YOUR CLUB NEEDS YOU !

John W. Henry is a very clever man. When I was still suckling in 1981 JW Henry was establishing his own company and within 10 years had two offices and one of largest commodity brokerage firms in America and was /is considered an extremely gifted commodities futures trader.

The firm's management methods are in making mechanical, non-discretionary trading decisions in response to systematic determinations of reversals in each market's direction, with the explicit intention of precluding not only human emotion, but also any subjective evaluation of such things as the so-called fundamentals, to trigger each decision to be long or short each market, or not.

It seems the man likes to take a gamble with high stakes and has a track record of winning since you don't get to spend 300 million on one of highest investment risks in business otherwise. Pretty canny if you ask me. A club with a global fan base and annual profits of around £40 million a year was a snip at £300 million not only that it can afford to pay you a tidy salary that makes up only a percentage of your annual income. 

You may have only heard the names NESV is paired with, Red Sox and its ground Fenway Park, and various properties surrounding the stadium, Henry's Fenway Sports Group bought a 50% stake in the Jack Roush's Roush Fenway Racing stock car racing team  it also owns 80% of New England Sports Network (think LFCTV with loads more money behind it) and Fenway Sports Group, a sports marketing and management firm, one that will no doubt be able to make NESV an even prettier penny.

Since arriving at the club JWH has made huge strides in repairing the damage and mistrust felt by supporters about the previous shambolic regime. He has met with supporter unions, council chiefs, management, players and one person in particular, Paul Tomkins. Critically acclaimed, Tomkins is hailed by Liverpool fans as one of the most established and talented writers outside of the national media. Pauls website Tomkins Times and the pieces he writes, as well as ones from contributors provides the reader with analytical observations backed up with cold hard data that mainstream media are either too afraid or not capable of attempting.

With his followers on twitter and subscribers to the site growing by the hour. Not to mention his new book "Pay as you Play" receiving critical acclaim Tomkins has a credibility that few would argue with, even fewer would even try as opinions based on facts are very difficult to disparage. Who better then JWH, a man who has built up a multibillion dollar empire using the philosophy " with the explicit intention of precluding not only human emotion", to have a man like Tomkins at his disposal, a fan who above all else wants Liverpool FC to be the greatest.

All of these steps contain one very important facet, one which the previous owners failed to realise and one which is central to any club being a success. Acceptance. If LFC are to move forward and reap the rewards financially and the awards its long suffering fan base wish for so dearly, NESV need the backing of the fan base. No longer does this mean the red half of Liverpool and a large contingent of Irish supporters born during the LFC heyday, Liverpool FC is a global brand with an ever increasing fan base, thanks to generations of emigration and the weekly television soap opera that the EPL has become JWH holds the keys to a billion dollar ATM machine.

This depends on one thing, keeping the supporters on his side and to do this he has to contend with a number of issues :

The Manager

The start of Roy Hodgson's tenure at LFC has been difficult viewing for everyone. His style of 9 men behind the ball and two up top is one supporters are used to seeing being used by the opposition not by a team that once prided itself on attractive attacking "pass and move" football. Roy's near omnipresence in the media has made supporters groan on an almost daily basis and it seems Roy, who has already said he's beginning to feel like a superstar with his amount of media presence since coming to Liverpool enjoys the limelight and the sound of his own voice since he tends to use 400 words to reply to a question hardly worth 40.

The Spanish Armada

In a year where Spain has become one of the few teams to hold both the World Cup and the Euro's at the same time few could argue that when it comes to football right now Spain is where it's at. The style, skill and grace that can be seen in the Spanish national team and by the majority of teams in La Liga has to be admired. So why now does a club that contains some of the hottest young Spanish talent available (Suso, Pacheco, Ayala all brought in by Benitez who convinced them not to join some of the biggest teams in Spain) Pacheco a mercurial talent has already climbed through the ranks at Anfield and now finds himself on the periphery due to Roy's bullyboy tactics and his wish to punish the players involved in the Northampton defeat, even though Pacheco arguably brings as much to the table as Joe Cole but has the pace JC has lost and an ability to tackle rather than standing bent over in front of an opposing player (watch JC in the next game, he loves the feeling of his knees so much he has to keep touching them with his hands..)

