Quote Originally Posted by 21_GOONER_SALUTE View Post
Fair enough, definitely a more interesting line of thought than stating experience must be crap because Mourinho says it isn't.

Anyway, I do agree with you that the most important thing in choosing a manager is choosing the best fit at that particular point in time; we're definitely rebuilding now and trying to stay afloat, so the question is, are new ideas a better choice than a safer pair of hands who has probably been through the cycle before?

So I decided to look for a big club who've given rookie ex-player managers the chance to lose their virginity and surprise surprise, the comparison I'd made with us and Meeelan came up again.

So after Ancelotti left in 2010 to the chavs, Milan straight away made their legend Leonardo the coach with zero experience. He didn't do to badly, ended up finishing 3rd and entertained the press with some crazy formations. Despite this he was sacked at the end of the season and made way for a more unknown guy called Allegri who really only had "small club" experience. Leonardo coached Inter Milan the next season, failed their and never recovered to coach again.

The "small club" experienced Allegri would win the league in his first season in charge with mainly Leonardo's team. He would later rebuild the team in the next 2 seasons and always finish not lower than a CL spot. You know his history after AC Milan so I dont' need to go there.

Allegri is sacked halfway through his 4th season after a poor run of form and Milan decide to try that legendary player/manager approach again instead of sticking with him. Clarence Seedorf comes in with zero experience, does relatively well till the end of the season, but just like Leonardo, fails again in politics and is sacked. He's coached a few teams since then and has not made any mark.

His replacement is another legendary player manager Inzaghi. Unlike Leo and Seedorf, he's actually coached the B-team so is a bit more "experienced". He gets a full season, they play poorly and finish 10th. He gets the sack obviously.

Milan continue to hire younger coaches with less experience but never pure Rookies again. Ancelotti remains their most successful coach in recent years, by trophies and more importantly win percentage and he was their longest serving manager- so the "new ideas" should have at least managed to triumph over that statistically.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List...Milan_managers

If this Arteta argument is so compelling, there should be a recent example that proves or even supports that it can or does work, but I'm yet to come across it. All I see are dozens of examples of experience, even if it is "small club" experience, being vital to managers whose remit was to turn around the fortunes of struggling top clubs (i.e. Fergie, AW, Simeone, Rodgers, Klopp, Pooch, Allegri, Mancini, Conte etc).
Fantastic post.