, given Sherwood's complete lack of experience; now it seems positively deluded.

How has Sherwood, at best out of his depth and at worst a complete embarrassment, come to be so highly regarded by Levy? Given Levy's track record of hiring managers is mixed at best, do you you trust his judgement in recruiting the next manager (or god forbid keeping Sherwood on)?

I think overall Levy has been a decent chairman but in this area I now have zero confidence in the man.

 

[Col_M]

They are just words and I don't believe Levy plans to keep Sherwood and I honestly think Timbo is in on it. We have a coach lined up and we're waiting to announce it.

 

[pablo73]

Timbo is not in on it. He's not an actor you know. Or a babysitter

 

[scottishbairn]

What did you expect him to say at the time?

 

[KILLA_SIN]

There not going to tell the truth, they have to put an optimistic spin on the situation. They can't come out and say that we can't get any other top coaches in so we have put some bloke in charge who wasn't even allowed near the first team under the previous manager.

Anyway IMO I think Levy is one more manager away from the minority questioning him getting quite a bit bigger.

 

[Dirty Ewok]

We have a great squad and we owe them a Head Coach who will bring out the best in them and allow them to flourish and enjoy a strong, exciting finish to the season.

"We are in the fortunate position of having within our Club a talented coach in Tim Sherwood.

"We believe Tim has both the knowledge and the drive to take the squad forward."

Sherwood is getting abused left, right and centre (much of it deserved I have to say), but let's focus for minute on the man who appointed him and reflect on the statement above. I thought the bolded statement was at best very optimistic at the time, given Sherwood's complete lack of experience; now it seems positively deluded.

How has Sherwood, at best out of his depth and at worst a complete embarrassment, come to be so highly regarded by Levy? Given Levy's track record of hiring managers is mixed at best, do you you trust his judgement in recruiting the next manager (or god forbid keeping Sherwood on)?

I think overall Levy has been a decent chairman but in this area I now have zero confidence in the man.

What else is he going to say though?

For all his faults Levy is a pretty smart guy (same could be said for Baldini) pretty sure he had a good idea there was a chance the season was going to go off the rails.

No chairman is going to stand up and say "Ladies and Gents...the season is over, we are all f*****. So here is Tim. He's uh....well, he's been with the club for a bit and he used to play the game."

We had very few alternatives to choose from, it was basically Tim or someone from the stands. While someone from the stands may make for a good kids movie it may also be enough to cause Uncle Joe to sail himself over to town and kill Levy. So we are left with Tim to ride out the rest of the season.

 

[pablo73]

What did you expect him to say at the time?

All or any of the above but without the bolded statement. Completely unnecessary and now quite ridiculous given how things have panned out. If we'd sacked AVB and replaced him with an experienced manager with a decent pedigree, then fair enough. We replaced hm with a complete novice who's ego far outstrips is ability and therefore this statement was always going to come back and bite him on the arse.

 

[Mr Pink]

I'm a fan of Levy and there's no denying that he runs this Club exceptionally well all things considered but he has to take a good whack of the responsibility for this. Of course if AVB wanted to leave it reduces the responsibility somewhat but we'll never know the exact determination of such.

All we can go on is what officially happened and of course what officially was said, so I think the OP is quite right to highlight those comments because after all it got me thinking about Levy's judgement regarding managerial appointments. Not just his judgment but his patience threshold as well. We hand a remit to a manager to take us into the CL when we're not competing on a level playing field.

That being said we have punched above our weight and a lot of that is down to Levy, but I guess he wants the same from a manager. Problem is that it takes time to get a team to be greater than the sum of its individual parts - a concept Levy seems to struggle with and that's no slight on his other areas of expertise we benefit from but its a recurring theme and one that is starting to wear thin.

I also suspect that the internal structures blur a lot of the lines and that affects the managers capability and partially accounts for the high turnover.

Yeah you can argue those comments are standard lines to fire out, but then again maybe they should of been more considered.

I mean its pretty laughable now reading them. He's demonstrated anything but having the 'knowledge' to take this squad further.

He's looked totally out of his depth. 'Drive'? Some will say yeah but he couldn't even be bothered to analyse our home battering to Liverpool in order to prepare for the away one. Again, do me a favour. All hindsight of course but it does sort of raise an eyebrow, as its clear Levy rated him highly.

So yeah, perhaps our inability to identify the right managerial qualities and characteristics are part of the problem. But then again, those things might not be the issue and any manager might find it difficult to work under Levy and the constraints that exist in the internal set up.