So why did the board of LFC  feel the need after one relatively poor season to return to a more English style, and have the feeling that the club needs to take its  heritage back, which was put into words by Jaime Carragher last season, which also begs the question, how do one or two players find themselves in a position to dictate what direction the club should be taking ? Then again that's now a Frenchman's job.

The Moolah

As the January transfer window approaches the some media outlets and certain gullible fans believe that NESV are going to splash the cash, unfortunately for some the days of signing players worth £20-30m are over. J.W Henry has already outlined his admiration of Arsenal and the system of buying stars of the future for a competitive price, getting their best years and selling them at their peak or hopefully right after for a decent profit. This is how most financially viable clubs on the continent sustain a decent cash flow into their books and gives them the reputation of blooding stars of the future, which in turn can only help them capture more talented young  players that have other options. (Comolli has also said this is where he see's Kenny Dalglish playing a role in bringing talented youngsters to the club)

The downside to this is that we may never see the likes of the talismanic Steven Gerrard grace Anfield for an entire career as it makes very little commercial sense, unless their marketing value through shirt sales and sponsorship outweighs the cost of keeping them at the club. Had NESV been at the club a few years ago there would be a very good chance we would be seeing Stevie G lead Chelsea out at Stamford Bridge for the last few seasons before being sold to Real Madrid. A system of selling established stars may be disliked by the fans initially, however it could be a useful tool in nipping the growing player power at the bud. 

The Media

It doesn't take a genius to see that Roy Hodgson is a reporters wet dream. He gives them what they need most, Content. Roy has a willingness to entertain every question with an long exhaustive retort as long as it's not a negative question aimed squarely at him, when it is his responses are mono syllabic and prickly at best. The time and patience being shown to Roy by the media is astounding considering the performances and results being so poor are only highlighted when you see the media reaction to Roberto Mancini and Man City even though they sit in the top four have four away wins only matched by Arsenal and have shown some great 90 min performances compared to the odd decent 45 min Liverpool have managed to muster. It is this reason that JW Henry et al must be careful about their decision on Roy's future. Any sacking to an English manager especially one that fortunate enough to find himself at one the world's biggest clubs and one who has many old pals in the media could be a can of worms NESV are not willing to open, yet.

You never hear Defend Defend Defend going into battle do you?

Since NESV are embracing the systems that work(?) in NFL & MLB "building a team" and with the arrival of a "Football Strategist" Camolli, the plank Roy was walking on seems to have been replaced by one cut from a giant redwood sadly.


We know Roy works on shape, where to be when we don't have the ball and what to do when the opposition are in certain positions in the pitch, that's fine if that's his thing, but we are so disappointing when we go forward, and the lack of goals or even chances has been soul destroying.


It looks like Roy isn't going anywhere anytime soon. As the song goes a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down. Dr. Roy gets to do his dull thing of positioning and defence, and bring in Willie Wonka, an exciting attacking coach, one that details weaknesses in opposition and has new ideas with regard to positive attacking football when we have possession.


Obviously in the NFL there are different players on the pitch depending on who has the ball but why not try it in football? Roy gets the back 4 plus midfield setup while we don't have it.


Mr Wonka gets midfield, wing backs and strikers. Not only would it take more power from Roy (sadly give him even more excuses) it would also give Torres who I imagine doesn't enjoy the unrelating defensive positional training he currently has to endure a better outlet to improve and gain similar knowledge about weaknesses in his opponents that he had gotten so use to under Rafa.


The fact that Reina is being taught methods from the 60's is an absolute joke, you only have to look at the England team to see how few good keepers come up to the highest level in England and that's purely down to coaching techniques.


