Jon Dahl Tomasson - Officially No Longer Our Head Coach

[chaddyrovers]

14 minutes ago, martonrover said:

You really should be on the payroll at Rovers.

Thanks, but they couldn't afford my wages. 🤔

14 minutes ago, martonrover said:

More spin than a Shane Warne googly.

His Leg spinner spun more 😉

14 minutes ago, martonrover said:

No - one is saying that JDT doesn’t like working and developing young players.

However, that isn’t the be all and end all, and it is blatantly obvious that JDT is not happy with the “change of project”, and the fact the club do not match his ambitions.

none of us were happy the situation but it did happened cos of Venkys Indian government situation. GB, JDT, the players and the fans wanted promotion this season and it still possible we could get a playoff place but we need some quality signings. JDT is very good at developing players and you can see the development in Adam Wharton, Jake Garrett, Harry Leonard. I listened to Sigurdsson's interview after signing here permanent and he praised JDT and said he learnt more about football in 6 months then the rest of his career. 

28 minutes ago, RevidgeBlue said:

Fair point. Thought he merited a crack at a higher level. 

He did deserved a chance at higher level but joining QPR was massive mistake 

[wilsdenrover]

12 hours ago, SuperBrfc said:

Exactly what I'm thinking. I base that on what I have heard Broughton say in various interviews. Him talking about the 'R rate' being one measure of success, the number of Academy players in the first team another, the number of minutes they play being another. Developing players and selling them on will undoubtedly be a part of "winning" too ( for him and his superiors)

No doubt that whilst most of us on here are analysing the games, airing concerns about results/performances and discussing issues at the club, Broughton and Co will be nonplussed and will be taking things such as:

A good 70 minutes in the legs for young Jake.

Another 90 minutes for Adam.

Good 70 minute run out for Semir

And more...

As small victories.

Winning football matches, though? Making a play off push? Even having a thought about promotion?

Nah, mate. You're entitled and need to get real.

Acceptable as a method for assessing the success of the academy.

Not acceptable as a method for assessing the success of the first team.

 

Edited December 31, 2023 by wilsdenrover
Adjusting the bit I’d emboldened

[Mattyblue]

An academy with a first team bolted on.

[Gav]

2 minutes ago, wilsdenrover said:

Acceptable as a method for assessing the success of the academy.

Not acceptable as a method for assessing the success of the first team.

 

Are they not one of the same? Not that I buy the theory anyway. 

[wilsdenrover]

2 hours ago, martonrover said:

JDT is more ambitious, but is playing along with the "developing young players" narrative, because his only other option is to resign.

The below is from his first interview - it appears he was happy with the remit to develop young players but only because he’d also been told the bit I’ve emboldened.

“We have a young team here, and also a great Academy, and the Owners have a clear vision, which is to develop players and become a sustainable Premier League club over time, so I’m really happy to be involved in this exciting new chapter for the club.

[wilsdenrover]

2 minutes ago, Gav said:

Are they not one of the same? Not that I buy the theory anyway. 

For me no, but I could certainly see how someone could argue they are.

[ABBEY]

3 hours ago, Wheelton Blue said:

What did he have for his tea last night? 🙂

wont be humble pie

[ABBEY]

36 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

 

none of us were happy the situation but it did happened cos of Venkys Indian government situation.

dude ,no offence but take your head out of the venky arsehole. 

OUR PROBLEMS STARTED THE MINUTE THAT LONG HAIRED GREASY SLEAZE BALL WALKED ON OUR HALLOWED TURF AND THE OWD HAG DISRESPECTED FANS BY NOT WALKING ON THE PITCH, ANDERTURD AND ALL THE CIRCUS AGENCYS....

DONT BLAME THE INDIAN GOVT FFS, EVEN YOUR BIAS IS BETTER THAN THAT.

[martonrover]

30 minutes ago, wilsdenrover said:

The below is from his first interview - it appears he was happy with the remit to develop young players but only because he’d also been told the bit I’ve emboldened.

