Written by kirsikka
With Gary O’Neil’s sudden departure from AFC Bournemouth, this is now a post-era review rather than trying to work out where he was going to take us next year.
Let’s be clear, when he initially took on the role as a caretaker it looked a tougher task than stealing fifty luxury cars in one night. Promoted clubs can sometimes take their momentum into the new season and use the high morale from the previous season to drive some early season results. Parker’s self-serving and willful destruction of their confidence put paid to that, alongside a mauling an Anfield.
However, to his credit, GON managed to use that experience as a galvanising force for the team. Our season was never going to be about having better individuals than other sides, it was hanging on the manager forging the players into a cohesive force that could overcome superior talent. Something Parker clearly knew he couldn’t do, but, somewhat surprisingly, it turns out that GON could.
He started by trying to shore things up and make us defensively sound and battling early points won him a lot of plaudits. However, in the same way that you can lose whilst making good decisions, you can win points whilst making mistakes and this was the concern and the split of opinion with many AFCB fans.
Those watching us closely (ie not the pundits) could see everything wasn’t right, those in favour of GON seemed to think he would learn quickly enough to correct those errors whilst those on the other side of the fence were concerned he wouldn’t.
That was GON paradox. It was clear he lacked experience in game management, didn’t have any to turn to on his bench with the other coaches, and kept making the same mistakes (all-out defence after 60 mins, set pieces…) but was picking up enough points to maybe keep us up.
Mea culpa time. I was bitterly disappointed when he got the job full-time as I didn’t see a long-term future with him. In fact, I didn’t see him keeping us up and said so numerous times after poor performances. I got it wrong. He did the job. But in only focusing on getting the job done and not the optics of how we were approaching games, he also managed himself out of the job.
I don’t think there are many AFCB fans that bought into the ‘Manager of the Year’ nonsense that was bleated in some pundit corners. He deserves a lot of credit for the end result of safety but he also revealed a lack of ambition in how he wanted to approach games, even after we were safe and nothing was on the line apart from prize money. I didn’t envisage Foley also seeing it and being ruthless enough to take action, I doubt GON did either, but here we are.
You can already picture the pundits already drooling in anticipation of Iraola failing so they can rant about the decision some more. I can’t comment on Iraola as I’ve never watched his teams play but I 100% back the GON decision because I have.
It’s a strange legacy that GON has created. There aren’t many managers that are sacked from a job with their reputation massively enhanced, a record of success, and their head held high. At the same time, a lot of respect but not so much in the way of love from the fans of that club.
He has time to consider who he wants to be as a manager on the back of that and maybe it could be the making of him. He undoubtedly could carve out a career as an ‘effective’ manager but he now has the opportunity to decide if he wants to be more ambitious than that.
So what of the GON time at AFCB, and what of him in the future? It’s old ground but:
– He needs a right-hand man. He never got an assistant at AFCB yet most of the best managers are actually a double act. He needs to find his Peter Taylor. His Brian Kidd. His… Jason Tindall. It’s the opposing voice of someone you trust that helps managers recognise their deficiencies.
– He needs to be braver. Sometimes there’s no reward without risk, but he was so often about not wanting to risk and hoping to sneak a reward. The Crystal Palace game will live long in the memory for precisely this. They looked a mess until they realised, even though we were safe, we weren’t interested in risking anything and so they could just pile forwards. One of our most depressing and abject performances in years precisely because there was nothing at stake and so we could have seen what happened if we tried to take the game to them.
– He needs to learn from others. One thing that seems to be apparent about some of the best modern coaches is that they aren’t too proud to spend time watching others at work. He’s out of the game now but his stock is high so you’d imagine some other coaches would be happy to host him. Take the chance and spend some seeing how others do it and listening to their ideas. It’s a golden opportunity.
– Set pieces. If he is still committed to the defensive mindset whereby you’re going to give away a disproportionate number of set pieces then he has to tighten up the method of defending them. He absolutely got away with it last season, most years that record would have sent a team down
– Learning. Some will disagree, but watching him make the same mistake too many times was a sign of a rookie manager learning in the wrong environment. Not sure that’s all on him, and hopefully he gets a chance in a more forgiving league next so he can experiment a little more freely.
Those are the negatives, but what about the things he got right:
– Motivation. When things were on the line, he seemed to be able to get into the player’s heads and get them to perform above themselves. When there was less at stake (mid-season slump, post safety etc), this failed him but when it really mattered he turned them into titans. This is an incredibly valuable skill
– Hybrid formations. He didn’t have the luxury of pre-season so getting the players to adopt his approach to hybrid formations, which was far more fluid and situational than Parker’s (SP still moved between formations but was more rigid about it), during the season was impressive. In fact, by the end of the season, they were so good at it that I actually stopped commenting on the formation for the last five or six games (ish… can’t remember exactly) in post-match threads. That’s because the tv view didn’t allow me to comment accurately on the way he had them flowing from one to another depending on possession or match situations. Even those there with a full view of the pitch at all times were unable to agree on whether Mepham was right back or right centre back v Palace showing it was fluidity in motion.
This is a seriously impressive achievement. I’d say probably his best because that isn’t an easy thing to get right. I don’t think he cracked the right formation for the attacking side of things but that’s a different matter. The way he drilled the players to smoothly shift between formations so well is excellent and worthy of note.
– Results. It’s a result-driven business and he can rightly point to having kept us up. We don’t know the substance of his conversations with Foley when he got the job but if it was “Keep us up”, and nothing more then he can rightly feel aggrieved. If it was “Keep us up and show me what you can do as a coach”, then there’s an argument that he played it too safe. Still, the record shows he kept us up and nobody can take that away from him.
So that’s it. At the end of it all, he can hold his head high as one of a few Premier League caretakers becoming a first-time manager that can call their reign a success.
So long Gary, and good luck. It’s been emotional.
Your say…
Kicks_On_66 wrote…
I was nonplussed about Gary’s appointment, but no obviously better alternative was apparent at the time. I did say in the forum survey that I thought he would keep us up. I based that mostly on my assessment that there were 7 or 8 very poor sides contending for only 3 relegation spots. I also posted near the end of the season that I thought the club should thank him heartily for a job well done, wish him well on his future career as a manager, and send him on his way in favor of a likelier candidate.
I am well satisfied with all that has come to pass since the end of the season and am looking forward to the new season with great anticipation. I will not panic during the likely rough start. – To join the conversation, click here.