Is it surprising he would want to leave if he feels that staying is having a detrimental affect on his career (getting into the Spanish first team) and his goalkeeping abilities.


As John W. Henry has already said "Any unhappy players can leave" may set up a mini exodus next summer since its doubtful any world class players would want to hang around battling for Europa Cup qualification and a mid table finish, would you?

Will he be the future Captain that we had all envisaged or the sports car we had to trade in to buy a family wagon and a mid table position.. Depressingly it's all in Roy's hands.

For now..

I have notes of everything, every single season, every single day. What I did this, or how I changed my approach to a player. One hundred per cent, I am analysing and I am always talking to my staff."

Dion Fanning author of the piece below talks about his meeting with Rafa with The Off the Ball team on Newstalk106. Its paints a pretty clear picture thats for sure. If we didn't already know how massive player power has become in the game and just how much fan favorites Jaime Carragher and Captain Fantastic were in the ousting of a world class manager to one stuggling to find his own class off the pitch and get his team to show some on it.


Luckily for Liverpool fans (myself included) we are seeing a number of players stepping up to the mark and salvaging games, against what has to said and I'm including Chelsea in this, have been pretty poorly performing teams.


It seems Liverpool now have the ability to make the opposition play even worse then they are. Goals are being scored finally but mostly from individual flashes of excellence or sheer determination rather than bone cutting incisive football that had been fortunate to witness at Anfield in recent years once the A-Team was fit and up for the game. Unfortunately for Rafa neither seemed to occur simultaneously during the last 9 months of his Liverpool reign.


The audio scratches the surface, but do yourself a favour and read the article attached below, if you haven't read it already.


Thanks to @kenearlys from The Off the Ball team for the audio. Download the daily podcast and thank me later.


Dion on Rafa


Sunday October 03 2010


'Football is a lie.' Anybody who has spent any time with Rafael Benitez will have heard these words. There are a million lies in football, a hundred thousand ways for the flimflam men and the bullshitters to prosper.


For Liverpool to prosper, it was concluded that Benitez would have to leave. His exit, it was said, would lead to an explosion of joy among the ranks of the players who had been worn down by his obsessiveness, his relentless demands and his cold, cold heart. The club, it was said, needed a break from his plotting. Things could only get better.


Today, as Benitez's Inter Milan face Juventus at the San Siro, Liverpool play a team one point above them in the Premier League: Blackpool. Before the game, the supporters will be marching in the streets in protest against Tom Hicks and George Gillett whose duplicity Benitez did so much to expose. The chief executive Christian Purslow, brought in to sell the club, is still there, still looking for owners, still reassuring the key players that all will be well. Within days, Liverpool could be in administration but, for many Liverpool fans, the possible nine-point penalty (there could be a loophole which allows Liverpool to avoid it which would almost certainly lead to a legal objection from Liverpool's challengers) is preferable to Hicks and Gillett refinancing. On the pitch, Roy Hodgson, the man Purslow appointed, appears to have made things worse.


And all it took was the removal of Benitez to bring the feel-good factor back.


Many ignored the complexities involved in managing a club owned by leverage kings while Benitez was in charge. Only now is the extent of his achievement becoming clear.


His refusal to play the media game or to back down or to be pragmatic in any way alienated those who form opinion. For a long time, nobody listened to their opinions at Anfield. In the last year, they did.


"Did we make mistakes? Obviously," Benitez said last week. "But 82, 86 points, four trophies, three more finals in a difficult time when the owners were changing, when the chief executives were changing. A lot of things were changing. Now people can see it, no? It was a big, big problem."


Benitez took the hits but held the club together. If he was shunned by the opinion-formers, it wasn't because he wasn't political. In the last year he went, as one ally puts it, "to war". He always felt there was a better way to do things


Benitez wants to look forward to his challenge at Inter, it is how he has persuaded himself a football man should be, but he cannot shake the sadness about his departure from the club and the city he and his family love. Those who know him well say he is more relaxed now than he was during that draining final twelve months.


