Gutter Boy
Tim Sherwood
I've got the day off work and it's raining.
-
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The decision to fire AVB
- Thread starter Johnny Ray
- Start date
I've got the day off work and it's raining.
glorygloryeze
Tom Huddlestone
Really? That's interesting as I always thought he got given the tin tac
thfcsteff
George Hunt
Let's just say (to my understanding) there was a 'shift' in editorial thinking. Mc Carra left, then Richard Williams, another fine writer. We're now left with the likes of Hytner and Ronay…the standard is not what it once was. I remember when David Lacey ruled the man.
milo
Jack L. Jones
There was an interesting discussion about this on the Second Captain podcast at the time. They compared how AVB handled it with what they thought Mourinho or Ferguson would have done. They said that Ferguson would have just banned Ashton from his press conferences, Ferguson got a soft ride because journalists were worried that he would deny them access if they crossed him. They thought that Mourinho would have dragged him into a private meeting and told Ashton that he was a **** journalist, that he was the best football manager in the world and Ashton's opinions counted for nothing. What they thought that both approaches had in common was that they would be done in private and when the cameras were not on them, so they would not have given the story more legs.
Guys, in ANY job, including (and especially) football, STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT is key to the impression of the job you are doing and ultimately the key to your long term career prospects.
Stakeholder management is ultimately where I feel AVB brain farted spectacularly. Pretty much committed suicide with his what I perceive to be his 'I don't give a toss I'm more intelligent than you lot' approach.
Who were AVB's stakeholders?
Key stakeholders for any manager of a football club:
1) The bosses (Club chaiman/owner/board/technical directors/co-ordinators). Ultimately, these guys are the ones holding a massive shotgun to your career's head and its ultimately these guys who are your ultimate stakeholder.
2) Fans. "The customers". You need to keep these guys onside and provide them with an entertaining or winning product whilst ideally creating a feeling of solidarity. What you don't wanna do is get on the wrong side of them. Angry fans make stakeholder 1 twitchy as they might start calling for their head next.
3) Media. Have a massive influence on stakeholder 2's impression and ofyen an influence therefore on stakeholder 1. That's right, keeping these guys off can prevent your reputation being butchered in public and therefore the chance that your continued employment by stakeholder 1 is seen as reputationslly damaging.
4) Players. Makes sense this one. These guys are immediately under you but are also the company's chief assets so tread carefully as the wrong move can condemn a £30m asset to the bin. Effective management of these puppies tends to go a long way to keeping everyone happy so choose your battles wisely and play nice. Remember: in a fight between you (Mr expendable and the club's top striker and highest earner who is probably worth £ 20m on the market -who do you think the club are going to back?)
5) Coaching/support staff - these are your allies and eyes and ears on the training ground - they're vital for backing your opinion with additional voices to keep the players onside and you need to make sure everyone is pulling in the same direction.
AVB's management of these stakeholders appears to have been largely poor:
Stakeholder 5 - open spats with the medical staff ate going to force peopke at the club to "take sides". As you're not a qualified medical practicioner and they are, their opinion is always going to carry more weight and disputing it is going to make you look a bit of a tool without some seriously persuasive evidence ie an alternative expert opinion. We all **** up and make the wrong calls. In business you need to hold your hands up and say you know what? I ballsed up there. It gives people confidence that it wont happen again rather than the impression that its a fatal blind spot or flaw in your makeup. instead AVB seems to have stubbornly stuck to his guns and maintained that he knew better than the club doctors over how to deal with a head injury - this sort of thing is gonna make Stakeholder 1 highly alarmed.
4) I've already touched on this but i'm pretty sure every manager has inherited a team with a hard to manage smart **** who can produce quality work on occasion when motivated but needs almost all of you attention and energy and ego massaging to get the best from and hes also a disruptive and potentially destabalising influence on the team but is also universally popular with his peers - but after an unsuccessful attempt to manage them out you're just gonna have to work with them.
Ade. Oh my oh my what a spectacular **** up by AVB. I think the divide and conquer approach to management is always doomed to failure but when the asset you've marginalised happens to not only remain at the club post deadline day but happens to specialise in the area your team are strugglibg in, a failure to swallow your pride is just going to have all available stakeholders doubting your judgement.
