Having listened to the manager in his pre match interview everything is looking absolutely excellent for Saturday. Everyone is really positive, fired up and ready to put in a good performance. There is not an aspect of the preparation, the mood of the players, the prospects, confidence, the state of readiness, you name it, that falls short of total perfection.
There was no specific comment about the opposition except that they will be up for it too etc., etc.
I am unashamedly biased, but this kind of upbeat, confident stream of predictably optimistic words typifies his pre-match comments on every game. On a technical level, on actual football strategy, tactics, set-up, priorities etc., he tells you nothing and I am beginning to believe that he treats every game and every opponent exactly the same. There is never any mention of studying the way they play or of real detailed preparation or adjustments tailored to suit the particular strengths of the opponents. People may say that he would be unwise to reveal the detail of the preparation and the plans, but I am coming increasingly to the view that there is no plan and that his philosophy is based purely on trying to prepare the players psychologically.
Apart from the lack of mention in his interviews, there is other evidence to support this. The fact is that when things go seriously wrong; when defeats are so severe that they cannot be explained by refereeing decisions, he will admit that the attitude, the endeavour, the resilience, the application, all traits governed by the will to keep going, to overcome adversity, failed. They gave up, stopped trying.
I think that this could reveal a fatal flaw in his methods. In sport as in business, politics etc you do need confidence and a will to win/succeed, but you also need the particular skills and qualifications that are required for your job. Importantly though, where what you are doing is adversarial as in football and quite a few areas of business and the professions, you also need to study your opposition. Confidence alone is not enough; you need that plus skill and preparation and a knowledge of the weaknesses of the opposition with a plan to exploit them.
People may say that these latter two aspects of preparation are bound to be covered in training (which always goes “really really well"), but whereas in the SOD era, the subjects were frequently referred to in interviews by the manager, coach and players, they are never mentioned now. His coaching staff never put themselves up for interview. We know nothing about them or their methods and crucially, nothing of the preparatory process in general, let alone for individual matches.
So my worry is that specific plans to deal with the particular team that they are up against are not a feature in the preparatory process and as a result the manager is disregarding a major component of successful competition and the winning of matches. Confidence does not stand alone. It has to be based on:
1. Belief in your professional ability
2. A complete understanding of the task that you faces you and
3. A well developed plan to succeed.
If PD is still there for next season, I think he needs to spend some of the summer on a decent management course, as well as examining the effectiveness of his coaching and analytical staff.
They were not good enought for Oldham in League 1 who sacked most of his staff there. "The chemistry of our backroom team is not right," chairman Simon Corney said. Once they'd gone, they beat Forest, Liverpool and drew with Everton in the FA Cup!
What's missing off Dickov
posted on 28/4/14
Very clever wording donaldo in your initial post in that by implication you took away from PD any of the credit due to him for the Oldham Cup wins.
Back to SoD, he too had two bad runs, the first half of his first season was a disaster, rescued only when he HAD to play Heffs, whose goals then saved the bacon after Christmas.
During SoD's last season we could not win a game after Christmas and escaped relegation by the skin of our teeth.
We all know what happened in the first seven games of the following season.
That is why i compared the two of them (PD and SoD).
Is PD doing well or not.
Not if he was the manager of a club with lots of money, like QPR for example.
Could Redknap come to Donny and do any better than PD on the same budget?
Well i guess we will never know but it won't happen so we will never find out will we.
Many of the questions that you pose are open to question as they can't be proven one way or another.
We obviously will never agree on this but that is fine by me, so perhaps we should draw a line under it and talk about something else.
posted on 29/4/14
Just to add my input Oldham are on for there best finish and points total in 5 years. They're in 15th well above the bottom 4 and could finish in the top 10. They've improved massively since Dickov left.
posted on 29/4/14
Well Azza, last season Oldham got 51 points.
They could also lose their last two games which would give them a 54 point finish this season so it wouldn't be so much better.
Having not seen them play i can't comment on whether they have massively improved.
Yesterday evening i was tootling about in the garden as you do and it suddenly came to me, i can't think of why i hadn't thought of it sooner.
On Saturday there was a ten minute rendition of "Paul Dickovs Barmy Army" and quite a few times the crowd sang the new song "Staying up, Staying up Donny Rovers - the last line of which is "playing football the Dickov way".
Now those songs were being sung by most of the three sides of the stadium.
That doesn't appear to me that the majority of the fans are wanting PD out.
posted on 29/4/14
Sorry, i should also have said that i could hear the songs at the Millwall game as well.
posted on 29/4/14
I also heard the song and I laughed. I'll say why I laughed because it is down to "Dickovs way" we are where we are. You can throw players, lack of funds at it all you like. He's had time to sort this mess out but his lack of experience has failed him. I will add which many seem to forget, Dickov himself came out and said he will use his "contacts" to bring in the type of quality players the club want. He's brought in a few but still finds himself struggling. That's not down to finances as he's been backed very well IMO.
I read Hound you will be there on Saturday and so shall I, hopefully it won't be our last in the championship for a few seasons, but personally I hope it's Dickovs.
posted on 29/4/14
We should all have a mass pray tonight between 7.45 and 9.45pm that Wigan do the business on Birmingham.
I only made the point about the songs because it kind of backs up my theory that there are more people backing PD than there are against him.
I do recognise that he is lacking in experience but he has to get it from somewhere.
If by some miracle, we do stay up then he should be better for this years learning curve if the club keep him on.
You should look out for me on Saturday Azza, i will be wearing a red and white hooped shirt.
posted on 29/4/14
Hound: Dickov may be in need of a good agent soon and I think you would do a very good job for him.
I am trying to fit "There's only one Paul DIckov" to the meter of the Funeral March and I can't really manage it, but using "You don't know what you're doing" I can get much closer.
posted on 29/4/14
It can't just me me that thinks he is doing ok though donaldo, you must have heard the song at Millwall and a few thousand at the home game were belting it out.
Perhaps it is you who is in the minority eh?
posted on 29/4/14
Hound:
I know we will not agree on this, but as you say there needs to be respect from other people's points of view, so I thought we'd end with my attempt at a joke.
posted on 29/4/14
We could always talk about golf.