After three hours in his company on Wednesday, I could see why his friends want him to talk to the media more often. David Conachy, the Sunday Independent photographer, was surprised by his warmth and wit, having expected a brooding, more explosive, presence.


But Benitez is wary too. Football is a lie and he has observed how some use the media to promote their versions of the story. At one point, he jumps from his seat, refusing to pose in a certain way because it is, he says, the kind of picture one of his enemies would sit for. Above all else, he is wary of being a phoney.


Liverpool, it was said, needed a manager who would put his arm around a player's shoulder. But they can't hug out their problems, as Hodgson is discovering.


"Everybody has weak points and I have weak points for sure," Benitez says. "People say I don't put my arm round the shoulder. It's not true. I am talking to the players every day. I like to know about them but my priority is football."


His priority has always been football. "I have been doing this job all my life," he says and it is barely an exaggeration. "Always in my head I was a manager."


He talks about his childhood in terms of football. His father was a commercial director of a hotel -- "he didn't like too much football" -- and a busy man so "I remember my mother taking me to the Bernabeu for training".


His career as a player was ended by injury but he was ready. Managing is his lifetime's work. He sleeps a few hours each night and he is always thinking of ways to be better. He may think too much.


"I think the manager is eternally dissatisfied because he wants more and more and more. I'm this kind of manager. I like to improve, to do better every time. Some times you know that you will need more time so you have to be calm but still you have to improve."


Does he ever look back on his great nights with pride and contentment?


"I have notes of everything, every single season, every single day. What I did this, or how I changed my approach to a player. One hundred per cent, I am analysing and I am always talking to my staff."


It's hardly The Time of Our Lives with Jeff Stelling. Benitez couldn't act clubbable. Last month, Jamie Carragher gave an interview in which he talked of the need for Liverpool to get back to traditional values.


"We've had situations like Martin O'Neill and Steve Bruce criticising Liverpool and they were right," Carragher said. "We shouldn't be getting involved with stuff like that. Everyone else should look at Liverpool and say they have dignity, class. I mean, like the way people look at Arsenal."


It was unfortunate timing as Arsene Wenger then spent the next month fighting with everyone, including match officials.


"I didn't see his quote but I like Carra as a player and he has to keep focusing on doing things well for Liverpool. Maybe he has an opinion but I don't think Shankly would agree with him. For me the manager of Liverpool Football Club has to defend the club and his players against everyone. The name of the other manager doesn't matter. If you know the story inside you will understand why these managers are talking and I think for our fans it's very clear.


"If you see the friends that these people have you will understand why. It's obvious that there are people who are close to some people and they like to protect each other."


Benitez was apart and, equally as dangerously, became convinced of his own separateness. Again, it is the way he believes a manager has to be.


"When you work hard and you have an idea and you want to carry on with your idea people say 'oh you are stubborn'. I think you have to have a conviction when you work with the players, when you know the players and when you talk with your staff. It's essential if you want to convince them. All the managers have the same idea."


He was a physical education teacher and one of the ways he sees himself as different to his predecessor at Inter, Jose Mourinho, is in his approach to footballers.


"I like to teach them. I am sure if they learn they will know things for the rest of their lives. If you can win in one year with the best players, saying we have to win this game, this game, the next game that's one way. But when you teach them the way and you ask them how to do things, it's different. At the end, they will know and they will remember all their lives."


He is trying to change things at Inter while keeping the things they did well under Mourinho. Before he arrived in Milan, he read in the Spanish press how Mourinho could control everything from his manager's office at the Angelo Moratti Training Centre. There was a window with a panoramic view that allowed him to see all that was happening on the training fields. During my time in Benitez's spartan office on Wednesday, I couldn't see this window. Football is a lie.


Mourinho's achievements cannot be disputed but Benitez would not be the man he is if he didn't think he could do more.