3) We've touched on this before but a failure to keep the media onside is a certain suicide attempt. Going out of your way to pick a fight with them, when you've come off the back of a poor and humiliating spell in charge of another high profile club is just, well there are no words really...
Theres only so many articles in major publications questionong your character and judgement that stakeholders 1 and 2 are going to read before doubt starts to spread.
2) Let's face it - the fans were divided in AVB from the get go and that didn't really change.
1) Ultimately this is the one where it all could be very different. Businesses and teams all go through ups anc doens and times of upheaval and stress and poor results. Your boss can get worried and what he needs to hear and think from you is "don't worry boss, i've gpt this".
I think what seems to have happened instead is that Levy and Baldini have been increasingly worried about the instances noted above and increasingly worrying results. They've looked to AVB to offer explanations or reassurances but what they're increasingly seeing is a man who doesn't know what to.do and has lost confidence in his own decisions. He's isolated and attempted to get rid of Adebayor only to fail to make use of him but then randomly reintroduce him whrn things are looking desperate attacking wise - constant formation and personnel changes and fall outs with players and journos.
Then there is Shetwood who appears to have been an undermining influence as far as AVB is concerned as the two clearly didnt see eyr to eye and Sherwood appears to have taken pleasure in offering Levy "alternative viewpoints" where possible. Why didnt AVB attempt to forge a closer relationship with Sherwood and find some common ground ? By making Sherwood like him or at least respect him it would probably have stoped or limited the sniping and arguments during board meetings and transfer commitee meetings. Looks like he didnt make the effort and look who ended up laughing.
So we come to this post Liverpool home meeting. I think AVB plays it one of two ways and he keeps his job:
1) he goes in and says no, trust me, i know what im doing, my power point you were so impressed with hasnt bern thrown in the bin, this is what im doing, this is why im not playing Ade, this is why Lamela's still not in the team, this is why we're not scoring and this is how im going to fix it. Confident, articulate,in control.
2) he goes in and says ok i hold my hands up ive ballsed up, things arent working and i need some support to help fix things, lets chat about things work out sutions id welcome your input and maybe we need to tweak the squad in january.
Both are professional adult approaches that say - you can trust me. I've got this.
What appears to have happened is an unsure, cornered and confused AVB has rocked up and said something along the lines of what do you want me to say? Its not my fault, you sold Bale.
*Nervous glance between Levy and Baldini*
But at the meeting in the summer Andre we all agreed that it was best for all parties that we do the deal, you signed up to that
Yes well how do you expect me to be successful without Bale
Well maybe if you tried playing Lamela and Erik...
I didnt want those players you gave me them.
*Another nervous glance*
But Andre you agreed to those buys we all sat down and agreed that after Willian went to Chelsea these two were the best options i asked if there were any objections and we were all agreed and you said you were
And so it goes on. No fight no plan just blame shifting and sniping...thats how i imagine it went down and any hope of a long term working relationship and any confidence that AVB "had this" was shot to pieces
Stakeholder management is ultimately where I feel AVB brain farted spectacularly. Pretty much committed suicide with his what I perceive to be his 'I don't give a toss I'm more intelligent than you lot' approach.
Who were AVB's stakeholders?
Key stakeholders for any manager of a football club:
1) The bosses (Club chaiman/owner/board/technical directors/co-ordinators). Ultimately, these guys are the ones holding a massive shotgun to your career's head and its ultimately these guys who are your ultimate stakeholder.
2) Fans. "The customers". You need to keep these guys onside and provide them with an entertaining or winning product whilst ideally creating a feeling of solidarity. What you don't wanna do is get on the wrong side of them. Angry fans make stakeholder 1 twitchy as they might start calling for their head next.
3) Media. Have a massive influence on stakeholder 2's impression and ofyen an influence therefore on stakeholder 1. That's right, keeping these guys off can prevent your reputation being butchered in public and therefore the chance that your continued employment by stakeholder 1 is seen as reputationslly damaging.
