David McNally

I've never really done anything like this before, but started writing a comparison between McNally and Webber reigns as I am quite interested in Sports Leadership. It has ended up being much longer that I thought. Anyway, here are the thoughts about McNally. In future, if I get around to it, I'll write some thoughts about Webber. There is nothing new to add, but wanted to try and think about the key areas of their roles. It was just going to be for me, but thought I'd post.

I've just been watching a couple of Webber interviews. In one of them he appears to criticize part of the McNally years. It was surrounding the development of the training ground and Webber said something like 'they had a term here Best in Class and yet here they were training from Portacabins and in a conservatory with a leaking roof'. He also mentioned that all this would have been much easier to find when we were in the Premier League. Although it's very hard to disagree with Webber's words, I think you can also see where McNally was coming from in terms of gambling in order to stay in the Premier League.

Anyway, it got me thinking about comparing the reigns of McNally and Webber. This is what I've come up with:-

McNally
Identity - 6.5.
Under Lambert had a clear identity in terms of buying young and hungry players that never knew when they were beaten. However, the appointment of Hughton seemed to be at odds with this approach. He did communicate with supporters pretty well through various channels.

Buying First team players- 7.5
Initially this would be quite a low score, but I think that is because we seem to remember the massive flops e.g Wolfswinkel, Naismith etc, but during the early years there were plenty of successes such as Holt, Pilkington, Ruddy, Russ etc

Recruiting Young Players - 9
Very high score. Young players on roll when he left included Godfrey, Lewis, Maddison, Aarons(?), Murphys etc. Big issue is that he never appointed a manager that gave young players a chance.

Appointing Various Staff - 8
Success obviously include Lambert and Neil. I also believe he appointed Ben Kensell and wanted to appoint Zoe Ward so obviously had a good eye for staff members in different parts of the football club.The idea to appoint Neil Adams as Loan Manager was also very innovative and ahead of it's time and Webber recently stated how impressed he has been with him.

Posted By: Bonjour on March 11th 2019 at 21:29:39

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