HARRY REDKNAPP: RDM shows AVB how it could be done - 7M sport

HARRY REDKNAPP: RDM shows AVB how it could be done



I have a say

Posted Sunday, September 16, 2012 by The Sun

HARRY REDKNAPP: RDM shows AVB how it could be done
NEW CHALLENGES ... London bosses RDM and AVB

ROBERTO DI MATTEO did an amazing job last season — but whether he can perform a miracle this season is another thing.

It’s a big, big ask for Chelsea to make a little bit of history and be the first team to retain the Champions League trophy.

But even if they don’t, Di Matteo already seems to have cracked the art of management — by getting the key players at Stamford Bridge back on side.

Look at what he achieved last season. He was part of the set-up under Andre Villas-Boas. Yet the team was struggling for its life, it was going nowhere.

Then he took over and changed it all around. To get the job in March and win the Champions League and FA Cup is pretty spectacular.

But it just shows you can transform things quickly if you know how to treat the squad — in particular the powerful voices and the big characters in the dressing room.

When I say the ‘art’ of management, of course, it’s not really. It’s basic commonsense and you certainly don’t need a coaching badge to work out man-management.

Alex Ferguson is not a coach, he is a manager. I hear Arsene Wenger, too, is a manager, not a coach.

At Chelsea you don’t have to tell Frank Lampard when to arrive in the penalty area, it’s his instinct.

Last season, he wasn’t getting a game. Ashley Cole, the best left-back in the world, was being frozen out. Bring them and John Terry back onside, make Didier Drogba feel like a superstar and you have a team that performs again.

As a manager you will always have players who like you and players who hate your guts.

But make sure you keep the leaders on your side, otherwise the dressing room turns on you.

I’m not saying Frank or any of the other lads are trouble makers, they are totally professional. But, at some clubs, if the big hitters are frozen out then every morning in the changing room there will be grumbling about you. That brings down the other players and the germ spreads. Suddenly, no one’s performing for you.

Di Matteo brought the senior players back into the fold and Chelsea have blossomed again.

At every club there are one or two you would love to see the back of but you just cannot afford to alienate too many important players.

You certainly can’t send senior players to train with the reserves and freeze them out. If you do that, there’s no way back. You might need them one day but, when you do, they are too far gone and you are the loser.

Football is a simple game. People who understand that understand football and are usually good managers. Other people will try to make it seem more complicated because that makes them look clever.

Ferguson, Matt Busby, Bill Shankly, Bill Nicholson and Jock Stein all understood that. I wouldn’t put myself in their class but I’m in that mould.

It’s too early to say if Di Matteo has the same ideas, but he has passed the first test. He has signed good players this summer, as well, with Eden Hazard and Oscar. The backbone of the team is there, too, with Terry, Cole and Lampard.

The only problem they have is that they have not replaced Drogba. They have one striker, Fernando Torres. He can’t play every week.

But, if they do hit a rocky patch, at least Di Matteo knows the players are watching his back — in a nice way.



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