“We have a young team here, and also a great Academy, and the Owners have a clear vision, which is to develop players and become a sustainable Premier League club over time, so I’m really happy to be involved in this exciting new chapter for the club.

Yes, his FIRST interview.

Clearly, the landscape changed last Summer, which JDT has alluded to several times in more recent interviews.

[wilsdenrover]

2 hours ago, tomphil said:

That's exactly how they look at it imo.

Squad half full of academy grads, one of them probably worth 5 mill say and another worth 4m, a few you could sell now for a million if you needed.

All book value and 'profit' potential seeing as no fees were paid so nothing is owing.

Bankers look at that and say yes we are satisfied to keep your overdraft at 10 million due to 'book value'.

An academy player has no book value - that’s why any transfer fee is all profit (in the accounts)

[wilsdenrover]

6 minutes ago, martonrover said:

Yes, his FIRST interview.

Clearly, the landscape changed last Summer, which JDT has alluded to several times in more recent interviews.

Absolutely, and the point I was trying (obviously badly 😀) to make.

[wilsdenrover]

1 hour ago, RevidgeBlue said:

Fair point. Thought he merited a crack at a higher level. 

He did but going all David Brent did him no favours.

[SuperBrfc]

5 hours ago, NeilInBristol said:

Yeh I recall that. What's this r rate? 

Has JDT mentioned anything other than " player development" ?

The R rate has to do with xG, xG conceded and all that jazz. Having good numbers or data in those metrics is a measure of success, apparently.

Below is a quote from Broughton from the podcast that I mentioned. If you scroll down on the following link you will find it under section 5:

https://trainingground.guru/articles/gregg-broughton-youth-development-lessons-from-bodo/glimt

The interview can also be listened to at the top of that page and R rating is mentioned at around 12 minutes in. Anyway, GB:

In my Technical Director course, my final dissertation was on Goodhart’s law, which is around the suggestion that when a measure becomes a target it stops being effective. So these measures are points where you can check in on the club’s dashboard and see whether you’re on target for your aims.

I spoke to Phil Giles (Brentford Co-Director of Football) about Brentford’s use of the 'R rating.' They came away from having promotion to the Premier League as the measure and talked more about their R rating, which is Xg, Xg conceded, and all of the different things they could do to improve that, from sport science to coaching. He felt that rating could be used at any club he worked at.

My rough translation of that:

1) Applying Goodhart's law to Rovers, having promotion as a target stops it being an effective measure of success. (How does that make sense?)

2) Brentford changed from having promotion to the Premier League as a measure of success, and instead started focusing on improving their xG, xG conceded, xA and all of that I.e their R rating. Improving those things helped them to be successful.

Data crunching gobbledygook, imo. Having promotion as a direct target doesn't seem to be his or their thing. We can't be putting pressure on anybody at this club. After all, it's the act of bullies to want to win.

[Mattyblue]

Complicated business this football lark, ain’t it? Take it Luton were well clued up on ‘Goodhart’s law’ and R rating?

Or maybe they thought they’d been knocking on the door so their ‘target’ was to improve the side and go one better the year after?

[SuperBrfc]

6 hours ago, NeilInBristol said:

 

Has JDT mentioned anything other than " player development" ?

Forgot to reply to this part. Yes. If you recall, JDT, a few months back said "the club needs to be ambitious" and "I am ambitious, my players are ambitious, and the fans are ambitious".

He has tried to get Swag to meet his ambition via the press.

However, when he realised this wasn't forthcoming he has gone with the party line of development, overseeing a project etc. I suspect he is just as peed off as we are in private.

[B16Rover]

Nothing we don't know but still bleak.   

[NeilInBristol]

7 minutes ago, SuperBrfc said:

The R rate has to do with xG, xG conceded and all that jazz. Having good numbers or data in those metrics is a measure of success, apparently.

