Is Coleman A Xmas Turkey?

Apologies to AD, who supplied this some time ago! Though, after a few very late goals conceded recently costing us an FA Cup fourth round place, plus valuable Championship points, and some questionable decision making, it's still very relevant....

Before a very productive festive period Coventry City were on a very poor run of form, securing only one win in eleven games, leading to supporters pointing fingers in all directions to find someone to blame, and inevitably one of those in the firing line is manager Chris Coleman. 3 wins on the bounce may have saved him from the axe during Xmas, but is he a turkey?

There’s no hiding from the fact that Coleman’s record isn’t great. Of 93 games in charge he’s won a mere 28, a win ratio of 30%, only slightly better than the worst by any Coventry manager since returning to the second tier. Picking up just 1.2 points per game is also only marginally better than the worst City manager in that time, Gary McAllister -  a man many felt just wasn’t management material - and much worse than Iain Dowie, the man Coleman replaced.

League positions haven’t been great either. After taking over in February 2008 with the club approaching the drop zone but not in imminent danger of it, Coleman failed to halt the slide and the club finished in 21^st position, just avoiding the drop thanks to the width of a post. 

Things improved during his first full season in charge, with a final position of 17^th, well clear of any relegation issues, but ultimately disappointing following an alarming slide after the turn of the year. However City appear to have continued to slip and were uncomfortably close to the relegation zone after a terrible run of one win in 11 matches, a run of form worse than that which saw Iain Dowie axed, before a mild resurgence in the last couple of weeks.

So has the football been good to watch? Well, frankly no, it hasn’t, and attendances have gone down during Coleman’s tenure, resulting in even less in the coffers for him to make changes. Much of the time we’ve played in a manner designed to protect a leaky defence, both dull to look at, and if anything has made our weaknesses even more apparent as it stifles the things we can be good at, losing us more than we gain by doing so in my opinion. 

It can be quite baffling why he plays this way at times, because in interviews Coleman says the right things - about how we look better attacking with width, and has brought in McIndoe and Bell to back this belief up, as well as attempting to bring in a number of wingers and attacking midfielders, like Driver, Gudmundsson and most recently linked with Will Buckley, Carl Baker and Peter Halmosi. At times he admittedly hasn’t been aided by injuries, but injuries are pretty much guaranteed to occur at some stage of a season so maybe that is just as much poor planning as it is bad luck.

On the whole Coleman’s transfer policy is commendable – look for young promising players from the lower leagues hungry to succeed, improve them and sell them on for a profit to fund the next batch of youngsters, leading to a steady, incremental improvement. 

Such a policy relies heavily on good coaching though and at times we’ve seen a good prospect come to the club and go backwards. Patrick van Aanholt, Jack Cork, Martin Cranie and Aron Gunnarsson are all players who have started well but dropped away a bit over time. Michael McIndoe has impressed in this league at other clubs but has looked a shadow of that player in Sky Blue thus far.

I also find it a bit worrying that an ex-international defender doesn’t appear able to coach out the problems in defence that hves been on-going for sometime despite various acquisitions.

I don’t think Coleman’s seemingly negative mindset helps matters a great deal. Pre-match interviews always seem to concentrate on the opposition’s strengths and the players’ body language seem to suggest they’re wary of what the opposition can do to them rather than looking to exploit one of their foes weaknesses, putting pressure on themselves. 

The number of goals scored early in the second half and general poor second half performances suggest the opposition come out of the dressing room more fired up after the break than we do, and the pitiful capitulation on the final day against Charlton when needing a win to stay up was also a poor advert for Coleman’s motivational abilities.

Coleman is a good PR man though. He seems to have a good relationship with the chairman, with both of them working to the same plan, and only once has he suggested some blame should lie with the fans, jumping from euphoria to despair after a couple of victories or defeats. He’s not afraid to lay blame at his own or the players’ door and you have to admire that honesty, although a few comments lately haven’t rung true. His suggestion that we bossed the game against Scunthorpe left me scratching my head as to whether I’d watched the same game.

However, some of his public comments, which may impress the supporters for their honesty, may not please his charges and possibly cause unrest. Coleman has issued some thinly veiled criticisms at his players recently, such as some players being selfish after the loss to Scunthorpe when Leon Best shot instead of passing to an unmarked Morrison, and the recent speculation regarding a comment about a popular player being disruptive and needing to address that.  The revelation that he knows how to deal with a whining, sulky Clinton Morrison by just letting him have a tantrum doesn’t really smack of good man-management to me either – more like bottling a confrontation and showing leadership but that’s just a personal opinion.

Coleman does have good attributes. His ability to keep Fulham mid-table without huge funding is a very commendable achievement. His record in Spain was decent enough as well, if not quite as good as hoped, so maybe his mindset just isn’t quite positive enough to truly succeed in the game. He has the ability to consolidate but not necessarily improve and push on. At Coventry he hasn’t really shown enough good qualities to suggest he can take the club forward and though he talks the talk very well, his walk appears to have developed a bit of a limp. 

Coleman’s not a turkey yet, but the January transfer window will be a testing time for him.