How Important is the Manager Anyway?

How Important is the Manager Anyway?
January 7, 2011 Paul Tomkins

The League Managers Association – whose fêting of Roy Hodgson helped him claim rights to a job to which he wasn’t suited – says that changing managers does not lead to better results, and that managers should not be ‘scapegoated’ in the way they are.

While reasonable to a degree, the idea that switching from one manager to another makes little difference is understandably leading people to ask ‘So, why do managers get such praise when it goes well?’ and ‘Do we even need them?’

Are they therefore all just drones? – rent-a-clones who handle every decision in the exact same way, sharing an identical approach to tactics, man-management, etc., so that there are essentially no innovators or exceptional performers? Are they all equally qualified and equally inspiring?

If that’s the case, do we place too much emphasis on their abilities to determine results? And at Liverpool, are we too romantic in our portrayal of our leaders? Also, players obviously share the blame, but to what extent? And finally, why does Roy Hodgson still have a job at Anfield?

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