"The players are happy because we are trying to play more football, more on the floor, the passing is better. They were doing good things in the past and especially in the transition, the counter-attack, they were quite good. Now we have more possession but it takes time to adjust. It will be almost impossible to win more trophies in one year, we know that, but at least we will try to win some of them with style."


Inter are top of Serie A but one defeat is a crisis in Italy. He has the squad that won the European Cup, but he may have liked to have new faces to challenge the players who achieved so much last season.


Benitez is not going to rest on somebody else's laurels. On Wednesday night, Inter beat Werder Bremen 4-0. It was an important result but again perhaps football lied as it was not a performance that merited 4-0.


Inter suits Benitez too. He looks to Turin, to Juventus and sees the questionable powerbase of Italian football. He looks to the south, to Rome and sees the capital with its influence and he looks to Milanello, AC Milan's famed training camp and he sees Silvio Berlusconi and his authority. Italy is the kind of country where a man can collect enemies.


His friends from Liverpool are still around. They are thinking about Inter now but they form a government in exile, always aware of what is happening at the club they love.


He has changed, he says, everybody changes. The former Real Madrid manager Luis Molowny, who died earlier this year, once told him that it is important to be patient. Molowny's name is written on a piece of paper pinned to his office wall so his advice is on his mind. He says he is more patient now than he used to be.


The signings that didn't work out at Liverpool might be among the things he'd change. "I'll say it again, we made mistakes. But people are talking about players who were not good enough, if you put five or six of these players together, the cost would be five million. It's not easy to wheel and deal and at the same time to win and sign players like Torres, Reina, Mascherano, Aquilani, Skrtel, Johnson, Lucas Leiva, Agger or Kuyt."


These are the players he left behind. "I was very clear that when I left we had a better squad than we had in the past, and a better team. We knew we had to bring in better players. We left a good team, a very good team. A lot of people are talking about the legacy but the legacy is fantastic. When I left the club, Mascherano, Benayoun and Riera were there, along with Carra, Gerrard, Spearing, Darby. Insua, Cavalieri and Shelvey. They cannot talk about legacy when Purslow and Hodgson signed seven players. They have already changed the squad."


Gerard Houllier said he left a legacy too, claiming that in Istanbul the players told him it was his side that had won the European Cup. "I didn't see Houllier on the way to Istanbul or at half-time," he said sardonically. "After the game, I gave him permission to come into the dressing room and we couldn't get him out, even with boiling water! That's a Spanish expression."


Among Benitez's mistakes were Robbie Keane and the alienation of Xabi Alonso in one crucial summer. Keane was, he says, a "good player and a fantastic professional who needed a target man with him". But, crucially, Gareth Barry was Benitez's priority. "Barry was the first but I was not doing the business and I couldn't control it. The timing was a problem. I thought we had the money and it was obvious we didn't have the money."


Benitez had rumbled Hicks and Gillett before this but as they scrambled and failed to find the money for Barry, his plans unravelled. The collateral damage was significant too: Xabi Alonso was lost.


"In the last season Alonso played his best season for us. That is the reason people are talking about him. It was his last year when he gave us his best."


In Alonso's last season, Benitez drove his team towards the title. Liverpool finished second, a stunning achievement given his resources and the apocalypse that was heading Liverpool's way thanks to Hicks and Gillett and the recession caused by men like them.


Benitez's handling of the attempted sale of Alonso the year before alienated the player and ensured he would go. But Benitez planned to replace him with Alberto Aquilani and the Montenegrin Stevan Jovetic. The sale of Alonso was a controversial and ruthless decision and, as so often at Liverpool, he wasn't allowed full control of the solution.


Instead he was given half of what he asked for. Suddenly the money disappeared, as it tends to when working for the indebted. Benitez's last season began with Liverpool as many people's title favourites. But the manager couldn't conceal the club's problems anymore.


"It was a long time, it wasn't just one thing," he says of the process that wore him down. "The feeling was that something was wrong, we couldn't do what we wanted to do. We were preparing the signings and the sales but we could see that we have some targets and we didn't do it."


