[Archived] Kean versus McCarthy

[deryck guyler's spoon]

My final post on this.

You should put IMO at the end of that statement, or speak to the countless chairmen in the pl who have hired people with fewer qualifications than Kean. Gray, Sbargia, Lee etc are people hired with similar backgrounds to Kean. To summarise:

1. ours was not a unique situation.

2. Other people out there with worst pl records than Kean in a job so a fallacy to suggest that Kean would have been sacked elsewhere.

Am I allowed to hold this opinion or are the fascist police out there unhappy?

Keep posting Imy.

[imy9]

So... he got the job becuse of his excellent reputation in the game as a rising star that was scresming out to be parachuted into his first job at a top half Prmeier League club... or his agent was Jerome Anderson.

Come on imy, you enjoy getting a rise out of folk, you've done it on thread after thread for 12 months.

Thats your opinion Matty, if you call discussing and articulating an opinion tryin to get a rise out of people then you are correct...this is an opinion forum though?

[Mattyblue]

You carry on imy, but you do like to take the 'contrarian view' on most topics, even if I imagine deep down you are simply playing devils advocate. It gets people posting, so crack on.

[imy9]

You carry on imy, but you do like to take the 'contrarian view' on most topics, even if I imagine deep down you are simply playing devils advocate. It gets people posting, so crack on.

I have my own opinion, it has differed from a number but currently Kean out and Venkys out seems to be a similar view to mine lol. Ill leave playing devils advocate to others.

[LeChuck]

He has a pro license, trains others to get their license, as well as leading courses, he is qualified. There is no need to be obtuse for the sake of it.

"Qualified" doesn't just mean the badges and certificates, it's experience and career achievements too.

Kean might have had the badges, but he was never qualified to be a PL manager based on his meagre experience as a second rate coach.

That's what he was; second rate - he was in the Championship before we rescued him from the dole queue.

You've only mentioned Stuart Gray and Ricky Sbragia as being comparable to Kean in terms of being promoted from coach to PL manager. That's two examples in 10 years!

[imy9]

"Qualified" doesn't just mean the badges and certificates, it's experience and career achievements too.

Kean might have had the badges, but he was never qualified to be a PL manager based on his meagre experience as a second rate coach.

That's what he was; second rate - he was in the Championship before we rescued him from the dole queue.

Chairmen generally hire the following:

1. Experienced manager, e.g Sam, Curbs etc.

2. Young up and coming from a lower league, Martinez, Ince etc

3. Coach/ ex number 2, Kean, Gray, Sbragia, Lee etc.

4. Ex player with a reputation, Southgate etc

5. foreign manager

That seems to be the trend, I would not hire number 2 based on the lack of success but my point was that it was not odd for Kean to be hired on his qualifications, I could name others Hutchinson, Reid and many more.

You say second rate qualifications but he spent 4 years as a pl number 2, he was only 41 when hired, one of the youngest in the league and as I said he was rated by ex managers like Craig Brown. Sam hired this 'second rate' coach and he is known or hiring the very best, he didn't allow Kean to leave until he signed!

Edit- Sbargia was a few years ago but he was LOWER than Kean in the coaching ranks!

[Pedro]

We know that Kean's appointment was weird and most probably off the back of his good buddy/agent but some people are making out like it is the conspiracy of the millenium. Bad appointments and employing people without prior experience happen all of the time in football and boards don't always employ the best man for the job. Sometimes they employ a inexperienced wildcard or a former player such as:

Alan Shearer - given the job of saving Newcastle from relegation (no experience and failed miserably - in hindsight a bad appointment...but still the man many a Rovers fan wanted!)

Trevor Brooking - Temporary West Ham (no previous experience and was only part of the board. Relegated but looked a decent manager)

Kenny Dalglish - Managed Liverpool whilst as a player...very odd managerial appointment but was a massive success.

I personally think that Kean's friend blagged him the job but there are countless amounts of inexperienced managers who have had decent degrees of success too, both at club and international levels. But for every Guardiola there are dozens of John Barnes, Tony Adams, Brian Kidd and Bobby Charlton style failures.

