: Wed Feb 11, 2009 10:28 am
wigan pie man wrote:
sorry......cant agree.
dont some players and management look on here??
so if they are underperforming and playing as bad as mathers did on sunday, would it be more helpful to him to say "you did ok, never mind"....or would it be better to say "mathers , you played crap"
turning a blind eye to bad play doesnt help anyone.
blunt, honest opinion does, although it may sound harsh and brutal, it helps in the long run.
ignoring the fact that certain players play crap week in week out is the best way to get em to carry on playing crap, as it leads them to believe the performances they are putting in are acceptable......when in fact , they arnt acceptable.
I think that there is a distinction to be made between people saying "Mathers played crap on Sunday" and people saying "Mathers is crap". The first expresses disappointment and demands improvement, while the second displays nothing constructive.
As for players believing that performances are acceptable when they are not, I don't buy it. They know when they've had bad games, regardless of whether or not anyone tells them.
Further, if criticism is made with the intent of informing management of our opinion, it should be contstructively and articulately made. Simply saying (for example) "Feka's a fat lump of sh*te" isn't going to persuade anyone and will more than likely be dismissed as evidence that the poster is drunk or has a personal vendetta against Feka. On the other hand, saying something like "Mathers' positional play in defence was acceptable, but was undone by his weak one on one tackling, which was ineffectual at worst and dangerous close to foul play at best. In attack he failed to support the ball carrier and was therefore nowhere to be found just when an extra man coming into the line was needed. " is much harder to dismiss. I still doubt that any coach is going to look to fans' opinion for guidance in analysing the performance of his players, but there we go.
In my opinion, if we wish to motivate players, telling them they are rubbish is not the way to go about it. Booing them off the pitch is the right of fans, but must be used sparingly, I believe. After the Hudds game last season, it was a much needed wake-up call. Do it every week and it becomes counter-productive. For better or worse, these are the players we have this season. They are not going anywhere anytime soon. We need to balance our support and our criticism to get the best out of them. Ultimately, we want the players who play poorly to feel sorry for letting us down, to think, "those guys supported me and I let them down, I've got to do better", rather than thinking "they all hate me anyway and I get paid either way, screw 'em". Get them to see that the reason we are angry is that we demand better and we expect better...and we just may get better. Let them think that we expect nothing from them anyway, and where does their motivation come from?
I should just say that I quoted wigan pie man to help me answer a couple of general points. I am in no way saying that he advocates constantly slating the players and fully understand that he is talking about criticising for constructive and honest reasons.
...sounds like a feckin politician...
