Allardyce set to become Newcastle boss by May 14

[Bombadil 0]

I don't know about you, but I'm quite excited - that's three different papers that are running a story about him today, meaning there is at least a chance there may be some truth in it. It will be really interesting to see what Oliver says today. I fully expect him to ruin the excitement by sticking up for Roeder and saying that "the Geordies wouldn't welcome a man who has turned down the Toon twice".

Edited May 3, 2007 by Bombadil

[@yourservice 67]

The pressure is on now and i can't see it not happening,the way Roeder rushed down the tunnel on Monday night said a lot.

[luckyluke 1]

Exactly why I wanted us to lose the other night. This unspoked law that says you can't wish for a tactical result is nonsense.

 

 

It heaps more pressure on Roeder at exactly the right time and could do the club a huge favour in the long run.

If Gullit hadn't lost to Sunderland that time, who knows what might have happened? Robson might never have arrived. Mind, I can't recall wanting to lose to Sunderland before the match

I was in Magalluf at the time from what I remember.

 

Was getting it ripped out of me at the time by a bunch of Mackem lads staying in the same place as us. Then the capitulation by Man Utd a few days later as well.

Jaap Stam put Duncan Ferguson in his back pocket iirc.

Stam was a quality defender and still is doing a hell of a job at Ajax right now. Fergie definitely sold him too early, in his pomp he was far better than Ferdinand and the likes they have now.

 

I remember as well when they'd already done the pre-contract agreement to sign Stam for however much it was and just after they'd done it he had a shocker in two games for PSV in the Champions League and looked dodgy at times at France '98, but Fergie got it spot on with that signing.

 

He was no Paul McGrath though.

 

He sold him because Stam slagged him off in his book, not because he thought he was past it.

[Dr Kenneth Noisewater 0]

Let's do this quickly and with as little fuss as possible. Give Roeder his Academy position back as well (if he wants it).

 

Why? I don't get the talk of him doing an excellent job in the Academy. Regardless, we've already got someone doing his old job.

Agreed. Hardly fair on the bloke who's at the academy at the moment. Why should he lose his job just because Roeder couldn't do it at a higher level? And it's not like we had a constant stream of potential flowing out of the youth set-up during Roeder's time in charge.

 

Plus I don't think Allardyce would be overly keen on having the ex-manager still sniffing around the place.

[Guest alex]

As long as we don't sign Diouf....

I'd take him here in a shot.

Ditto

[Gemmill 34420]

The pressure is on now and i can't see it not happening,the way Roeder rushed down the tunnel on Monday night said a lot.

 

Needed a shit tbh. Glenn Roeder has always stood up, and Glenn Roeder doesn't rush down the tunnel for anything but the turtle's head.

[Dr Kenneth Noisewater 0]

The pressure is on now and i can't see it not happening,the way Roeder rushed down the tunnel on Monday night said a lot.

 

Needed a shit tbh. Glenn Roeder has always stood up, and Glenn Roeder doesn't rush down the tunnel for anything but the turtle's head.

 

"Glenn, a few words for the BBC...?"

"Sorry Garth, I'm touching cloth."

[Guest Patrokles]

Let's do this quickly and with as little fuss as possible. Give Roeder his Academy position back as well (if he wants it).

 

Why? I don't get the talk of him doing an excellent job in the Academy. Regardless, we've already got someone doing his old job.

Agreed. Hardly fair on the bloke who's at the academy at the moment. Why should he lose his job just because Roeder couldn't do it at a higher level? And it's not like we had a constant stream of potential flowing out of the youth set-up during Roeder's time in charge.

Plus I don't think Allardyce would be overly keen on having the ex-manager still sniffing around the place.

 

I'm not supporting Roeder in terms of management of the club itself, but I think it's pretty harsh to say something like that. He was hardly there any decent time at all.

[Guest alex]

Let's do this quickly and with as little fuss as possible. Give Roeder his Academy position back as well (if he wants it).

 

Why? I don't get the talk of him doing an excellent job in the Academy. Regardless, we've already got someone doing his old job.

Agreed. Hardly fair on the bloke who's at the academy at the moment. Why should he lose his job just because Roeder couldn't do it at a higher level? And it's not like we had a constant stream of potential flowing out of the youth set-up during Roeder's time in charge.

Plus I don't think Allardyce would be overly keen on having the ex-manager still sniffing around the place.

 

I'm not supporting Roeder in terms of management of the club itself, but I think it's pretty harsh to say something like that. He was hardly there any decent time at all.

That's correct, that sort of thing takes years to get right.

[Fop 1]

Let's do this quickly and with as little fuss as possible. Give Roeder his Academy position back as well (if he wants it).

 

Why? I don't get the talk of him doing an excellent job in the Academy. Regardless, we've already got someone doing his old job.