I still think that we can scrape up this season and as Hughes has shown at QPR, sudden upturns in results don't always happen when a new manager is installed. Some of the names linked to Wolves are managers who have guided teams down so I don't see any reason to start thinking that they will become world beaters all of a sudden.

[Jimmy612]

You've only mentioned Stuart Gray and Ricky Sbragia as being comparable to Kean in terms of being promoted from coach to PL manager. That's two examples in 10 years!

Where are they now?

[bannedwidth]

My final post on this.

Thank (Please don't use that word again) for that.

[Jimmy612]

We know that Kean's appointment was weird and most probably off the back of his good buddy/agent but some people are making out like it is the conspiracy of the millenium. Bad appointments and employing people without prior experience happen all of the time in football and boards don't always employ the best man for the job. Sometimes they employ a inexperienced wildcard or a former player such as:

Alan Shearer - given the job of saving Newcastle from relegation (no experience and failed miserably - in hindsight a bad appointment...but still the man many a Rovers fan wanted!)

Trevor Brooking - Temporary West Ham (no previous experience and was only part of the board. Relegated but looked a decent manager)

Kenny Dalglish - Managed Liverpool whilst as a player...very odd managerial appointment but was a massive success.

Well those 3 examples are a million miles off the Kean situation! They were all legends at the clubs and certainly Shearer and Brooking were brought in to 'inspire' the club. Yes bad appointments are made, but at least you could understand the above three being given a job, with their legend status

[bannedwidth]

Imy is basically saying crap coaches have been appointed in the past at other clubs. What the hell does that have to do with anything? Kean is crap and should never have been appointed. I must be missing something here.

[LeChuck]

Chairmen generally hire the following:

1. Experienced manager, e.g Sam, Curbs etc.

2. Young up and coming from a lower league, Martinez, Ince etc

3. Coach/ ex number 2, Kean, Gray, Sbragia, Lee etc.

4. Ex player with a reputation, Southgate etc

5. foreign manager

I'm not happy with point 3 there, I don't think "coach" should be tagged on to "number 2".

We've established that there is very little precedent for promoting a coach to manager - 2 in the last 10 years as far as we are aware. I don't think that kind of statistic allows promoting coaches to be put into the groups you have defined.

Promoting assistant managers is far more common, but Kean wasn't our assistant manager.

Kean is not quite a unique case, but it is VERY unusual. I can't be bothered going through the statistics, but if we were to work out the background of every PL manager hired since 2000, and group them into...

1. Current PL manager

2. Current domestic non-PL manager

3. Foreign manager

4. Unemployed with previous experience

5. Ex-player first job

6. Promoted from assistant

7. Promoted from coach

...what percentage do you think "promoted from coach" would come out as? We've got three of them over that period, so I would suggest a very small number, perhaps less than 1%.

[bannedwidth]

And what would the percentage be of coaches appointed to manager sharing the same agent/agency group who also advised the owners through the process of buying a football club? Not to mention other proven involvement. Case closed.

[Pedro]

Well those 3 examples are a million miles off the Kean situation! They were all legends at the clubs and certainly Shearer and Brooking were brought in to 'inspire' the club. Yes bad appointments are made, but at least you could understand the above three being given a job, with their legend status

Legend status doesn't always equate to ability or suitability though does it - and that is my point. There are too many failures to list and the successes are far easier to pinpoint. The current Kean situation being that our board (if we have one) employed an excellent and well regarded young coach to manage the team (and he happened to be a much cheaper option than the one in charge at the time of the takeover). I certainly wouldn't have been behind that decision to employ him but I also am not a fan of the "jobs for the boys" ex-player style appointments either. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't - the whole management employment is an absolute minefield and we only need to look back post Dalglish at Rovers to see we have made some awful appointments - these appointments were from a seemingly experienced board of directors too. The main difference being that they acted upon their mistakes, and paid out handsomely to get rid of those mistakes too.

[John]

And what would the percentage be of coaches appointed to manager sharing the same agent/agency group who also advised the owners through the process of buying a football club? Not to mention other proven involvement. Case closed.