Christian Purslow was the new chief executive. Rick Parry had infuriated Benitez with the pace at which he got things done but he insists there was nothing personal. "I had a very good relationship with David Moores and Rick Parry but the only thing I wanted to do was to do things quicker because we didn't have too much money. To be fair, sometimes we were doing good business without big money and sometimes we lost players. After the Americans arrived, everything changed. I thought it would be easier the first year, we signed Torres and everything was going well but little by little we had some money problems and all the decisions were subject to the money issues."


It is the most understated way of describing the meltdown. The last season became attritional. Stories filtered out about an unhappy squad, how Rafa had lost the dressing room.


"It's not true that I lost the dressing room. It was obvious that maybe some players were not happy but the majority of the players were very good professionals who were surprised by these stories in the same newspapers by the same journalists. Who was leaking them?"


He wasn't looking to be loved but he believed he would stay at Liverpool.


Last week Christian Purslow remarked that "Rafa's exit was about as clearcut a case of mutual consent as I have ever been involved in in my life. Both sides thought it was time for a change, both sides said so at the time, if you go back and check."


Benitez saw his comment. "I read that he said this -- I was preparing for the next season but after the meeting with Mr Broughton and Mr Purslow I realised that I had to accept the offer they made. I was very sad and my family were devastated when we realised after these meetings that we would leave. I knew I had to go."


He will not be drawn on what changed but after a couple of summers being denied the money he thought he was getting, it's not hard to conclude that his transfer budget and the money he would get from player sales had something to do with it.


He remains attached to the place. He is aware of the protests against Tom Hicks and George Gillett but doesn't want to talk too much out of "respect for the fans and the club". All he knows is that the club is still looking for investment a year after being told the cavalry was on its way. Christian Purslow is nobody's idea of the cavalry.


Benitez spent last year waiting for the investment, meeting with potential investors. Now he has a new challenge while survival is Liverpool's.


But Liverpool is a part of him. It is the place he and his wife call home.


"I am monitoring carefully everything that's going on there. I have a lot of friends there and I received a 'Justice' scarf from the Hillsborough families group that is in my office at home. Again out of respect I think it is important that I talk a little bit about the past but especially about the future. For me, at this moment, that is Inter Milan. I keep my house there, we are based in Liverpool and in the future we will be there again."


Right now, he thinks about Inter and the challenges but he knows more than most what football can bring and how he might return.


"You never know, football is football. It could be in five years' time, ten years' time, two years' time. We have two years of a contract here, we are really pleased here, the people are very nice, the fans are very similar to Liverpool fans, with passion, so everything is going well."


But Liverpool is home? "Yeah-it's the only house we have. Liverpool is my home and I will come back."


In his last year, he fought many battles in pursuit of victory in one war. He wanted the right to do things as he wanted to do them. He wanted so much, he always did, and he always wanted more.


Those close to Benitez dismiss Purslow as a man who thought he knew too much about too many things. It is a criticism many have thrown at Rafa too. They saw him as a political animal and he was unwavering in his belief that his way was the right way.


But they underestimated him too, they always have. They concluded that he was cunning. He wasn't cunning, he just wasn't as pliable as some expected.


With his dishevelled appearance and his lack of personal vanity, Benitez is football's Lieutenant Columbo. And he is always looking for 'just one more thing'. The obsessional pursuit drove him mad and brought him into dangerous conflict with the powers that remain at Liverpool. But he knew no other way. He didn't ask for much: only perfection.


On Wednesday, David Conachy was pushing Rafa for more pictures. He doesn't like having his picture taken or, more precisely, he doesn't like having a certain type of picture taken. Dave wanted to take every type of picture.


"Just one more," Dave said to him several times.


"You always say just one more," Rafa smiled, looking at his watch, as he tried to get away.


"He's a perfectionist, Rafa, you can understand that," I said.


Rafa looked at me. "I didn't say it was bad. It's just dangerous."