 

[Archibald&Crooks]

If there's a chance for a spot of Levybashing, i'm all for it, i'll put the boot in good and hard where I think its deserved. But in this instance, I just can't. It's one of them where he's not going to keep everyone happy however he words phrases it and nobody took issue with it at the time. In this instance i'm on Levy's side of the fence in that it don't bother me none.

God help me.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

So far he's picked mangers that have got us achieving par or hovering above par for where we should be for most of the last 8 years. The year we didn't we won a cup.

I think sacking AVB when he did was a grave error, possibly his gravest, but his track record isn't too bad. He hasn't found us a Wenger or Mourinho (or if he has he's sacked him before he had chance to prove it) but he hasn't turned us into Leeds so far either.

The soundbites that went with Sherwood's appointment are just typical Chairman announcing manager stuff.

 

[michaelden]

If there's a chance for a spot of Levybashing, i'm all for it, i'll put the boot in good and hard where I think its deserved. But in this instance, I just can't. It's one of them where he's not going to keep everyone happy however he words phrases it and nobody took issue with it at the time. In this instance i'm on Levy's side of the fence in that it don't bother me none.

God help me.

Turn coat

 

[mpickard2087]

PR spin. Would you have been happier if he said they had pretty much given up on the rest of the campaign, hadn't managed to get a replacement in so they were concentrating on the summer, and stuck a caretaker in charge till the end of the season?

 

[Mr Pink]

So far he's picked mangers that have got us achieving par or hovering above par for where we should be for most of the last 8 years. The year we didn't we won a cup.

I think sacking AVB when he did was a grave error, possibly his gravest, but his track record isn't too bad. He hasn't found us a Wenger or Mourinho (or if he has he's sacked him before he had chance to prove it) but he hasn't turned us into Leeds so far either.

The soundbites that went with Sherwood's appointment are just typical Chairman announcing manager stuff.

Agree they're typical soundbites...but when you couple them with the fact that Levy supposedly rates him very highly, allegedly even being groomed for the role....it makes you wonder, maybe he genuinely believed them lol

 

[Bus-Conductor]

The problem for Levy when recruiting managers is the same for us when recruiting players. We can't attract the very best because they want kudos, CL and budget. So that means there will invariably be some compromise.

 

[absolute bobbins]

Agree they're typical soundbites...but when you couple them with the fact that Levy supposedly rates him very highly, allegedly even being groomed for the role....it makes you wonder, maybe he genuinely believed them lol

if Tim was being groomed then he'd be qualified

 

[karennina]

Maybe the cliche suggested by the contrast between Levy's Economics and Land Economy Cambridge Graduate (First Class) background, and his consistently poor manager appointment record, was on target all along. Probably most discounted it as too glib and obvious. But maybe after all Levy is a numbers wonk who just doesn't understand the human element fundamentally enough to make appointments very far outside his financial area of expertise.

It's obvious you can climb to very powerful positions without knowing very deeply whats going on interpersonally. Once you have an inner circle which accepts the terms of success and sociality you're comfortable with, confidence and chauvinism can constitute charm. Look at Donald Trump, William Rees Mogg, Adolf bloody Hitler. The organisation works, internally, and the outside world encounters it as an effective one, all without the leader absolutely having to understand people outside a context of getting what he wants.

So Daniel's facility with numbers got him up the first few rungs in Joe Lewis' empire, after which he's never had to eat enough shit to need to take a prolonged, objective, up close look into people, beyond some intuitively, autotelically evolved terms which seem to have worked nicely enough for him so far. Well why not...at least it fits the facts at this stage.

 

[Mr Pink]

if Tim was being groomed then he'd be qualified

No, the point I'm making was it had been speculated that he was being groomed for the future....not to step in half way through this season. Obviously that wasn't the plan at the outset of this season. So qualifications would of come in due course.

 

[septicsac]

Had to say them words at the time and a tad unfair to go back and drag them up now....But but but levy should have the balls to put his hands up and apologise for hiring this absolute moronic twat and sack him as of yesterday.

 

[Mr Pink]

The problem for Levy when recruiting managers is the same for us when recruiting players. We can't attract the very best because they want kudos, CL and budget. So that means there will invariably be some compromise.

But do you think the way we handle managers affects our ability to recruit more effectively?

Case in point - Rodgers?

 

[Mr Pink]

And this wasn't a typical managerial appointment either, it was someone who had zero experience at this level.

So whilst you can say they're just typical soundbites, it was anything but a typical sort of appointment for us.

I know its not highly relevant to point that out, but worth noting maybe.