From where I am watching, it looks to me that our fortunes have improved because of the abandonment of the original project and process rather than its success.
You do make me smile.
You’ve somehow tried to turn this around from being MMs biggest critic and the person with the most negative outlook on his work to using the situation to somehow demonstrate that you were right all along and MM has somehow followed your advice ?
Whilst the match day tactics have evolved this only demonstrates to me just how little experience you must have on the inside workings of a football club at any level let alone elite.
The “process” and the “project” really has about as much to do with matchday tactics as I had in loading Santa’s sleigh with my 4 year olds presents!
The project and process was about the culture of the football club. The mentality of the players. The training ethics. The timekeeping. The diets. The pre training approach and the pre match approach as well as post game and post training (of all staff not just the players). Did the players follow their re hab programmes as well as their pre hab (injury prevention) programmes diligently and conscientiously. The expectation levels the staff have of the players and the players have of the staff had to change and the demands placed on the expected levels of their performances on the grass, at boots and laces more than at any stadium, had to increase.
This takes time and lots of it, and before anyone gets too ahead of themselves it’s about 15% along the line at the moment. Most importantly it takes characters of a certain type to be in and around your club. In your dressing room. On your training pitch. In your ear and most definitely in the ear of the other players who may not be as experienced or as professional. These players are the ones that reiterate the message. Really hammer it homey day in and day out.
Players like John White, Alan McCormack, Mark Oxley and JD are playing a huge part in the project and the process. Even the likes of Tim Dieng are playing their part and before anyone points out these players were already at the club, it’s the manager and the strength in nos that’s making the difference. These players aren’t being distracted by more powerful influences in the dressing room, they are becoming the majority and are becoming THE powerful influences.
Even early season, these players weren’t on the grass and maybe they didn’t quite trust what MM was bringing to the table at the all important part which is around the club away from the grass. It wasn’t like he was a proven manager with a track record of turning clubs around coming in that they would all immediately fall in line for. These players had seen Bond and Campbell and were rightly sceptical.
Even the loan signings were vital to get right. Players coming in from football clubs that already had a process in place. Players that had the good habits that clubs higher up the pyramid breed in their 8 year olds and ensure are of the highest order by the time they are given pro contracts. Recruitment and education of your players is as much about attitude and ethics as it is about their ability - as we have found?
The process and the project is about all of these things and it’s about how this affects the players that are not the most influential but the most influenced.....
You can criticise some of our younger players that found life tough at Southend but look at the environment we were asking them to flourish in. 5 managers in 24 months. No strategy. Definitely no PROCESS. Talking in riddles. Not talking to them at all.
The senior pros whose responsibility it was to nurture them, to chastise them, to teach them, to bollock them, to make it hard for them to break through so it meant something when they did and most importantly to carry them through games and through periods in games where it was tough and to let them open their wings and fly when it was going well.....just as senior pros had done to them in their youth....let them down, by not showing the right example themselves.
These players like Kelman and Hutchinson needed Alan McCormack three years ago. They needed two more John Whites and two more JDs. They needed a fit and motivated Dieng, a confident Oxley....they got a permanently injured JD, Coker and Mantom, they got a Tom Hopper on the treatment table not a Tom Hopper who could’ve been the best striker in the division, they got a demotivated McLaughlin, a Simon Cox taking care of himself....the list goes on.
The project and the process isn’t wanting and trying to play one way because you’ve assessed the threadbare inexperienced squad that are technically blessed but lacking the leadership physicality and minerals required to play in league 2. It isn’t realising that the players at your disposal right now can really only play one way and that’s to try and use that technical ability and hope it isn’t ruthlessly exposed and it’s not changing the Matchday tactics slightly and being more direct once you have a few more players at your disposal that can carry out that game plan more adequately than others had been able to.
No the project and the process is all the other stuff and turning the mentality of a football club that’s known nothing but losing for pretty much 3 maybe 4 seasons around into one that has some belief and some direction and an identity and strength to match its fanbase.
My bet is you’ll see the return of some different match day tactics over the course of MMs contract that return to a more cultured style of football. That’ll be all part of the project and process that he talks about. But it’s a long long road....right now is a short term way of overcoming some rather large bumps not the end goal.
