That's a good job application if ever there was one.
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View From The Ninian have been running a few Bellamy articles recently, including this one:
https://viewfromtheninian.com/2021/0...culture-shock/
This is why I want Craig Bellamy back involved with my club - even if there are risks and baggage involved - setting the culture and the standards.
“My biggest strength was my attitude towards training and being better. I have to have everything right. If a coach hasn’t lined everything up on the pitch, I’ll notice and I won’t be happy with that. Attention to detail has to be spot on because I’m driven that way. If you told me to do five minutes on the bike, I would have to do 10 otherwise I wouldn’t sleep well. Those little things can really irritate me.
At Cardiff, it was a different world to the professionalism I had seen. There were a lot of very good players, but then you realise why they’re here. That’s why you can’t get to the highest level. Turning up 20 minutes before training, travelling overnight and training with no sleep. I saw loads of lapses in mentality, but there were also a lot of good ones that were getting the best out of what they had.
Take Kevin McNaughton for instance. As a footballer, he didn’t have great ability, he was limited, but he had a great attitude to training and he got the best out of what he had. For me, he was a massively successful player. We had a lot of players that had the ability, but didn’t have McNaughton’s attitude and that’s why they were at that level.
A lot of this conversation is about Michael Chopra! I like him a lot, but I remember saying to him that this can’t happen. I had to be careful because I didn’t want to be seen as the big player from the big league, telling everyone what to do, but I can’t buy in to this sort of mentality. This idea that by changing him, you’ll take that little bit of devil out of him. He would be a better player! This is what’s stopping him because he’s not living his life right. He could have been way, way more.
I was always around players that were outstanding, not just in ability, but also in attitude. Their professionalism was frightening. Steven Gerrard, Vincent Kompany, they’re on another planet, but its not a coincidence that they are where they are. First in, last to leave. I had to compete with them and I didn’t have the same amount of ability, so I had to train even more. Come in even earlier, leave even later to give me an edge.
At Cardiff, the building was shut down at 1 o’clock! The physios went home. I could not get my head around the mentality of so many players there. You’re going to get caught out. If someone didn’t track back in training, it was OK.
I didn’t want to be the one to say this or that, but I did towards the end. I remember we played Barnsley and we lost a goal because someone didn’t track back and after the game, I lost it. I had enough. I think we drew 2-2 and it was a game we should have won comfortably.
Chopra would look at his phone at half time and I was astonished. So a physio stole it because he had clocked it too and had enough of it. We were losing and he was looking for his phone. Before we can even have a team meeting, he’s screaming ‘where’s my phone?’ I didn’t have a clue, until he refused to come on second half until his phone was given to him. I played the second half nearly in tears. I come out of that game thinking I’m not sure I want to play here anymore. I’ve never seen anything like that.
I knew Chopra as a young kid at Newcastle and he was only ever going to be that way. Jay Bothroyd was massive too and honestly, I loved him. I knew him as a kid at Coventry too and he was his own worst enemy because he had the ability to be a top player. He couldn’t sustain it because sustaining it is hard work.
How many of the top players at Cardiff, apart from Earnie and a few others from the area, went on and done well at other clubs? We fell in love with their ability, but they fell short of what they could have been.”
That's a good job application if ever there was one.
Should be our Manager with a 5-10 year plan to change the way the club's run from top to bottom
The problem i have with Bellamy is that he's talking like a player, not as a manager. He's relaying his standards, ethics, as a player. They're personal to him, how he saw himself. What we don't know is how his attitude towards himself and his standards as a player could translate to management and dealing with individuals who may struggle with certain aspects of the game but produce on a match day. Everyone could be better, getting a large group together and installing that belief and culture would take some serious man management on the part of Bellamy.
The problem with that is he mentions not saying anything. Probably because he knew he would lose his rag. He obviously understands what it takes to become a top professional, but there's nothing there to suggest he could get the best out of player. Or that he has any tactical knowledge.
"I come out of that game thinking I’m not sure I want to play here anymore". Not exactly inspiring.
Bellamy was petulant , hot headed , impulsive and hot and cold as a player
On his day he was unplayable
I don't know if he would make a manager though 🤔
He's talking as a player. Those thoughts have no bearing on how he gets the best from a group. Paulo Di Canio hada similar attitude to Bellamy, the bloke was obsessed with detail, training, method, work rate, maximising ability etc, yet as a manager he was a disaster. It's all well and good having very high standards, but how that's communicated towards a rather affluent work force is another matter.
It sounds ideal and exactly the sort of philosophy you want in a club. It doesn't always transition to the manager role though. Look at Roy Keane for example.
You can take the boy out of Cardiff......
Just keep him away from a golf club. I can well imagine he would have ended up detained at Her Majesty's pleasure for a considerable period of time if he had not become so successful on the pitch. A City legend but not management material at the moment. One day, maybe.
yep, management is a skill that you usually have to learn .
Even if Bellamy can use his experience to see where a lot of faults are with the club, it doesn't mean he'd be able to turn it around without pissing everyone off.
Also if you listen to the likes of Roy Keane, as a pundit he attributes any team's problems to mentality, or pashun.
In the real world there are a lot of other things you ideally want your manager to be thinking about.
In Keane's playing days he was playing in a well oiled team, alongside extremely gifted players, so when that went wrong you could probably point to the mental side of the team as letting them down - that isn't the only problem in a lot of clubs.
Keane wasn't a thug, Sludge. There's no way he could've won what he did and performed at the highest level for so long if he was just a thug. In one of his books he mentions that he learnt in management that he actually needed the players on his side and that he couldn't expect all of them to go about their business in the way he did. Players like Bellamy and Keane are about doing everything to the maximum, they're the type of characters who would have to cut their grass better than the neighbours. Very high standards and a huge competitive edge. They both probably realised that they had limitations at an early age and in order to compete at the highest level they were going to have to work even harder than everyone else. That's what made them into top class players for a sustained period, Honesty and work rate that added to natural ability. Does that ethic translate into modern day football management, where established players have already set into a routine? I'm not so sure, although it would be fun finding out
luckily not in HD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_st29mlQwU
I think Bellamy would be more suited to a coaching role under someone with more experience and better people skills. I wonder what Bellamy thought of Whitts as a pro. My guess would be that it probably drove him mad that Whitts didn't try harder.
And that action defines his career? Incidentally, i think that Keane did the right knee (which recovered from the keane assault) Haland retired because of his left knee which had been giving him problems for a while, it wasn't the tackle from keane that finished him, Haland admitted that much in his book. End of debate?
Who said it was ok? The fact is that Haland retired because of the injury to his other knee, he admitted that, that's why there was no court action. I'm not saying it was right for Keane to do it, because there was no justification. I'm just stating a fact, calm your pants...
Im calm. Youve played to a decent standard.
I presume you accept Keane has set out to do him there.
If youd been playing and you or a teammate been done like that badly injured and for good measure abused by the player whod assaulted you as he was going off no remorse or apology I bet youd probably think the bloke was a thug or worse.
I dont think it should define his career. But totally accept anyone thinking he was a thug.