4) Players. Makes sense this one. These guys are immediately under you but are also the company's chief assets so tread carefully as the wrong move can condemn a £30m asset to the bin. Effective management of these puppies tends to go a long way to keeping everyone happy so choose your battles wisely and play nice. Remember: in a fight between you (Mr expendable and the club's top striker and highest earner who is probably worth £ 20m on the market -who do you think the club are going to back?)
5) Coaching/support staff - these are your allies and eyes and ears on the training ground - they're vital for backing your opinion with additional voices to keep the players onside and you need to make sure everyone is pulling in the same direction.
AVB's management of these stakeholders appears to have been largely poor:
Stakeholder 5 - open spats with the medical staff ate going to force peopke at the club to "take sides". As you're not a qualified medical practicioner and they are, their opinion is always going to carry more weight and disputing it is going to make you look a bit of a tool without some seriously persuasive evidence ie an alternative expert opinion. We all **** up and make the wrong calls. In business you need to hold your hands up and say you know what? I ballsed up there. It gives people confidence that it wont happen again rather than the impression that its a fatal blind spot or flaw in your makeup. instead AVB seems to have stubbornly stuck to his guns and maintained that he knew better than the club doctors over how to deal with a head injury - this sort of thing is gonna make Stakeholder 1 highly alarmed.
4) I've already touched on this but i'm pretty sure every manager has inherited a team with a hard to manage smart **** who can produce quality work on occasion when motivated but needs almost all of you attention and energy and ego massaging to get the best from and hes also a disruptive and potentially destabalising influence on the team but is also universally popular with his peers - but after an unsuccessful attempt to manage them out you're just gonna have to work with them.
Ade. Oh my oh my what a spectacular **** up by AVB. I think the divide and conquer approach to management is always doomed to failure but when the asset you've marginalised happens to not only remain at the club post deadline day but happens to specialise in the area your team are strugglibg in, a failure to swallow your pride is just going to have all available stakeholders doubting your judgement.
3) We've touched on this before but a failure to keep the media onside is a certain suicide attempt. Going out of your way to pick a fight with them, when you've come off the back of a poor and humiliating spell in charge of another high profile club is just, well there are no words really...
Theres only so many articles in major publications questionong your character and judgement that stakeholders 1 and 2 are going to read before doubt starts to spread.
2) Let's face it - the fans were divided in AVB from the get go and that didn't really change.
1) Ultimately this is the one where it all could be very different. Businesses and teams all go through ups anc doens and times of upheaval and stress and poor results. Your boss can get worried and what he needs to hear and think from you is "don't worry boss, i've gpt this".
I think what seems to have happened instead is that Levy and Baldini have been increasingly worried about the instances noted above and increasingly worrying results. They've looked to AVB to offer explanations or reassurances but what they're increasingly seeing is a man who doesn't know what to.do and has lost confidence in his own decisions. He's isolated and attempted to get rid of Adebayor only to fail to make use of him but then randomly reintroduce him whrn things are looking desperate attacking wise - constant formation and personnel changes and fall outs with players and journos.
Then there is Shetwood who appears to have been an undermining influence as far as AVB is concerned as the two clearly didnt see eyr to eye and Sherwood appears to have taken pleasure in offering Levy "alternative viewpoints" where possible. Why didnt AVB attempt to forge a closer relationship with Sherwood and find some common ground ? By making Sherwood like him or at least respect him it would probably have stoped or limited the sniping and arguments during board meetings and transfer commitee meetings. Looks like he didnt make the effort and look who ended up laughing.
So we come to this post Liverpool home meeting. I think AVB plays it one of two ways and he keeps his job:
1) he goes in and says no, trust me, i know what im doing, my power point you were so impressed with hasnt bern thrown in the bin, this is what im doing, this is why im not playing Ade, this is why Lamela's still not in the team, this is why we're not scoring and this is how im going to fix it. Confident, articulate,in control.
2) he goes in and says ok i hold my hands up ive ballsed up, things arent working and i need some support to help fix things, lets chat about things work out sutions id welcome your input and maybe we need to tweak the squad in january.
Both are professional adult approaches that say - you can trust me. I've got this.