Sunday Independent

"We couldn't possibly hire another foreign manager could we??"

If we have learnt anything after the recent interviews with the new owners of Liverpool FC there is one name that keeps popping up as to where the new owners want to go and how they plan on getting there. 

That name ? Arsenal FC.

No surprise there since they are the third most valuable club in world football* and are an ideal model of how to get results on the pitch without spending too much money off it. Not only that but as the team has the youngest average age in the Premiership, Arsenal won't be experiencing any of the problems that have been experienced by Liverpool and are not too far away on the horizon for Manchester United, but more on that another time.

Management is no doubt a major issue for the new owners. Their "building a team" off the pitch and already begun the changes with the appointment of Damien Comolli. If they're looking at Arsenal for inspiration then why not look towards their management success also.

Economics Masters recipient Arsene Wenger has been very successful, leading a top 4 team every year since the 96/97 season, winning 3 times but at 61 years old and already a living legend at Arsenal he wont be going anywhere else before he starts collecting his pension. 

So where might NESV find the man that could replicate the success at Arsenal ? Well the the search may not have to be as large as once thought. There has been much discussion about sabermetrics, and its ability to be utilised in the world of soccer since NESV's successful use of Billy Beans ideologies at the Red Sox. They need a man who believes in long term goals and the ability of youth. Looking at managers that have been succesfull in the last 10 years they have all had a similar trait, one that can be judged fairly easily looking a managers ability to change the course of a game. A master tactician is whats required.

Two players who would probably agree is Torres and Reina, their glowing reports on the notes Rafa Benitez would give them detailing their opponents tendencies and weaknesses and how they could be exploited were so detailed that they helped Spain on their course for World Cup glory, Reina telling Casillas exactly where Cardozo's penalty was going to be directed. So the recent whisperings of disenchantment from the same two about the techniques currently being employed do not come as much of a surprise. Two players hitting there prime also World and European Cup winners are not the quality of player you want to be leaving any squad, especially two of arguably the best in their respective positions.

Liverpool need a man who not only can command respect from players, communicate with each of them, bring through youth and actuate a style of play that the fans can be proud of again.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Boro Primorac.

Below is taken from a magazine article :

Boro Primorac has been one of the keys to the Arsenal manager's success wherever he has gone, says Wayne Veysey AFTER shaking hands with opposite number Ronald Koeman and a quick exchange with one or two players, Arsène Wenger's first port of call in the wake of tonight's Champions League clash in Eindhoven will be a post-match debrief with Boro Primorac.

The big, bald Bosnian's routine — both at half-time and when the final whistle blows — is to scurry down from his seat in the stands to offer any tactical or technical observations to his boss and long-term friend.

Pat Rice may sit alongside Wenger on match days and assume the public role as No2, but there is little doubt that the mysterious Primorac — who many diehard Gunners fans would struggle to recognise — is the French general's most trusted lieutenant.

A rugged central defender who captained the former Yugoslavia during his playing days, Primorac possesses the sort of physique that could earn him extra-curricular work as a nightclub doorman — and a vigorous handshake to match — but in English football his profile is minute.

He shuns interview requests with a self-deprecating shrug: "Why would you want to speak to me? I'm not important." The evidence, however, is to the contrary.

The 52-year-old is a highly-valued tactician and Wenger's chief sounding board on players, tactics and team selection.

"Boro is an encyclopedia of world football," said Arsenal great and former goalkeeping coach Bob Wilson. "Name a player and he'll know his height, weight and which foot he favours. He watches tape after tape on football, channel after channel.

"He's Arsène's ally and they share the belief that the three most important things in the game are technique, technique and technique."

Armed with stopwatch and whistle, Wenger personally runs all Arsenal's training sessions himself with the precision of a Swiss clock.

However, according to one Ashburton source: "If Arsène delegates anything, he delegates to Boro. He is the man he trusts most."

Wenger and Primorac's friendship was borne out of adversity.