Agreed. Hardly fair on the bloke who's at the academy at the moment. Why should he lose his job just because Roeder couldn't do it at a higher level? And it's not like we had a constant stream of potential flowing out of the youth set-up during Roeder's time in charge.

Plus I don't think Allardyce would be overly keen on having the ex-manager still sniffing around the place.

 

I'm not supporting Roeder in terms of management of the club itself, but I think it's pretty harsh to say something like that. He was hardly there any decent time at all.

 

Aye in terms of youth development you're talking years to really have a massive effect.

 

Plus his biggest downfall seems to be game day team motivation, which is a different thing to day in day out running of an academy.

 

I can't imagine he'd take his old job back even if offered though (which I doubt it would be, although with FFS you never know).

[Guest alex]

It would be a bitter pill to swallow going back to running the Academy in many ways. Depends how much he needs the money. Assuming he was offered his old job back, which I also doubt.

[@yourservice 67]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_14

[Guest Patrokles]

I mean, having said that, I'm not necessarily sure he should be offered it back, or whether he'd even take it. But I think he was doing a decent job there, and he clearly works well with youngsters.

[Lazarus 0]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_14

[The Fish 8989]

As long as we don't sign Diouf....

I'd take him here in a shot.

Ditto

I'd take him out back and shoot him tbh.

 

decent player but an utter contemptable twat.

[Tooj 17]

As long as we don't sign Diouf....

I'd take him here in a shot.

Ditto

I'd take him out back and shoot him tbh.

 

decent player but an utter contemptable twat.

Couldn't give a shit how much of a twat he is on the pitch if he's doing the business on it as well.

 

Roy Keane was a twat of the highest order, sure Man Utd fans learned to cope with that.

 

Souness was an ever bigger twat than Roy Keane was on the pitch and Liverpool fans learned to cope with it.

[The Fish 8989]

so was Bellamy and yet you are not allowed to forget what an odious shite hawk he was.

[Guest Patrokles]

so was Bellamy and yet you are not allowed to forget what an odious shite hawk he was.

 

Not many were complaining when he was actually here, though.

 

Although I do think that Diouf is abhorrent, and I'd find it hard to really enjoy him being at the club.

[geordieshandy 0]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_14

 

It'll be a sad end of an era.

[Baggio 0]

A good article about how Allardyce has transformed Bolton.

 

Back-room boy keeping Bolton ahead of the game

 

 

Saturday interview Mike Forde wanders the globe making sure his club punch above their weight, writes Dominic Fifield

 

Saturday March 17, 2007

The Guardian

 

 

The continuing quest for improvement took Bolton Wanderers' performance director to New York recently, but not to scrutinise the sporting techniques of the Giants, Knicks or Yankees. Instead Mike Forde sat in a 16th-floor office at Saatchi and Saatchi's headquarters high above Greenwich Village as the advertising company's world CEO, Kevin Roberts, talked ideas. "People wonder what a Premiership football club can learn from a business like Saatchi, but the similarities in what we're aiming at were actually stunning," offered Forde. "Both of us are always asking, how do we stay ahead of the game?"

 

 

Bolton travel to Manchester United this lunchtime attempting to maintain another campaign spent apparently punching above their weight near the top of the Premier League. They will end the weekend in fifth place, yet they are blazing their own trail off the pitch in order to remain hugely competitive on it.

It is eight years since Sam Allardyce recognised the need to find an edge that would hoist his side clear of the also-rans. Forde, the man behind Big Sam whether in the stands or at the training ground, is one of a few key staff at the Reebok Stadium seeking to guide this club's long-term vision. The 31-year-old, whose background is in sports science and psychology, oversees a strategy that should keep Bolton competitive in the years to come.

 

Forde's job effectively entails scouring the globe for innovations that may be relevant to the club, whether they be in IT, scouting, psychology or people-management. This week he met Roger Draper, CEO at the Lawn Tennis Association, to examine its infrastructure, following up visits to 25 teams in the United States, from NFL to NBA, and a spell with Honda observing formula one testing in Barcelona.

 

Later this year he will meet the All Blacks before the rugby World Cup. "They've just appointed a guy whose job is to blue-sky, ignoring this year's tournament but exploring sports science and coaching techniques to see how they are going to win the next World Cup in 2011. In any leading business there's always someone whose job is to pinpoint what's around the corner because what was extraordinary yesterday is very ordinary tomorrow.

 

"Every six weeks I take the staff away for a strategic-planning day: we'll examine the next phase of the season but then spend half a day brainstorming. I presented what I'd learnt from Saatchi's, showing how we can link it with what we do. They have a handful of designers as talented as the players we have and, like us, probably spend a high percentage of their costs on a small percentage of staff. But they have created a framework which allows them to be successful today while planning for tomorrow. It ties into the quantum changes we've had at this club."

