Interesting feature article from the excellent 'Coaches' Voice'
https://www.coachesvoice.com/ian-burchnall-notts-county-ostersunds-graham-potter/
Last edited by SwalePie; 29-03-2021 at 12:34 AM.
It was a good read, thanks for posting.
The truth about the squad isn't either of the extremes we've seen on here.
As well as the limitations, we're now dealing with confusion, suspect team spirit and morale...
But these things are possible for a good management team to turn around. We can't just rubbish the squad and give the incoming coaches a free pass - a collapse, or decline where we miss the play-offs would still be on them IMO. I think we all know where we stand now, and a play-off defeat to a good side would be understood. But I don't think there's any excuse not to get there from where we are, and who we have, at the moment.
We’re in an OK place points-wise, but a bad place performance-wise. We’ve got to beat Aldershot and avoid defeat against Wrexham at the very least this week, but I’m not very confident we’re in a good place to do that. Signing an energetic midfielder and the return of a fit Cal Roberts would be a giant boost.
Re the head coach, I’m struggling to work out if IB is the real deal or not. He’s basically had one good season in Scandinavia, and who knows if that was him or the lingering Graham Potter effect at Ostersunds (he talks in the interview about the 6th place finish, but doesn’t mention the 12th place finish the following season). Let’s see if he can address the obvious midfield problem as a starting point.
Thanks for highlighting this article, although personally I believe it should be on a dating site and not a sporting one; two too many photographs of himself and a syrupy description of his “success” in Sweden – all that is lacking is a photograph of his pet dog/cat if he has one.
As for facts getting in the way of a good story, leaving a team in 12/13th position in a division of 16 teams is hardly leaving them in a good place.
The trouble is that the current players will all be picking up this hype and coming to their own conclusions which will inevitably reflect negatively on the pitch; unless of course he is also an expert in motivation.
We have absolutely no idea if it’s leaving them in a good place. Just comparing it to England, there are several teams in our top division where finishing outside the relegation zone is deemed a very good achievement.
I don’t know enough about Swedish football to say whether the same applies to Ostersunds.