They first became acquainted at Cannes in the early 1980s, where the Frenchman was an assistant coach and the Yugoslav a player, and then became rival managers in the France Championnat in 1993 — Wenger at Monaco and Primorac at Valenciennes.

But it was Primorac's role in the 1993 French football scandal that resulted in the jailing of Bernard Tapie, the Marseilles president, which was to secure their bond. The fallout from the crisis also resulted in Marseilles being stripped of the Champions League title.

After being told by one of his players, Jacques Glassman, that he and two team-mates, Jorge Burruchaga and Christophe Robert, had deliberately thrown an end-of-season game against Marseilles, Primorac bravely ignored Tapie's attempts to buy his silence and his evidence in court was crucial to the club president's conviction.

After bringing down Tapie, Primorac became something of a scapegoat in French football. At 39, his top-flight managerial career was effectively finished.

"Many people felt Boro broke the code of silence in football," remembers a Valenciennes source. "He suffered a traumatic time giving evidence against Tapie. He was personally threatened and Valenciennes got rid of him.

"The results weren't brilliant at the time and he never had great success as a manager, but Boro was robbed of his career by the scandal. He had taken great personal risk in giving evidence against Tapie and was to pay a huge price."

Wenger's Monaco suffered the most because of Tapie's corruption and the Arsenal boss had been impressed by Primorac's courage and integrity.

The Frenchman had publicly supported the man who was to become his long-serving accomplice and eventually offered him a coaching job after moving to Grampus Eight in Japan in 1994.

They have been comrades ever since and when Wenger moved to Highbury two years later, Primorac naturally went with him.

"If Arsène Wenger was to leave Arsenal tomorrow, Boro Primorac would go with him. Pat Rice wouldn't," observed former Arsenal midfielder Ray Parlour.

"Boro is clearly Arsène's right-hand man but it is hard to say how important he is to Arsenal's success.

"They are all important — Pat Rice, [physio] Gary Lewin. But at the end of the day, Arsène picks the team and his neck is on the block."

Those who have worked with Primorac at Arsenal talk of a charming, highly-intelligent individual whose language skills — he is said to be fluent in eight languages (Serb-Croat, French, English, Japanese, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian) — puts even Wenger and the multi-lingual Philippe Senderos in the shade.

"He is a lovely bloke," adds Parlour. "He is a big practical joker and very popular. He is probably closer to the players than Arsène Wenger because he has been there and done it as a player."

The man without portfolio has a wide brief at Arsenal, from assessing players to everyday tasks such as conducting the pre-training warm-ups, stretching, sprint sessions and shortsided games. Former Arsenal goalkeeper John Lukic refers to him as the BBC man, revealing: "He was only in charge of balls, bibs and cones, because Arsène does everything.

"But he has a far more important role as Arsène's eyes, ears and sounding board. And he is a fully qualified coach who did put on sessions when the boss was away."

Another ex-Gunner Paul Merson also sings his praises.

He said: "Boro was a football nut who was a great help to me when I was coming back from injury. I remember thinking, 'this bloke knows his stuff '. He was also very easy to speak to and more accessible than Wenger."

The Arsenal boss has admitted to sometimes signing players — such as Portuguese winger Luis Boa Morte, now at West Ham — purely on Primorac's recommendation, evidence enough of Wenger's faith in his most trusted adviser.

* (In April 2010, business magazine Forbes ranked Arsenal as the third most valuable football team in the world, after Manchester United and Real Madrid, valuing the club at $1.181bn (£768m), excluding debt.)

Source : http://arsenal-mania.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=28937 

John Henry words say one thing body language something else

2 Be Fair I hope I'm kinda hoping I'm right about this one.. When John Henry is asked about the future of Roy Hodgson his lips say one thing while a mini negative head gesture tells us he thinks the opposite. Reading too much into it ? Maybe.Although I have watched enough Lie to Me at this stage to spot these mini-tells of the subconscious.