And the agency involved already had a relationship with the prospective owners prior to the takeover.

I think we all know which individuals have "blood on their hands".

[Steve Moss]

IMO, we should sack Kean and hire Simon Grayson. He's head and shoulders above Kean. And he's an excellent Championship manager which is were we are heading at this rate.

[Amo]

Keep trollin' Imy.

[Exiled in Toronto]

I'm not happy with point 3 there, I don't think "coach" should be tagged on to "number 2".

We've established that there is very little precedent for promoting a coach to manager - 2 in the last 10 years as far as we are aware. I don't think that kind of statistic allows promoting coaches to be put into the groups you have defined.

Promoting assistant managers is far more common, but Kean wasn't our assistant manager.

Kean is not quite a unique case, but it is VERY unusual. I can't be bothered going through the statistics, but if we were to work out the background of every PL manager hired since 2000, and group them into...

1. Current PL manager

2. Current domestic non-PL manager

3. Foreign manager

4. Unemployed with previous experience

5. Ex-player first job

6. Promoted from assistant

7. Promoted from coach

...what percentage do you think "promoted from coach" would come out as? We've got three of them over that period, so I would suggest a very small number, perhaps less than 1%.

Weren't Kidd and Harford promoted from coaching positions? Plus Kean that makes it 42% of our last 7 managers, all unsurprisingly having the same outcome.

[eire3382]

Look its simple why the kean situation is such an unusual one:

Sam, an experienced and successful manager was sacked along with his assistant by new owners.

Generally when new owners do such a thing they have a man in mind to replace the manager, ususlly a big name.

There is no way in hell they would ever have heard of the bald one prior to meeting with anderson.

To say keans promotion is not too strange is not a ture description of how things work in the premier league. In lower leagues yes clubs take such risks, but it is very unusual at the highest level. Also most of the examples used had connections with their clubs. Kean was here a wet minute and had no backing from any fans. The long and short of it is that the whole situation stinks to high heavens and if you can't see that then you are a bright as a bags of old hammers.

[Audax]

If I were a supporter of Wolves, though I think Macca's is totally upstanding, this would be a good break to bring someone new in, if they got a bounce, there next 3 matches could be crucial.

http://www.brfcs.co.uk/mb/index.php/topic/25228-the-relegation-thread/page__st__1080

Wolves remaining fixtures might be slightly kinder than the others. Wolves could conceivably with a new Manager get points from their next 3 matches, Newcastle, Fulham, Rovers before Manchester United.

* Newcastle United away

* Fulham away

* Blackburn Rovers home

* Manchester United home

* Norwich City away

* Bolton Wanderers home

* Stoke City away

* Arsenal home

* Sunderland away

* Manchester City home

* Swansea City away

* Everton home

* Wigan Athletic away

No Spurs, No Liverpool. No Chelsea either.

Rovers need to avenge some of the early matches.

[LeChuck]

Weren't Kidd and Harford promoted from coaching positions? Plus Kean that makes it 42% of our last 7 managers, all unsurprisingly having the same outcome.

Kidd was assistant manager. I can't remember what Harford was...was he not assistant manager as well?

[Andy]

Harford was Kenny's assistant manager.

[Amo]

It's not that uncommon for established assistant managers to take over after a dismissal. It's not as if Kean leapfrogged Neil McDonald because of his expertise. It was obviously due to the SEM connection. It's also not uncommon for caretaker managers to be appointed full-time if they pick up results (Sbragia, for example). Kean's case, however, is an exception to the rule. Even if we believe he really was appointed on a caretaker basis, he did nothing to warrant being made full-time manager and even less to earn himself a new contract in the summer.

[Exiled in Toronto]

Kidd was assistant manager. I can't remember what Harford was...was he not assistant manager as well?

Did we not have endless debates on here after they both went about how coaches find it hard to move to mgrs? I thought Parkes' title under Kenny was Asst Mgr

[LeChuck]

I don't remember to be honest, I'm only sure on Kidd.