Below is a quote from Broughton from the podcast that I mentioned. If you scroll down on the following link you will find it under section 5:

https://trainingground.guru/articles/gregg-broughton-youth-development-lessons-from-bodo/glimt

The interview can also be listened to at the top of that page and R rating is mentioned at around 12 minutes in. Anyway, GB:

In my Technical Director course, my final dissertation was on Goodhart’s law, which is around the suggestion that when a measure becomes a target it stops being effective. So these measures are points where you can check in on the club’s dashboard and see whether you’re on target for your aims.

I spoke to Phil Giles (Brentford Co-Director of Football) about Brentford’s use of the 'R rating.' They came away from having promotion to the Premier League as the measure and talked more about their R rating, which is Xg, Xg conceded, and all of the different things they could do to improve that, from sport science to coaching. He felt that rating could be used at any club he worked at.

My rough translation of that:

1) Applying Goodhart's law to Rovers, having promotion as a target stops it being an effective measure of success. (How does that make sense?)

2) Brentford changed from having promotion to the Premier League as a measure of success, and instead started focusing on improving their xG, xG conceded, xA and all of that I.e their R rating. Improving those things helped them to be successful.

Data crunching gobbledygook, imo. Having promotion as a direct target doesn't seem to be his or their thing. We can't be putting pressure on anybody at this club. After all, it's the act of bullies to want to win.

Thanks for that. What I don't get is their (GB and co) assumption that r rate xg etc = value of player going up. If a player doesn't score or the team keep losing what is the point of these values? To sell him with an addendum saying if he has good or better players around him he will score but just with us he can't score?

[Mattyblue]

1 minute ago, B16Rover said:

Nothing we don't know but still bleak.   

The club doesn’t bother with that (or the actual league table), dinosaur thinking… you should see the ‘academy grads minutes on pitch = value added’ table 🤩

[wilsdenrover]

9 minutes ago, SuperBrfc said:

The R rate has to do with xG, xG conceded and all that jazz. Having good numbers or data in those metrics is a measure of success, apparently.

Below is a quote from Broughton from the podcast that I mentioned. If you scroll down on the following link you will find it under section 5:

https://trainingground.guru/articles/gregg-broughton-youth-development-lessons-from-bodo/glimt

The interview can also be listened to at the top of that page and R rating is mentioned at around 12 minutes in. Anyway, GB:

In my Technical Director course, my final dissertation was on Goodhart’s law, which is around the suggestion that when a measure becomes a target it stops being effective. So these measures are points where you can check in on the club’s dashboard and see whether you’re on target for your aims.

I spoke to Phil Giles (Brentford Co-Director of Football) about Brentford’s use of the 'R rating.' They came away from having promotion to the Premier League as the measure and talked more about their R rating, which is Xg, Xg conceded, and all of the different things they could do to improve that, from sport science to coaching. He felt that rating could be used at any club he worked at.

My rough translation of that:

1) Applying Goodhart's law to Rovers, having promotion as a target stops it being an effective measure of success. (How does that make sense?)

2) Brentford changed from having promotion to the Premier League as a measure of success, and instead started focusing on improving their xG, xG conceded, xA and all of that I.e their R rating. Improving those things helped them to be successful.

Data crunching gobbledygook, imo. Having promotion as a direct target doesn't seem to be his or their thing. We can't be putting pressure on anybody at this club. After all, it's the act of bullies to want to win.

I don’t see how that makes sense either!

The premise of Goodhart’s law is if a measure becomes a target you can manipulate things to ensure you meet it.

In these instances you’ve met the target but you’ve not necessarily achieved the success the measure was intended to help you achieve.

I hope that makes sense, I fear that it doesn’t!!

 

[chaddyrovers]

39 minutes ago, ABBEY said:

dude ,no offence but take your head out of the venky arsehole. 

dude, with no offence no one is up Venky's arsehole but no one expecting what happened during the summer to the budget to happened. After last season under JDT, most fans were thinking playoffs this season were realistic and they were a real buzz around the club with the right signings. 

