Ray Wilkins appointed Assistant Head Coach

Precisely how many chefs are going to be in our kitchen?

 

The sole chef that remains to be appointed is the Swedish Chef.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbs64GvGgPU[/youtube]

 

what about the French Chef?
[dailymotion]http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7tnc9_the-french-chef_fun[/dailymotion]

Darn, that dailymotion button isnt working for me.

Anyway, the too many chefs thing doesnt really bother me in theory. Plenty of teams have a technical director, manager and one or more assistant coaches. Assistant Head Coach may be a little different, but it's just a title. As long as the chain of command and responsibilities are clearly defined and agreed upon, there is no reason why this cant work. Also, since Rene came in as an Asst Head Coach (correct me if I'm wrong), perhaps this is just giving him the set-up he was expecting when he agreed to come to Fulham. Remember it appeared he had turned us down initially. What bothers me more is appointing Ray Wilkins. His coaching background and personal life doesnt instill lots of confidence in me that he will help us. Maybe he was the best they could find to be in an assistant's role.

 

I don't get the confusion and why people are making such an issue of this, as well as of Curbishley's appointment. I also don't get why people don't look things up.

Every team in the Premier League has 1 manager and 3-5 first team coaches. Half of the teams have 3 assistants. The other half have 4-5. ManU has the only player/coach I could find (Giggs). That doesn't include trainers, medical, strength and conditioning, fitness, diet or even performance analysis people. Prior to Wilkins coming on board, we had 2 assistants. As for the too many chefs, so he failed as a manager. What would you have him do, retire? Or go back to what he was good at. There are accounts that he was a good assistant coach on the training ground at Chelsea, so that's good enough for me. We barely have enough info to speculate on whether a given management appointment is going to work. We certainly don't know who are and aren't good assistant coaches. Wilkins may or may not have been first choice, but I'm sure our options were somewhat limited given the time of year. If he doesn't work out with RM, I'm sure he'll be replaced in the offseason.

As for Curbishley. From what I can tell, 11 other teams employee a technical director/director of football, so it's hardly uncommon. And that was just a quick flyover on my part, there may be more. It's not much different than NFL teams who have a separate GM instead of giving the Head Coach both jobs. There was a time in the NFL where that was the trend, but more often than not it failed b/c it was too much to handle. Neal Ashton was on NBC Sports early Prem coverage show the weekend after the appointment and said that Meulensteen wanted a technical director. He asked SAF for a recommendation and was told Curbishley. He asked Khan & Mackintosh for Curbs and got him. According to Ashton, Curbishley's primary role is player recruitment and transfers but also to oversee player development on the Academy level. That involves recommending players to move up to train with the first team or go out on loan as well as monitoring FFC players on loan elsewhere. He's most likely the reason Burn was recalled. If RM is more comfortable with the coaching, tactics and other on-field duties, I actually prefer this method. Player recruitment, especially with the kind of turnover we're probably looking at in the next 1-3 years is a full time gig. It's important that he and Curbs are on the same page and can effectively communicate the type of players RM wants to fit his style. Obviously, we want to avoid a situation like we saw at Spurs with Baldini and AVB, but given that RM's mentor recommended the guy, I have to think we'll be ok.

Now if that still sounds like too many chefs, then you're entitled to your opinion. I don't see it that way though.

 

That's a well-reasoned response with which I agree. However, I hoped for an opportunity to post another Swedish Chef clip...sigh, there's always tomorrow.