What appears to have happened is an unsure, cornered and confused AVB has rocked up and said something along the lines of what do you want me to say? Its not my fault, you sold Bale.
*Nervous glance between Levy and Baldini*
But at the meeting in the summer Andre we all agreed that it was best for all parties that we do the deal, you signed up to that
Yes well how do you expect me to be successful without Bale
Well maybe if you tried playing Lamela and Erik...
I didnt want those players you gave me them.
*Another nervous glance*
But Andre you agreed to those buys we all sat down and agreed that after Willian went to Chelsea these two were the best options i asked if there were any objections and we were all agreed and you said you were
And so it goes on. No fight no plan just blame shifting and sniping...thats how i imagine it went down and any hope of a long term working relationship and any confidence that AVB "had this" was shot to pieces
chancer
Gudni Bergsson
Excellent post NWND, pretty much exactly how I see it.
I think your characterisation of the final meeting - "nervous glances" between DL and FB - gives a perfect flavour of how it probably went down - an awkward weirdness as it dawned on DL and FB that AVB was not the man for the job, and even more disturbingly that he wasn't prepared/capable of fighting for the job or presenting a mature, reasoned defence. You've used the phrase "emotional intelligence" before about AVB, and I think that's exactly his key failing.
I would have given AVB more time, but in hindsight I think that was the wrong call. His time had come.
I think your characterisation of the final meeting - "nervous glances" between DL and FB - gives a perfect flavour of how it probably went down - an awkward weirdness as it dawned on DL and FB that AVB was not the man for the job, and even more disturbingly that he wasn't prepared/capable of fighting for the job or presenting a mature, reasoned defence. You've used the phrase "emotional intelligence" before about AVB, and I think that's exactly his key failing.
I would have given AVB more time, but in hindsight I think that was the wrong call. His time had come.
braineclipse
Steve Sedgley
Agreed, top post NWND.
One additional point about the final meetings. Although it is speculative and we can't know what happened we do know that AVB wasn't fired on the night of the Liverpool loss. Reports were quite convincing, there was a meeting on Sunday, after that AVB still had his job and a new meeting was planned for the next morning.
Seems to me very likely that Levy and Baldini gave AVB the chance to show himself worthy of continued trust, but he didn't take it.
One additional point about the final meetings. Although it is speculative and we can't know what happened we do know that AVB wasn't fired on the night of the Liverpool loss. Reports were quite convincing, there was a meeting on Sunday, after that AVB still had his job and a new meeting was planned for the next morning.
Seems to me very likely that Levy and Baldini gave AVB the chance to show himself worthy of continued trust, but he didn't take it.
BrainOfLevy
Michael Carrick
Because he didn't want it.
I'd be fine with the 'emotional intelligence' critique if he actually still wanted the job. Then, the sulking child metaphor, cutting off his nose to spite his face because he actually wants the job but is incapable of acting in the way that will secure it, that would make more sense. As it is, he didn't want it.
It's like saying to me, 'do you want to be punched in the face?' and because I say 'no, get lost you weirdo' I get accused of a lack of EI. I don't want that punch.
braineclipse
Steve Sedgley
I agree, if I read you correctly. I think he knew he had lost. I don't think he saw a way out where he would bring success to the club. Like someone starting a new save game in Football Manager I think he wanted a fresh start, but of course he knew he couldn't get it here.
If I read the rest of your post right (I might be misunderstanding you) you're saying that he wasn't collaborating at that final point because he didn't want the job any more. I think you're right. But I don't think that point is the main "EI" criticism of him, rather that the lack of stakeholder management skills as NWND described it was (at least part of) the reason he found himself in that position in the first place.
PS: I might be a weirdo, but I won't punch you in the face
milo
Jack L. Jones
I think that the suggestion was that he lacked the emotional intelligence to maintain and cultivate the relationships with the stakeholders NWND set out and not just in the final meetings with Levy and Baldini.
braineclipse
Steve Sedgley
Plenty of room on the dance floor and there will always be room on my dance card for you milo.
(no homo)
90291Spur
Paul Walsh
And don't forget the 'delightful' Amy Lawrence.
