Well, as far as I’m concerned the answer to the question I posed in the title is “no”. Deciding a manager’s future based on a single game would be ridiculous in my opinion. In 2004, Newcastle United decided to sack Bobby Robson on the basis of the first four matches of the season despite his performances in previous seasons (fourth, third and fifth in the Premier League). Sacking McCall now would probably not be quite as irrational a decision as that taken by Freddy Shepherd, but think for a moment about how Newcastle have fared since Robson left. Souness, Roeder, Allardyce, Keegan, Kinnear, Hughton, and Shearer have all been in the manager’s office at Newcastle since then and the finishing positions in the Premier League under the managers following Robson have been 14, 13, 7, 12 and 18. The consequences of irrational decisions taken too hastily can be long-lasting and serious. Sacking a manager after one match is irrational – performances should be evaluated over a longer period.
I’ve made the point before that managers given time to succeed are more likely to do so. Ferguson has been at Manchester United for 23 years and Wenger at Arsenal for 13. What of Jesus Gil’s tenure at Atletico Madrid. Gil oversaw a side managed by 16 men in 17 years. He also oversaw a side that was relegated to the Segunda Division at the end of the 1999-2000 season. As soccerlens.com put it “Under Gil, Atletico were desperately short of structure, long term plans and patience.” This lack of patience, this short-termism led to a humiliating relegation for Atletico. Is this the model we wish to follow at Valley Parade? Alex Ferguson, on the other hand, took seven years to win the league at Manchester United and followed that success with eight further league titles in eleven years (not to mention considerable success in cup competitions and Europe).
McCall has good contacts in the game (bear in mind that Nicky Law Jr and Dean Furman came from two of McCall’s previous clubs) and a good grounding in terms of coaching, having served as a youth team coach, reserve team coach, and assistant manager. He also has a will to win and a love for the club. These qualities should all stand him in good stead as manager of Bradford City. McCall still has to prove himself as a manager and he may turn out not to be as good a gaffer as I would have expected. It has not been easy for him – he started his career at a club that had been going down through the divisions, he probably wasn’t as familiar with League Two as other managers that we could have appointed, and last season’s injuries to players such as Colbeck, Daley, Brandon and Thorne played a big part in our failure to achieve at least a play-off spot. Bullock, Brandon and Colbeck were injured for long enough that it was always going to take them some time to get back their match fitness – their sharpness. This was time we could ill afford in a promotion chase. This season, he has had to operate with a lower budget and has had to wait for players to leave before he could approach targets. Our expectations for McCall and Bradford this season should be lowered accordingly. Yet people are calling for McCall to leave after the very first competitive match of the season.
When I put up a poll on this post: Save our Stuart; I didn’t know what to expect. In the event, 33 people voted. One was a “don’t know”, thirty-two wanted McCall to stay, and not one single person voted that they wanted him to leave. Perhaps they agreed with Roland Harris (and myself) that stability is what is needed? Perhaps they were unable to answer Michael Wood’s question if it wasn’t Stuart McCall then who would it be? (Checking the poll again today, I see that the results are now 34 ‘no’, 1 ‘yes’ and 1 ‘don’t know’, which mean the percentage of fans who have voted, to date, for McCall to stay is 94%.) From the poll on my blog, the number of fans who chanted McCall’s name and the number of paper placards held up I can only assume that the vast majority of fans wanted McCall to stay. Either some have changed their minds on the basis of a single result (which would be irrational behaviour) or we are hearing from the tiny minority who wanted a change last season and lost the argument. It will be interesting to see what the atmosphere is like at forthcoming games and how fans will react on blogs and message boards should there be a swift improvement in performances and results.
There is some further discussion at Boy From Brazil.
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