Aston Villa News 24/7If you don’t read Richard Whittall’s ‘A More Splendid Life’ regularly you’re doing yourself a disservice. Richard is a Canadian Villa fan – albeit one I suspect is becoming increasingly jaded with what life in the Premier League has become – based in Toronto and today he’s weighed in on an element of the Bradley-for-Villa story that I also find egregious in ‘This Bradley to Villa thing is embarrassing‘.
It’s a good read and Richard might not be using “embarrassing” in the context you assume.
That is if you’re one of the many commenters I’ve seen on various blogs and forums getting what Americans describe as “your panties in a bundle” over the mere suggestion of Bob Bradley being the next Aston Villa manager based on nothing more, so far as I can determine, than his nationality.
Apparently the idea of an American manager is absolutely unthinkable to a significant proportion of fans, but very few, if any, have offered any real critique of Bob Bradley the coach or manager to explain their position. On that basis, it’s difficult not to see it as racism, plain and simple.
My Two Penneth
I’m with Richard on this, I don’t support the idea of Bob Bradley managing Aston Villa and for what I think is the same reason: I don’t believe he’s suitably equipped with the requisite experience. Not because he doesn’t know his football.
In fact, I’m also going to counter “The Gaffer” at EPL Talk for his tactical assessment of Bradley:-
The only weakness I see in Bradley is tactical. With the United States men’s national team, his tactics have been far too negative in my opinion. He’s a coach that would often play a 4-5-1 instead of being more adventurous with a 4-3-3.
Actually, Bob Bradley is a well known proponent of 4-4-2 most recently and variations on it in the past. In my assessment of Bradley the tactician that follows (a piece I wrote some time ago as past of an unpublished post) I draw some parallels with a certain recently departed manager.
Coach Bradley
As a coach, Bradley is undoubtedly a scholar of the game, a talented tactician. My own feeling is, if anything, he tends to over-think his approach to matches and ends up second guessing himself. On several occasions during the World Cup we witnessed Bradley getting his starting line-up and strategy wrong, but he also displayed an impressive ability to recognise that fact and respond positively with changes that turned games around.
My suspicion is that the job of national team manager affords the luxury of time to over-think that club management does not, but that’s pure conjecture on my part, I’ve no first hand knowledge of how he did as a coach at teams such as Chicago and New York.
Ironically though, from a tactical perspective, Bradley appears to share some traits with a certain Martin O’Neill. He favours a 4-4-2, although is not entirely adverse to utilising different systems, frequently when necessity dictates. It may be as much to do with working with the best he has available, but Bradley prefers to employ skillful, reasonably pacey wingers in Landon Donovan and Clint Dempsey, who will swap positions at times during a game. Sound familiar?
In the centre, Bradley frequently sticks with a pair of traditional “box-to-box” midfielders and has been accused of nepotism in the past for selecting his own son, Michael, although the younger Bradley’s performances almost always prove he’s there on merit. Alongside Michael, you’ll generally find a more defensive minded central midfielder; frequently Ricardo Clark, but when his performances were below par during the World Cup, Bradley didn’t hesitate in replacing Clark with Rangers’ Maurice Edu who scored what should have been the winning goal against Slovenia, but for some astonishingly inept refereeing.
Up front, and again, this may be largely due to working with the player pool available, Bradley seems to like the bigger, slower one coupled with a smaller, faster one. Where have we seen that before? Jozy Altidore has been likened at times to a young Emile Heskey, not unfairly in my opinion, but I’m talking about Emile Heskey when he was young, not a younger version of the Heskey we have the pleasure of seeing today.
A tragic accident robbed the USA of Altidore’s regular pacy foil for South Africa, Charlie Davies, but it was noticeable that Bradley seemed to favour raw speed over technical ability by selecting Robbie Findley in Davies’ place. At times it worked, at others it seemed Findley would have been better employed later in the game when legs were tired and his speed could have maximum effect.
For a more detailed overview of Bradley’s tenure of the US national team, I recommend Match Fit USA’s excellent timeline.
How Bradley Can Blaze A Trail Into Europe
Bob Bradley is perfectly capable of coaching at a reasonably high level within Europe, I’m not convinced that level is the Premier League, but that’s not necessarily where his weaknesses lie. The world of football management in Europe has little in common with the same job in North America and without any real exposure to the day to day life and culture of European football management, I struggle to see the appointment of Bradley being anything other than a modern version of Dr. Venglos.
On the other hand, Bradley may be a little too high profile to drop too far down the ladder of club management in Europe, so is there another way in for a talented coach who has expressed his desire to work within Europe?
