Burke didn’t work out for one reason, he didn’t cut it. I, like everybody else, don’t know what the WBA guy was talking about what “happened.” We can put two and two together, but that is based upon nothing apart from what you want two to be.
For example, if you think Lenny’s style is outdated and shouting and bawling is the refuge of someone whose communication skills are lacking, you will lean toward him acting in an aggressive manner as what the guy was on about.
If you think that players should be shouted at as grown men, able to take it, you will probably think the guy is trying to deflect away from the fact his very expensive player failed and continues to fail when given a chance.
My own interpretation of what two means is this. Football players are workers, mostly working class men. I am a strong believer in workers being treated properly and not abused or intimidated by people in management.
If your default position is to use fear or intimidation to get your point across I would never have promoted you in any organisation I ran to a managerial position. Ever.
Football they say is a different animal. That this type of thing is ok. That people need told. I agree wholeheartedly that players need told but I don’t agree that to be effective with that you need to be aggressive or overtly confrontational. If I look at people in everyday life and online and witness them resorting to aggression, be that verbal or physical when they are in conflict over a view of what’s best, I always, and I mean always feel they lack self discipline and a way to convey what they feel adequately.
The world has changed in every other field of employment and unions have fought long and hard to make people safer in their work environment from bosses who think their position gives them a free run to abuse their workers.
To me football managers don’t have the right to do what no manager in any other sector would get away with and if you cannot convey ideas, help people improve without resorting to losing your temper, you shouldn’t be there. You can be firm, you can set the bar, you can demand all under you raise that bar, but if your only tool in your managerial box swings from two fixed points, an arm around the shoulder, to the hairdryer, you don’t have enough tools in your box.
The recent stories about what goes on, in particular to how older players treat young players I found a bit off. It toughens them up, etc, is one of the reasons trotted out. That if a young player nutmegs an older player, he will go after you to kick you up in the air. Why? Why should a young guy be booted up in the air because he has more skill than you? Why not give him praise for that skill? Why not, here’s an idea, give yourself a kick up the arse from being taken to the cleaners?
We want our young players to develop technical ability, so rare in our homegrown players when we compare them to other countries. So what happens? Our young skillful players stop trying these moves in training because someone will crack them. We all know that practise improves technique. Why is it ok that when young players execute feats of skill, the response from their own team mates is to wallop them? Would any of us kick our sons or daughters up in the air if they nutmegged us, or would we be as proud as punch they had that skill?
Lenny for me needs to add tools to the way he deals with players, I always have. It’s 2019 and not 1979, he wants players to learn to grow, to improve. Well Neil, that’s a two way street. What are you doing to improve?
In relation to Burke purely on performances and especially at Ibrox, I would have subbed him after 20 minutes and would have told him afterwards he wasn’t performing and we cannot play such a game with a man down. I would say to him I knew it was embarrassing for him, but to go away and watch the game. To look at how he played and then to come back and we would talk about why I hauled him off. Lenny left him on until around or just over an hour, which to me was a massive misjudgment. If a manager leaves a player on too long who clearly struggling then go mental at the player after the game, that’s a cop out of his responsibility and judgement. You leave him on it’s your fault. I didn’t blame Burke for being so bad that day as much as I blamed Lenny for leaving him on. He’s in charge. Be in charge and don’t be afraid to make a decision that might embarrass a player. But after, explain why, show them their performance and ask them, do you think you deserved to be kept on? If Burke looked at his performance he could never justify being left on. And even if he tried, you explain to you, the manager, he didn’t and the proof of that view is writ large with every touch of the ball he had.
We could all see the improvement of our players under Rogers that first season. That wasn’t achieved by hairdryers. The slump in our performances wasn’t down to this approach but more in not bringing in players to Arry the load and worse, those brought in being not good enough. Lenny needs to find a balance. You try and abuse me one day, then try stick an arm around me the next, I’m going to tell you to go fuck yourself. And I was like that at 16.
In my first job with a refridgeration company in Glasgow, we were up at a plant in Glenrothes and at lunch time, a delegation of the boiler suited workers approached the engineer and me sitting having our peeces. This is how the conversation went. I will try and capture the accent of fife.
“Heh Kev, why we don’t get your laddie to race oors aroon the factory ay? See whose the fastest? Ay?
I looked and saw a guy the same age as me standing there.
I looked at the guy talking and asked him.
Young weegie“Are you talking about me racing him around the factory?”
Fifer “Ay, you could race oor guy and we could bet on who wins, ay?
“If you want a race, you fucking race him.”
Quietness decended, the guy looked at Kev.
“Whits the matter way yer boy Kev Ay?”
Kev, smiling “He dizzy day that sort of thing.
Me looking at the young guy. “Do they get you to do this a lot?”
Him: Nods yes.
Me “Tell them to fuck off.”
They all wandered off and I went back to the god awful peeces ma ma had made me.
People say when you’re a boy you take abuse, I say start taking it and you always get it.
Anyway, I’m glad Burke won’t be coming back.
