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'Bigging teams up'


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Guest robbiekeane

It's one thing to say it in the media as the managerial etiquette merry go round, but it seems as though our players actually believe it when they step on the pitch. I'd love to know what preparation he gives the players. Mourinho is known for compiling dossiers on the opposition strengths and weaknesses and obviously has a winning formula. It seems that we know all about opposition strengths, but not much about how we can impose our own strengths on them.

We should be playing to our strengths and not worrying about the opposition at all. We are playing the likes of Walsall, Yeovil and Dagenham who have players that wouldn't stnd out in Sunday league football. Hardly Man Utd or Inter Milan.

maby a little harsh saying they wouldnt stand out in sunday league footie?

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Guest Sheridans PIng

maby a little harsh saying they wouldnt stand out in sunday league footie?

Possibly so, but there are many players in Leagues 1 and 2 that have little ability. They are often fit and organised into an effective team unit.

We have international players with great pedigree, ability and experience in our team and we do not play to their considerable superior strengths against poor opposition.

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The problem with AI interviews and biging up other teams is that there really shouldn't be any side in this league we should be concerned about. I don't understand why he just doesn't come out and say something like

<insert club name here!> have some good players, but we feel we have nothing to worry about, we have enough quality to get a win. We'll play our own game and let them worry about us.

Instead, AI makes it sound like we are lining up against brazil every game.

Edited by mike84
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Guest owlman1966

Recently I've heard and noted a lot of comments regarding the manager and players bigging teams up or over analysing teams in their pre-match comments. So I thought I would do a little random analysis on just how prevalent it is, for my own sanity.

So, with that in mind, I went to the official site to note down such comments. I went through and randomly chose pre-match stories from random pages. I did indeed find that on EVERY pre-match interview the manager comments on the opposition.

Remember, these are totally random stories from the manager:

Didn`t realise you had become Irvines new agent/pr officer!!!! obviously busy in the office all day!!! hope Mr Aldridge doesn`t catch you spending all day on OT!!!!!!! :mad:

So you can see. The manager does ALWAYS comment on the opposition and how good they are.

Thing is - not a single one of those comments were from Irvine. I genuinely looked at the OS and went through The Manager section skipping through pages and randomly going into the articles, I found a comment praising the oppositon in every single one, but I went back through time and they were from Laws, Sturrock, Turner, Yorath & Shreeves. The only editing I did was take out name from the above quotes.

http://www.swfc.co.uk/page/Gaffers/0,,10304~738885,00.html - Sturrock

http://www.swfc.co.uk/page/Gaffers/0,,10304~343452,00.html - Turner

http://www.swfc.co.uk/page/Gaffers/0,,10304~271414,00.html - Yorath

http://www.swfc.co.uk/page/Gaffers/0,,10304~82420,00.html - Shreeves

Do it for yourself and you will find comments about the dangers of the opposite team. From any manager. From any clubs' pre match press.

Go to any pre-match press with a manager and they are guaranteed to get asked about the opposition. They then have to talk about the opposition and 99% of the time those comments will be respectful and generally factual and objective about the opposition. Doesn't matter if it's Irvine, Ferguson, Dalgliesh, Mourinho - anyone. It's the same for all managers and a lot of the time you can lift the comments and put them into any other pre-match press meeting with any other manager. You might get the odd comment here and there talking down the opposition from time-to-time, but generally the comments are are all the same and very respectful.

I think that because of a lot of supporters' micro-analysing of everything Irvine does and says, this myth of over-hyping the opposition has come out and is unfair. It's not something unique to Irvine and never has been, but people focus on it because they want to highlight and exaggerate the negatives. A lot of people have latched on similarly to the pre-match preparations and analysis and think that they can use these pretty standard comments to highlight their point.

The same with players - if they get asked about the opposition they are not going to slag them off. They are going to do the same and respectfully comment on their observations about the oppositon.

After all, if anyone was to actually come out and slag the opposition team off, then we'd see similar kind of blow-out to last years' comments by Lee before the Palace game with people saying it was doing their team-talk for them, motivating their players, putting too much pressure on, unprofessional, etc, etc.

Discuss.

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Search youtube for prematch interviews of top managers, they might give the opposition their credit, but they all emphasize their own teams strengths as being what will make the difference. Irvine seems to instill nothing but fright into the players going by his prematch interviews, seems like he gets his excuses in before kickoff.

This is his problem, he is pretty much TOTALLY 100% negative.

Winner:

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So does every manager of every team. As I said above.

Sheridan doesn't. When he was interviewed the other week about Stevenage, he said they were big and physical but he was concerned with what they were going to do and more concerned about what Chesterfield were going to do and they had to make sure they did the right things to cause them problems.

Very refreshing to here i thought!

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i haven't read all of this thread DJ1 but can you pick out a single article where AI 'bigs up' OUR/HIS OWN team. you know something like 'i understand the relative merits of ABC' (not the pop group either!) 'but if we concentrate on our own game/strengths then we should have too much for them' or 'let them worry about us' or 'we won't underestimate them but i'm more concerned about what WE do rather than the opposition' .. bet you can't find a single solitary one ???

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Like a bloke said on RS.

If a manager is asked about the oppositions star striker he is gifted the chance to praise his own defenders ability.

I.e " Your right Rooney is a threat but i know i can trust Alex and Terry to keep him quiet."

Wouldnt hurt AI to flip it and turn it into a praise for us.

Unlike Turner, Sturrock, Yorath etc. AI's got more than one very good player in every position.

It all comes down to if you have a squad that are talented enough to praise, and good enough to go at teams with. Irvine does have the squad but never uses it to scare other teams.

Morrison, Mellor, Teale, Miller etc. should all be names on a teamsheet that scare the other team. At the minute they're devoid of self confidence and not scaring anyone.

With a squad clearly lacking in confidence surely praising their abilities is only a good thing.

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Guest Triplej2

Well that's me sold.

Give him a new deal.

I'm happy that he talks about the opposition no more than our previous managers over the years. I'll just forget about performances, results and the league table.

New deal for Alan please Milan.

:biggrin::biggrin:

These excuses and trying to defend Irvine are bordering on the ridiculous.

Plus Yorath, Shreeves and Turner are hardly good examples. Sturrock, as turgid as things were under him had a very strong sense of self confidence and confidence in his teams. AI shows no sense of confidence in anything.......and that's possibly his main problem.

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