My manager’s better than yours…

So we’re in limbo. We’ve got a manager, a successful manager, but he’s the proverbial condemned man (although nine million quid is a lot better than a noose). Maybe it’s time for a bit of a post-mortem on Conte’s time at Chelsea.

One of the themes that constantly reoccurs when it comes to discussing Conte (and any other manager/coach for that matter) is universality. As if every manager is a racing driver, driving identical cars. If a manager wins a trophy he is by definition superior to a manager that didn’t win a trophy. A manager with a higher win rate is by definition a better manager than one with a lower win rate. It’s bunkum. It’s simplistic and it’s lazy. Every manager has unique challenges, every manager has a unique range of abilities and every club has different characteristics and a unique environment to work in. The idea of homogenous football disappeared in the mid 90’s, when managers ceased to sit in their office while a wily old coach beasted the players on the training field, turning up only on matchday to name the side and give a resounding team talk. It ended when Hoddle and Wenger brought the best of continental practice over to England. Different shapes, different behaviours, better science. Gone are the days when a manager lined up his players in a 4-4-2 whatever the weather and the singular goal was to get the ball to the wings as soon as possible. 92 identikit football teams with only subtle differences.

What exactly defines ‘better’? Why is one manager better than another? Is it measurable? You can judge by trophies of course but this ignores opportunity. If you parachuted me into Man City right now and my clone into Man United, would I be more likely to win the league than him? Of course, would that make me a better manager, certainly not. Perhaps he would finish higher than me, perhaps the Man United squad are more suited to my personality type, maybe they’d respond better to my man management style. Maybe I’d irritate Sergio Aguero and as one of the leaders of the team, he’d turn the dressing room against me. It’s not as simple as a mathematical formula.

Good manager + Good players = Good team.

In reality the equation, if you could write such a thing, would be longer than this article, longer than every article ever written about it. Factors such as time, opportunity, luck(!), competition, injuries, signings, any one of a thousand conversations with your star player, your captain, your president, what your players ate for lunch ahead of every big game, how many bottles of lager they had the night after the match, how the manager reacted to each of these situations.  The fact is, managers are not completely rounded, perfect individuals. Jose Mourinho couldn’t go into Barcelona and get the best out of their players. Guardiola couldn’t take charge of Stoke and get them playing like vintage Barca. Clubs and dressing rooms have character, collective character. It can be changed over time but it has to have the potential to change into a manager’s desired character. It might take years, decades even if the character extends to senior management.

Managers have unique skill sets, they may be able to extract the last bit of effort from a team, they might be outstanding in one particular formation, they might have a perfect eye for spotting a potentially world class player or they might be the manager every player wants to play for. No manager has all of these qualities, quite often the qualities completely contradict each other. For instance, Carlo Ancelotti, generally regarded as the most personable man in football, Zlatan and Ronaldo’s favourite manager. Loved by nearly every player he played with and whom played under him. It can work for him. Coming into an established side, maybe down on their luck, down on confidence, he can be that reassuring figure. Not tactically adventurous, but wily. Not much of an eye for a player either. Discipline is used sparingly too. Place Carlo into a team where the players are already of a disciplined character, already have an established tactics and playing style, a team where the talent is already there. Carlo will fly. Over time, his permissive character will leak into the character of the team and discipline will decline, tactically the team will be overtaken by tactical innovation, but for that period of time Carlo will be an effective, if you like, great manager. Put Carlo into a team that needs rebuilding though, maybe a star player has retired, another of the best players has left and there’s a couple of long term injures, then he would probably sign players (or recommend players) that aren’t at the same level. He’d probably fail. Now he’s a poor manager. Imagine those two jobs followed each other. Is Carlo a great manager or a bad manager now? Some managers clearly have weaker skillsets than others. Some managers are at the top of the game and have more significant skill sets. Some in a wide variety of areas, these are known as a safe pair of hands. Some have a limited set of abilities but are absolutely outstanding in those particular skills. Conte, Guardiola, Wenger, Klopp and Simeone spring to mind here. Limited managers, able to play a particular way and with a particular character, but vulnerable outside of that comfort zone.

