A telltale sign of a manager on his way out!

Curbishley left after feeling that he had been undermined and shown a lack of trust by the owner and board, the main issue being that he was not involved in the transfers made during the transfer window.
This fuelled an outrage (ah well...) among the fans and indignation among managers.
Several managers saw their chance and made comments like “the owner should let the manager manage", to everybody that cared to listen.

Now, "let the manager manage", seems like a statement that everyone could agree with, but what does it really mean, and is the Curbs example relevant for this discussion?

Old school - still around?
Football managers have historically taken responsibility for team-selection, tactics and strategies, but also for buying and selling players as well as negotiating player wages
While this is still the case in many lower-league clubs the increasing complexity of the financial and administrational side of the game prompted many clubs to divide these managerial duties on a group of people, each with their own speciality.

There are some examples of managers with a comparably large input in many of these areas. One popular example of this is Alex Fergusson. But Sir Alex is also known to send messages to the owners by statements in the press and lately the rumour was that he did not field the best starting XI emphasise the need of bolstering the squad with a world class striker i.e. Berbatov. If Ferguson was in charge in the way a manager used to, such signals wouldn’t be needed. Easy to embrace statements like “Manchester United's football team are controlled by one footballing man – Ferguson” is obviously not true.

Communicate!
Modern managers need to know how to communicate and make sure that they are listened to. They need to get the players to understand the tactics and the system and they need to get the board to buy (!) into needed changes of the squad, convincing it that this is the right way forward for the club.

For some reason it is obvious to people that the manager fails if he does not get the players to play the way he wants them to. However, if a manager does not get the board to understand what is needed in terms of new players it suddenly is the board that does not “let the manager manage”. I would say that in many cases it is the manager that is not good enough at his job.

Obviously, this responsibility to communicate is not one sided. The board must strive to understand their manager and the manager must also listen to the other specialists in the staff, those having a deeper knowledge of e.g. the financial or medical side of the game, to understand what frames the manager has to work within - and why.

A perfect example of the need to divide previously manager tasks is when Nani was appointed as technical director. One of his first tasks being to reorganize the so called sport science department, including medical staff, rehab and training facilities - an area where Curbishley did not exactly have cutting edge knowledge. The managerial decision was taken to relocate funds to the sports science area, albeit not by the manager.

The board as the manager?
The other extreme, often brought forward by journalists and fans advocating “let the manager manage”, is that the board gets (trophy) players, not wanted by the manager. The reason could be to “sell replica shirts, global branding, awareness of image” or just to show the world that they are the ones who’ve got him. Now that can obviously be a problem, but to take this as a reason for getting back the old school type managers is stretching it way too far.

But we are missing the point – the Curbs example.
A manager that sees his board buy or sell against his wishes is just not good enough at his job.
He must also know that when this happens it's a telltale sign of him being on his way out.

The Hull boss Phil Brown wrote in his column: "The Kevin Keegan situation at Newcastle highlights a number of issues, the first one of which is all football decisions must to be finalised by the manager." But he is drawing conclusions that suits his purpose, but can't be drawn from that situation. Regardless what Keegans card and board said, at that point he wasn't, in fact, the manager anymore...

No, the Curbishley and Keegan examples really have no relevance for the discussion on the power of the manager under normal circumstances.

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