 

When Forde was recruited by Allardyce and his then assistant, Phil Brown, in 1999, Bolton had an ambitious Championship side, a fine new stadium but a decrepit training ground. Steered by the manager, with Forde overseeing development in the background, they have finished eighth, sixth and eighth in the top flight over the past three years and their ability to attract such players as Nicolas Anelka, Jay-Jay Okocha and Youri Djorkaeff to a small town near Manchester is remarkable. The full-time backroom staff has swollen from five to 21, covering coaching, medicine, sports science, performance analysis and administrative support.

 

"And the scouting operation has gone through the roof," said Forde. "We've created a no-excuse environment which will allow our players to flourish. The squad has gone from 80% British to 80% foreign and we ensure whoever we bring here can settle. It's about the small things: opening bank accounts, finding schools or houses, showing them where they can eat out or where their local mosque or church is.

 

"But we also offer a unique experience. At one stage our squad boasted 25 championships, two World Cups and seven Champions Leagues. Fernando Hierro had played for Real Madrid for 14 years but his desire to plan for a career beyond playing - like Gary Speed - meant that he recognised us as a fantastic opportunity to learn from our coaching, sports-science and game-analysis techniques.

 

"Last year every member of our squad had played on average for six different teams, eight managers and in 250 games. We looked at where they had each been most successful and picked out anything we could from that environment we could replicate here. It's a very deductive process, but it might be the smallest thing. A player might have come from a bigger club where he was a fringe player and he might relish having a bigger role here.

 

"Our screening process is so extensive. We recruit possibly eight players every year on, say, an average wage of £1m. If you went into the private sector, the due diligence around recruiting someone on that amount would be incredible, but we're making the same investment here so we have to be as thorough. It's actually quite difficult to sign for this club because of the due diligence we undertake."

 

Those recruited benefit from a revamped training ground, complete with tranquil suites with Chinese medicine techniques to hand. The international players are accompanied by club masseurs, fitness staff or nutritionists when abroad with their countries. "We can't control the environment they're in when they're away but we can influence it. We want to keep them thinking: 'I am a Bolton player.' It's about making the players feel wanted and creating the conditions for success. You can never guarantee you'll win, but how can you take away the excuses for failure?"

 

On-pitch analysis is adding to Bolton's options. They were one of the first Premiership clubs to adopt ProZone, the player-tracking service which produces detailed data of every move, kick or spit that occurs in a game. Dave Fallows has been recruited from ProZone as the club's head of technical scouting, with his seven-man team scrutinising matches on-site. "Any club can have ProZone but some use it better than others," said Forde. "We have a fantastically talented analysis team who, on matchday, are wired up and give constant feedback. The future of sport is real-time science.

 

"Our IT suite can, on request, call up certain passages of play. When Sam walks in at half-time he can play those incidents on screen. It's a 15-minute window of opportunity and another competitive edge we exploit."

 

Such innovative thinking has attracted interest from around the globe, with Aussie rules clubs and the LA Lakers visiting the Reebok to view Bolton's techniques. At Old Trafford this lunchtime the Wanderers will have a high-profile stage on which to put them into practice.

[luckyluke 1]

so was Bellamy and yet you are not allowed to forget what an odious shite hawk he was.

 

He took it too far though.

[Gemmill 34420]

I don't mean to come across all Leazes Mag, but there's an awful lot of management bullshit in that piece. A man whose job it is to "blue-sky". WTF?! I'm guessing Shepherd isn't a big fan of brainstorming and ramping it up.

[Tooj 17]

I don't mean to come across all Leazes Mag, but there's an awful lot of management bullshit in that piece. A man whose job it is to "blue-sky". WTF?! I'm guessing Shepherd isn't a big fan of brainstorming and ramping it up.

I actually agree with you on that, there's fuck all worse than all of that management spin talk, cannot stand it.

 

Unless it's Alan Johnson doing the spin.

[Dr Kenneth Noisewater 0]

I don't mean to come across all Leazes Mag, but there's an awful lot of management bullshit in that piece. A man whose job it is to "blue-sky". WTF?! I'm guessing Shepherd isn't a big fan of brainstorming and ramping it up.

Pasty storming and whoring it up more his thing.

[Fop 1]

I don't mean to come across all Leazes Mag, but there's an awful lot of management bullshit in that piece. A man whose job it is to "blue-sky". WTF?! I'm guessing Shepherd isn't a big fan of brainstorming and ramping it up.

I actually agree with you on that, there's fuck all worse than all of that management spin talk, cannot stand it.

 

Unless it's Alan Johnson doing the spin.

 

It's true that a lot of management gabble is complete bollocks, but a lot of the procedures under that guff seem pretty sound in this instance.

 

Especially given our penchant for signing players that don't settle and/or perform here.

 

I'm not sure NUFC needs "buzzwords" and such, but we do need the backroom stuff to be ran much more professionally and in a much more complete and complementary way.