I would suggest that he could do a lot worse than sticking with national team coaching, but perhaps with a middle tier European nation. Forgive me, but for some reason Switzerland leaps immediately to mind. A two or four year cycle would allow him to extend his experience and skills within an arena he knows, albeit in a different part of the world, while simultaneously gaining exposure to players, coaches, managers, directors and clubs in Europe.
Another option, perhaps, would be to work in the capacity of a head coach in partnership with a director of football. The weakness of that approach, I often feel, is that it can work if you get the partnership right, but if one of the pair moves on, if the replacement isn’t right, the whole thing can fall to pieces. If everyone is on the same page though, that would definitely be a way for someone like Bradley to cut their teeth in Europe.
It has to happen eventually. We have plenty of American players in Europe, the coaches and managers have to make the breakthrough at some point.
Just not Bradley at Aston Villa please. Not yet.
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11 Comments to “A Little On Bob Bradley And Why He Should Not Be The Next Aston Villa Manager”
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Much agreed – Bradley just is not ready for the job. And I think it is important not to take his World Cup selection mistakes too lightly as it cost them against Ghana IMO. He chose Clark in midfield and had to replace him after 30mins. At the end of 90mins he put Gomez on up front for Altidore and then found himself 2-1 down within 3mins with no substitutions left to get back into the game. That’s not good coaching from a tactical standpoint. The other big piece for me is, like you say, he has no idea how football works over here. We need someone now who has a bit of know-how in the transfer market and can keep us pushing on. Bradley is not that guy right now. For me, Klinnsman or Jol would be ideal, and I will be watching for Ajax’s Champions’ League result tonight with great interest!
i sometimes think managers get a little too much stick for bad decisions. it’s too easy to do with the gift of hindsight.
for instance, i can’t complain about KMac’s team selection at Newcastle as it was the same one i picked in the preview. however, with hindsight, perhaps ireland shouldn’t have started and/or should have been used in a more advanced position in front of NRC & stan.
was that the difference between getting something from that game and getting tonked 6-0 though? one or two players aside, he sent out 11 of the best 15 or so players at the club in more or less their best roles. perhaps not good enough to win, although i thought it would be, that wasn’t a team to lose 6-0.
i say that as a prelude to the clark selection against ghana you mention. i *was* surprised, i thought edu looked better in that position in the games leading up to it and switching edu in clearly made the difference.
however, that was the worst performance i’ve ever seen from ricardo clark. terrible. could bradley not have selected him with the very reasonable expectation to play a good deal better than that? and if he played anything close to how you might expect him to, could the result have been different?
perhaps there was something about clark behind the scenes that should have told bradley he would be awful, maybe all the signs were good though and he just didn’t play well.
my feeling is, and it just a feeling, that with all the time he had to think about the group games and the possible opponents in the knock out stages, he just out thought himself.
sadly i think klinnsman is a non-starter, i believe he’s recently re-settled in california and i think he said recently that he’s looking to stay put.
jol was my first thought when MON quit, but possibly only because he had recently been in the frame for fulham. not sure he’s going to be available.
there’s not much out there tbh, bradley’s not the right option, but it’s not because of his tactical approach IMO.
Dan, damn you for making great points. You’re probably right. But there are A LOT of playa haters out there just cause he’s a Yank and their gripes have nothing to do with his skill set. Good post, dude
cheers. haters gonna hate, right?
Yeah, he probably wouldn’t be the best choice but it’s hard for me not to root for him being an American. If nothing else, Villa would get a lot of new American fans with Bradley as manager.
possibly, we win all kinds of new fans by winning stuff though!
Correct usage is “panties in a bunch.” That’s okay, its a difficult language.
Thanks for a good exploration of all the issues. Everyone has an opinion about this, but I seldom see anything rational behind it. You hope its not just a general anti-American bias, but involves some of these same concerns, mainly, that he is not ready for “European football culture.”
As far as I have seen, there still is no substance to the whole idea – it has been manufactured and amplified through speculation, wishful thinking (or fear), and Bradley’s own agent. What else does “no formal talks” mean?
ah, thanks for the correction. it is tricky, i’m still trying to understand how “winningest” is used with any degree of seriousness.
Of course it was not much of the first team playing for Newcastle tonight, but the solid job done by Accrington Stanley against them today just makes last Sunday’s game more embarrassing.
Maybe Bradley would like to start his European career in Accrington.
when i was younger, this TV commercial for milk was on all the time and it’s impossible for me to disassociate it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pieK7b4KLL4
i’m brain washed to append “who are they?” in a thick scouse accent.
No one wants poor Bob; can’t say as I blame you.
And while we’re at it, someone should fit Sunil Gulati and the rest of the carnies at U.S. Soccer with Disney paraphenalia; this is officially a Mickey Mouse organization!
http://bit.ly/9Ojb3j