Yes we all know what they done and we would like right new owners. 

[SuperBrfc]

24 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

Complicated business this football lark, ain’t it? Take it Luton were well clued up on ‘Goodhart’s law’ and R rating?

Or maybe they thought they’d been knocking on the door so their ‘target’ was to improve the side and go one better the year after?

Funny you should say that, as I made the following point about his time at Luton shortly after we appointed him. It was jumped upon by a few on here leaping to his defence.

Whilst he was there, they suffered back to back relegations and went through allsorts. I wasn't blaming him for that. However, years later he's reeling off what he did there such as: overseeing the integration of x amount of youngsters make it into the first team, Academy players getting x amount of first team minutes, increasing squad value over those years and selling players at a profit.

My point was, the club lost on the pitch, badly, you could say with back to back relegations, but he's listing off those metrics/measures as positives. I simply don't want that sort of thing here.

Plausible scenario that we go down to L1, fans are gutted, but somewhere in the Boardroom they are thinking 'Well, we got £20m for Adam, we also got £6m for Hayden, we've continued to blood the Academy lads, it's not all that bad, we go again'.

If he was the Head of Academy here I wouldn't have an issue, that's his forte. But as a Director of Football, basically running the whole football operation? A role he's never been in? Not for me.

[SuperBrfc]

5 hours ago, joey_big_nose said:

Personally I dont have too much of an issue with that - the better we get at developing and selling on players the more financially independent we can be and that makes getting rid of Venkys feasible. As long as we cant balance the books we're tied to them.

But obviously we need to find a way to continue to develop players etc without giving amateur hour goals away.

That's fair enough, joey. I don't have an issue with player development per se. It's when that is the be all and end all, primary concern, as it appears to be now which gets to me.

A poster said it recently, the Academy should be supplementing our first team. The lads who are highly thought of being blooded in amongst experienced pros, not being thrown in as we have little other choice.

Part of me feels the budgets are as they are to leave the manager no choice but to play those youngsters.

[wilsdenrover]

24 minutes ago, SuperBrfc said:

Funny you should say that, as I made the following point about his time at Luton shortly after we appointed him. It was jumped upon by a few on here leaping to his defence.

Whilst he was there, they suffered back to back relegations and went through allsorts. I wasn't blaming him for that. However, years later he's reeling off what he did there such as: overseeing the integration of x amount of youngsters make it into the first team, Academy players getting x amount of first team minutes, increasing squad value over those years and selling players at a profit.

My point was, the club lost on the pitch, badly, you could say with back to back relegations, but he's listing off those metrics/measures as positives. I simply don't want that sort of thing here.

Plausible scenario that we go down to L1, fans are gutted, but somewhere in the Boardroom they are thinking 'Well, we got £20m for Adam, we also got £6m for Hayden, we've continued to blood the Academy lads, it's not all that bad, we go again'.

If he was the Head of Academy here I wouldn't have an issue, that's his forte. But as a Director of Football, basically running the whole football operation? A role he's never been in? Not for me.

He’s marking his own work and no one should do that.

[NeilInBristol]

1 hour ago, SuperBrfc said:

Forgot to reply to this part. Yes. If you recall, JDT, a few months back said "the club needs to be ambitious" and "I am ambitious, my players are ambitious, and the fans are ambitious".

He has tried to get Swag to meet his ambition via the press.

However, when he realised this wasn't forthcoming he has gone with the party line of development, overseeing a project etc. I suspect he is just as peed off as we are in private.

Yeh that makes sense

[NeilInBristol]

1 hour ago, Mattyblue said:

The club doesn’t bother with that (or the actual league table), dinosaur thinking… you should see the ‘academy grads minutes on pitch = value added’ table 🤩

Jokes!! Sad but probably true