Good coaches show what they’ve got in a variety of different ways.
Fran Alonso is a good coach and we know that he’s a good coach because he’s proved it this season by taking the Celtic Women’s team to a storming league finish, second place and a Women’s Champions League spot.
Today he’s led that team brilliantly and had another couple of games been available to him I reckon he’d have won the title.
The performances he’s gotten out of the team have been sterling, and more than that, he’s given us a lesson in how to cope in difficult circumstances today after a virus outbreak took out a significant part of his team.
And for all that, the players he brought in didn’t just rise to meet the moment but they blasted their opponents off the park with a virtuoso display, and an 8-0 win.
That’s a product of good management.
That’s getting everyone on the same page.
That’s making everyone believe.
Fran has all his UEFA badges but the Pro License, and since that’s underway he’s qualified to coach the men’s team as well as the women’s.
I’m not suggesting we give him the manager’s job, although it’s probably just a much a punt as the one we’re taking right now … but if he was given control over the pre-season training I don’t think many would complain.
If the alternative is letting John Kennedy do it then nobody will complain.
You can’t ask any more of a manager than what Alonso has done here.
He’s made the players better, he’s fused them into a team and he’s given them the self-belief that even when they’ve been massively disadvantaged before a massive, massive game they had more than enough about them to turn the trick and win the match comfortably.
We all watched Kennedy attempt to lead the team during the latter part of the last campaign; it was a joke.
That man cannot be in charge of the pre-season.
Give it to a man who’s proved what he’s all about.
Give it to a man who has shown his quality, the very highest.
Fans would trust that, the players would respect him.
It’s for a short time until Postecoglou is in the building with his own coaching team behind him.
Anything is better than the status quo.