...Anyway, beyond that I think we're mostly on the same page. A clear head's a good thing in my book, and some players are benefiting from people like Peters helping them achieve one.
I’m not with this. I think there are differences and they are fairly fundamental.
Setting aside the similarities or otherwise (definitely otherwise) between us and other sports - and the military, the notion that football stupidity is a significant contributor to poor play is weak.
The average premier league footballer today is extraordinarily fearful. The exceptions can exhibit real genius. Balotelli is the most fearless thing I’ve seen on two legs. He really does not give-a-shit (whether he is a loose cannon or not is another matter).
***
I don’t know what Kenny said about intelligent players but if you look at Rafa’s record of player churn, you would have to conclude he did not ever find the players to fit his bill. He tried, they tried but ultimately 'both' sides concluded that the other was not for them. How many times did we hear that the ‘players didn’t know what they were supposed to do’? - heaven forbid they had to change horse mid-match. Perhaps a memo from the dug out would have been sent.
Look, I don’t say players aren’t necessarily and intrinsically ‘intellectually-challenged’ but the game for them has to be a simple game. Nothing complicated works on the football pitch (or for that matter in war, or life...). For what it’s worth, Rafa was hugely complicated.
Shanks and Bob and the boys were at the other end of complicated - “stick it in the net son, and we’ll talk about tactics later”. That is not to say that there were no ‘tactics’. That’s not to say that there was no ‘process’. Shanks had the idea for a structure for a team and a way of playing and an attitude and a direction and he went about filling set positions with players with (often exceptionally) right stuff for the role. You’re playing left back today son (just like the last 12 weeks) - no further instruction required. But by the way, the guy you’re playing against just told me he’s scared of you and - who wants to take a walk around a colossus?
That is to say that Shanks and his like not only did the leading and the 'shining' but also they did the ‘intellectual’ work (tell him if you dare) and the players did what came naturally. Go out and play - see if you can get involved - more or less Fairclough’s only instruction going on v St Etienne. The rest they say is...
Listening to Fairclough, he says ‘it was really simple for me. I was that kind of player. Just a bit different. Thrown on to shake things up a bit’. If only he knew that ‘just get on there and do what you do’ was the picture for everyone.
Shanks changed the model in Shanks' time and the model progressively changed for the whole time. But it happened with the manager in the depths of the boot room. All the thinking was done down (up?) there. The players they bought had an innate capability to perform the roles identified. They were to that extent ‘football intelligent’, some were so capable they were genius. And it would not be narrow or academic to say that because the manager’s worked it all out for you, there was no room for stupidity on the pitch. That together with the player's innate 'brilliance' is the whole picture.
So maybe you can’t make a Carroll into an Einstein but you can put a Carroll into a Carroll role and he can be 'brilliant', genius even. But if you haven’t got a Carroll role you either made a mistake in buying him or misunderstood who he was.
***
I think someone was saying that Rafa said we were at such a (buying) disadvantage that we couldn’t afford mistakes on the pitch. How wrong he would have been.
Today’s game is so intensely scrutinised from 16 angles at every half frame per second that the difference between ‘intelligent play’ and ‘stupid play’ is minute and the verdict always in hindsight. What a stupid bastard that great hulking bastard Coates was to attempt that shot! oh.... and every player should have stood two yards to the right; should have left that; should be hitting that; should be in that ‘zone of uncertainty’; should be
just out of it. Some ‘experts’ are so keen, you dare not make a mistake. Nobody did anything without making mistakes, backing yourself (ok I did that...
Your ‘average’ player today is crapping himself before he crosses the white line. He has an innate ability to do what is required, (let’s all assume that the manager and the chief scout (backed by the owners) did their jobs and he wasn’t put there because he couldn’t) but his ‘stupid play’ is not actually that. It is fearful play.
Your non-average player. Your ‘genius player’ - has no regard for mistakes. His ultimate faith in himself brings him through, let’s him take the chance, every single time. Even let’s him ignore the manager, some time.
***
I say again, that genius has little to do with a clear and calculating head. It has everything to do with unthinking (even un-intelligent) instinct. Borne out of practice, banging the ball for hours on end, free-kicks in the garden, playing with players, knowing how they work, knowing how you work. Knowing what works and what doesn’t work without a milliseconds’ thought. Peters can’t teach that.
.