Contrast Conte and Ancelotti. Both are tactically limited, clever in a tactical sense but revolutionary? Both are excellent at man management, able to get the best out of a group of players. Both have an instinctive will to win. Now take two groups of players, two clubs. Team A is unruly, ill-disciplined, they’ve had a manager that indulged them, didn’t give them any tactical guidance. Team B on the other hand has a squad character of highly strung players, hard workers, dedicated, intelligent but emotionally immature. Who do you think would be a better manager for Team A? Ancelotti would continue to indulge them. He’d get results but that ill-discipline would always bubble under the surface. Conte on the other hand would twist them into shape, he’d give them the platform they were missing. Put Conte into Team B however and while he may have short term success, his high discipline and intense nature will eventually cause friction. Ancelotti on the other hand will be a calming influence. His style of calm, reassuring man management would suit that team perfectly. He’d be more successful. Neither has all the skills required to manage every team, they have complimentary skills that suit specific environment and situations.

Obviously football is much more nuanced than that, teams often have multiple characters, as do managers. It doesn’t take into account resources at a managers disposal, the country they manage in, their assistants, a thousand and one factors but a general rule still applies, some situations, some experiences are more suited to certain managerial styles, tactical beliefs and personality . How well you perform in a managerial role is not solely down your inherent skill set. Rarely is it a case of a perfect fit, but the most comfortable and accommodating fit you can find for as long as you can sustain it.

Universality is a much more complex concept at a managerial level. A player will generally speaking, be a great player whichever team they play for, they can still perform the same skills, they can still kick the ball with the same force, pass with the same accuracy and run as fast. Put Ronaldo in Swansea’s first team and when he gets the ball, he’ll still beat a player just as easily, still slam the ball in the net with as much force and still not track back! A manager is a skilled workman with a set of tools. Give a draughtsman a job drawing out complex machinery and he’ll excel, give him a paint brush and ask him to decorate your bathroom, he’ll find it a doddle. Ask him to make a perfect copy of Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring and he’s going to struggle. Ask a skilled forger to do the same and the roles are reversed.

Few if any managers fit into the category of universal. Perhaps only Alex Ferguson would seem capable though he is a unique personality in a unique club at a unique time. He was able to tear down the foundations of the club, build it in his own image and then adapt repeatedly as the game changed. No other manager in the history of the game has had this ability. Mourinho could go into nearly any club and achieve some success, but his rigidity and intense nature means that any success he has is unsustainable. Conte perhaps falls into the same category but to a lesser extent. Both Mourinho and Conte rely on shock tactics, intense, quick results, rapid improvement, but these are by their very nature short term approaches. They burn out quickly, the players burn out quickly. The same can be said of Guardiola, though it’s the intensity of his methods, not his football that causes a burn out. Unlike Conte and Mourinho where the focal point of the project is the manager himself, with Guardiola it is the football.

Moving back to Chelsea, suggestions for manager range from keeping Conte, to Allegri, to Brendan Rodgers, Eddie Howe or Luis Enrique or Maurizio Sarri and Leonardo Jardim. The internet is alive with the question of who is the best manager for Chelsea going forward? Conte is better than Sarri, Sarri is better than Conte, Eddie Howe is better than Sarri, Sarri is better than Jardim. Allegri is better than all of them. Pointless and flawed debates one and all. The crucial question hasn’t been answered.

Better at what?

Better at winning trophies? That’s not a skill, it’s a product, it’s a convergence of skill, environment, resource and opportunity. What do we want them to be better at? It’s a question you have to ask yourself and more importantly the club has to ask itself before it embarks on this journey. Too often in the past, we’ve bought players, brought in managers, made decisions based on either a lack of strategy or an utterly inconsistent strategy. If you want to keep Conte, why? What skills does he have that suggests that next season will be better than this? Chances are we only get to see the result of their work and a tiny proportion of the thousands of decisions they make, but we can often see enough. Your average fan can see when a manager and a club no longer happily co-exist, when the abilities of the manager no longer match the requirements of the club. When a club and a manager are moving in different directions, only the manager can change course. If he’s unwilling, then a parting is inevitable.

The range of a manager’s skillsets is huge. There is no one size fits all. There is no universally skilled manager. You choose the workman that has the skills to work with the tools you have and talent to paint the picture you want to see.