CATHRO OUT Ian Cathro leaves Hearts with immediate effect

[pete 2,499]

Breaking news.

[Gribz 919]

No surprise they have acted before the season starts. He looked lost anyway.

[Uilleam 5,960]

I wonder if he'll have a Levein do?

 

I wonder if therein lies the problem.

 

Here is the statement from the Hertz, ken

 

"Craig Levein, Hearts’ Director of Football, has confirmed that Head Coach Ian Cathro, will leave the Club with immediate effect.

 

The Board wishes it to be known that this was a very difficult decision, reluctantly made, as every member of the Board recognises that Ian is an extremely talented young coach with a very bright future ahead of him. "We thank Ian for all of his efforts and wish him well in the future”.

 

A further statement will be made tomorrow in relation to management plans for this weekend’s Ladbrokes Premiership match against Celtic and longer term."

Edited August 1, 2017 by Uilleam

[26th of foot 6,119]

Alan Preston was Cathro's executioner on Saturday's Sportsound.

 

Pre-match, he was scathing, got more than a tad emotional during Hertz/Pars, and let rip post match. He articulated the monthly arithmetic of the Foundation of Hearts, including his own contribution. Gary McKay did similar on Sunday afternoon. Interestingly, Paul Hartley has been appearing on BBC Radio Scotland, specifically for Aberdeen's Euro' adventures. Dandy Dick Gordon has hosted, Liam McLeod commentates, both Wullie Miller and Hartley doing the colour. I wonder if Preston has an interest in Hartley's immediate future employment prospects? Beeb Scotland is a BIG megaphone lever.

[Rousseau 10,823]

The reaction to Ian Cathro’s appointment as Hearts manager last December was as utterly tedious as it was predictable. A youthful figure without a background as a professional player, the debate over his place in Scottish football was to be expected. The debate had, however, was the wrong one.

 

Cathro was derided as little more than a laptop manager, as if his eight-year past in the sport, working his way up as a coach at Dundee United, Rio Ave, Valencia and Newcastle United counted for nothing. “He’s probably not been this excited since FIFA 17 came out on PlayStation,” Kris Boyd infamously wrote in a column, slamming the soon-to-be Jam Tarts boss before he’d even had a chance to find a socket on his new Tynecastle desk.

 

In truth, he has never truly recovered from that initial bluster. Saturday’s Betfred Cup defeat to Dunfermline made his position as Hearts boss untenable, with the 31-year-old sacked on Tuesday morning. Cathro could have no arguments.

 

Results have been poor and performances even poor. Even his most ardent advocates lost their grounds for support. Hearts were a bewildering team to watch under Cathro’s charge, losing the swagger that made them so effective under Robbie Neilson. Anne Budge and Craig Levein found themselves backed into a corner with no other option to take. The discussion around Cathro and the route that led to his appointment remains pertinent, though.

 

A certain anti-intellectualism dogs Scottish football, with the response to Cathro’s hiring last year the purest manifestation of that since Paul Le Guen’s failed Rangers revolution. Even Pedro Caixinha has experienced some of this in his short time in the country, mercilessly mocked for his use of empty glasses to illustrate tactics to the press.

 

Cathro became Scottish football’s very own Vitruvian Man – a figure who represents the branching between the ancient gods and the convention of the way of old, and science, mathematics and the way of new thinking. Leonardo Da Vinci probably wasn’t much of a Scottish football fan, but he came up with an analogy to illustrate one of its most compelling characters.

 

But while so many framed the discussion around Cathro as former players versus non-former players, the crux of the matter can instead be found in the education of those who are given managerial jobs in Scotland. That is where the debate over the future of the sport in the country should hone in on.

 

Too frequently in Scotland, a background as a player is considered a strong enough education to build a managerial career on. As if playing the game is in any way transferable to coaching it. Being an great talent on the pitch doesn’t necessarily mean you stand a better chance of succeeding in the dugout, just ask Barry Ferguson. And yet the Scottish game doesn’t seem to have learned this lesson.

