A Century United
Firewalking for HD
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2007
- Messages
- 10,004
"Mechanistic" v "Psychological"
I have read the threads debating both Tilson's wisdom over signings, and the perceived demise of Shrimperzone with interest.
Here is a thought. Tilson, Brush and Martin know exactly what they are doing, and are working to a plan which balances success on the pitch with financial survival off it. My reason for stating this (at length, be warned) is as follows:
Most of those criticising the lack of purchases during the transfer window have a "mechanistic" view of football. This view says - You look for better players, you make "realistic" offers, you pay whatever the going rate for that player is in wages to get them in. They are better footballers than the ones we currently have, and they either replace the unlucky pro, or they "encourage" him to perform better by their presence. This is often based on the critic's experience of playing for or managing at Sunday league level, or of watching football for X years. The problem I have with this is that it might work for the bigger teams, who can afford big wages across the squad and can attract a number of better players. But it will never work for the likes of Southend or Colchester. Attempting to compete like that leads to disaster, as we discovered in the mid-90's, and paid for for many seasons after.
I believe (and of course this is just my opinion, not "FACT" or "End Of!", my least favourite post-conclusions) that our management team understand this very well (and this applies largely to Colchester too) and instead of applying a doomed mechanistic approach are succeeding with a Psychological approach.
This approach calls for getting the most out of admittedly limited players on (comparitively) poor wages by ensuring that only players who want to play for the club are brought in, and the squad are made to feel part of something special And any player who seems likely to upset the ethos is shipped out smartly, regardless of size of the squad or available replacements. Hence the ruthless disposal of Ricketts, Guttridge, and Smith, and the reason that we were never going to sign Knight. This also dictates that no player can come in if their wage requirements are going to make other players aggrieved - however good they are, if they make significantly more than the other players resentment will abound. So wails of indignation because we have made loads of money this season and aren't spending it miss the point - unless we can afford to pay ALL the players more, we won't pay a priveliged couple more just because it might be available. So don't go looking for too many loanees from the Prem for exactly the same reason. This isn't just Tilson's approach, either - I have felt that this is the way that RM wants to go since he sacked Wignall because he couldn't see the passion in his eyes.
The problem with this is that such players are few and far between, especially in this age of inflated wages and panicking over-bidding managers trying to buy their way out of trouble. Thus, the risk is that not enough players can be found who fit the criteria, and we have to work with a small squad. However this isn't all bad - the very fact that we work with a small squad makes the "Us against the World" ethos easier to maintain, and if we ever switched to the "Mechanistic" approach advocated by so many on this board then in my opinion we would be doomed!
And my final point - Tilly and Brush are very, very good at operating this system, and finding the sort of players we need to work it. So when they bring in the likes of Hooper, Harrold and Paynter they do so because they believe that they will be assetts to the squad, and that they have the ability to perform at this level. Sadly, too many of our fans seem to have a belief that their judgement is vastly superior to our management's, and do their best to destroy the confidence of some of our new players before they have even had a decent chance to prove themselves. Paynter is a classic example of this, and Clarke, Francis, Hammell, and JCR have all suffered at the hands of these experts.
We as a club survive only because of tight financial control of RM and the brilliant Psychology of Tilly and Brush. Every time someone exercises their "Right" to boo or abuse a player they are directly opposing all the work that the coaching staff are doing.
