Football managers and their judgement

marjen

Okay, this thread should be good fun.

Can you name the most inexplicable example you can remember, of a manager choosing a blatantly inferior player over better options? And which ill-judged verdict is the worst you can remember?

This thread is inspired by seeing the Villa teamsheet today. Centre back Cieran Clark starts in CM for Villa, with Fabian Delph residing on loan, and Barry Bannan being on the bench(I think).

Alex McLeish has a habit of this, what with him playing Emile Heskey in central midfield, or even playing Heskey at all ahead of others.

As for Heskey, well, I'm sure a lot of you is still perplexed by him racking up that number of England caps.

Other examples of managers blatantly overrating a player? Or underrating a player that should clearly be starting every match?

Zen

Sven, McClaren and Capello forcing the Gerrard-Lampard issue in a 442 like all the time. Although tbf, Capello tried to do something about it with Barry, but still....

marjen

Ferguson starting Carrick, Giggs and Anderson over Pogba/Morrison, with the eventual outcome being Morrison's departure...

jdmufc

Fergie bringing on Ole Gunnar Solskjær with ten minutes to go at the Nou Camp in 99'

kietotheworld

Benitez bringing on Arbeloa in the CL Final, 2-0 down in the 88th minute while Bellamy sits on the bench.

marjen

I'm really asking of a managers consistant wrong judgement on a player, not a once-in-a-lifetime wrong substitution.

Come on.

Zen

Even worse, in the same game, bringing off Mascherano who was doing a job on Kaka....who then leads to split open the defence and kill off the game pretty much.

kouroux

Torres ahead of Drogba whereas he's a clearly superior player

marjen

Thought about that, but isn't this as much an Abramovich-decision as anything else?

kouroux

I don't know as after all Drogba earns his place back.

marjen

Dirk Kuyt over Craig Bellamy at times this season?

Also, Carroll over Bellamyl?

Twigginater

Craig Bellamy's started whenever he can pretty much.

Twigginater

And that really isn't that inexplicable.

gormless

Not as well known, but Brad Jones was cocking up on a weekly basis for Middlesbrough a couple of years ago, whilst they had an experienced keeper in Danny Coyne who had been pretty much flawless for them, despite not being that well known. Got to the point that Danny Coyne chants would be directed at Jones every week. If you've got Middlesbrough fans actually creating an atmosphere then you know a grave injustice has occured

Twigginater

Yeah further down the leagues, I remember last year that Jim Gannon started at Port Vale after Micky Adams left. Micky Adams had them playing 4-4-2 and standard shit like that. Gannon come in, tried to play 4-3-3, had them watching Barcelona tapes for how to play football. Think he had ideas a bit above his station.

Cheesy

Benitez made a massive mistake at Liverpool by spending nearly a whole transfer window pursuing Gareth Barry. In the end, I think he made Alonso feel like he was unwanted, and that he would've rather had Barry. Just look at the difference in quality between the two players.

Makki

Sven bringing Walcott to the WC 2006

marjen

The WUM-master falling to his own trick?

Gio

Bit like Levein's 4-6-0 for Scotland against Czech Republic. Fine if you've got two-thirds of possession, but when you're under the cosh there's no outball.

Cheesy

The 4-6-0 thing was just an absolute shambles. I really couldn't believe what I was seeing in that match. You could understand going defensive, but there was no need for that. Almost all sides field at least one striker in their team. Even San Marino do it when they're up against the top sides that put double figures past them.

It's not as if the Czech side were even that good, either. You could've maybe, partly understood the logic behind it against Spain, although I still wouldn't condone it, but we were doing it against a national side which weren't that good, and weren't too much better than us. If we had played 4-5-1, and looked to nick a winner on the counter, then we could've gotten something from that game.

Another problem was that once the Czechs eventually scored, we were lost and didn't know what to do. The whole plan basically relied on last ditch defending for the whole game, and we were only going to hold out for a limited amount of time. Once the goal went in, we had no idea of how to get back into the game, and that was it.

The whole thing just reeked of negativity. There was no belief instilled in that team. The thing is, we showed in the return game that when we took them on, we were more than capable of going at them and getting a result, which we nearly did do.

cw1984

This is fucking easy.

Stuart Pearce demonstrating his utter ineptness at management in the Summer with the U21s.

He chose to play Michael Mancienne in midfield over Tom Cleverley. What a complete fucking dinosaur that man is. I can't believe he's in charge of the Olympic team. He's one of the worst managers I've ever seen.

Stick

Cieran Clark is a young lad who has played centre mid, centre half and left back for Villa in his short career. Some belief he will develop into a very good midfielder. I've not seen much of fabian Delph since his brief and impressive career at Leeds but he shipped a heavy injury and hasnt impressed at villa. Bannan is physically very small but a classy player but I would say that Ireland and Bannan in the same team would leave Villa physically exposed. In short I dont think it's that strange a decision.