 

Five of the current Scottish Premiership managers went straight into management after retiring as players (Alan Archibald, Derek McInnes, Jim McIntyre, Martin Canning and Neil Lennon). Including Lee McCulloch, who served for a short time as assistant manager at Kilmarnock, it’s six.

 

Contrast that to the Premier League, where only four of the current 20 managers went straight into management after retiring as players (Eddie Howe, Jurgen Klopp, Mark Hughes and Tony Pulis). Of those four, not one was handed their first job in the top flight. In comparison, Canning, Lennon and McCann all started their managerial lives in the Scottish Premiership.

 

In fact, the Scottish Premiership, with its modest count of just 12 clubs, has more managers who went straight into management than any of Europe’s top five leagues (Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A and Ligue 1).

 

Not in any of those five divisions is there a manager who was handed a top-flight job without some sort of lower league or youth coaching experience. As already referenced, there are three such figures currently managing in the Scottish Premiership. Is that really serving the future of the game in the country? Are they truly qualified for such roles at the top of the game?

 

Despite his age, Cathro had more than served his time as a coach before making the step up as Hearts manager, yet it is he, rather than the likes of Canning, who was widely ridiculed in Scottish footballing circles. The explanation as to why has its grounding in the culture of the sport in the country over anything based on logic.

 

Other countries do it differently. Take Vincenzo Montella, for example. Despite being a Roma legend, the former striker got his start in management as head coach of the club’s under 15s side. Even after serving as interim manager of the senior side for a few months after the sacking of Claudio Ranieri, he dropped down to take charge of lowly Catania before working his way back up through Fiorentina, Sampdoria and now AC Milan.

 

The Dutch model

 

In Netherlands, there is a culture of coaching induction even for their biggest names. Dennis Bergkamp, one of the country’s greatest ever player, started off coaching Ajax’s under 12s, before moving on to the club’s under 19s. Even after nine years of coaching at youth level, Bergkamp has only worked his way up to an assistant manager’s role. He has yet to take on a senior management position.

 

This ethos stretches to other areas of the game, with former players moving into administrative and boardroom roles. Edwin van Der Sar, for example, is working as Ajax’s chief executive officer alongside Marc Overmars as the club’s director of football. Can you envisage such a legendary figure taking on such a role in Scotland?

 

Only one of the current 18 Eredivisie managers moved straight into management after retiring as a player, and even then, NAC Breda boss Stijn Vreven did so at amateur level before progressing up the ladder. Giovanni Van Bronckhorst, one of the most decorated Dutch players of his time, served five years as Netherlands Under 21s assistant, and then Feyenoord assistant, before finally taking a senior management role in 2015.

 

There’s an apprenticeship that even the most established of Dutch players undertake before moving into management. Take Vitesse Arnhem manager Henk Fraser, for example. The former centre back made 138 appearances for Feyenoord over nine years, yet was made to wait a further 12 years after his retirement to get his first coaching job in senior football, as an assistant at ADO Den Haag. From there, he progressed into the manager’s role three years later before switching to Vitesse in 2016.

 

This surely forms the basis of the high standard of coaching in Dutch football. This due diligence is why a country of just under 17 million people continues to compete at the top level of the global game. It’s why Netherlands has been considered a hot bed of footballing talent for generations.

 

However, Netherlands, just like Scotland, places its faith in former players to harness the next generation. Only one current Eredivisie manager found his way to the top by alternative means, but not one was given a top flight job immediately after retiring as a player, compared to five such managers in the Scottish Premiership.

 

Sometimes the fast-tracking of coaching talent works. Pep Guardiola, for one, hardly warranted taking over at Barcelona with such scant experience, but he had at least shown his worth as manager of the Catalans’ B team beforehand. More often than not, though, throwing a former player straight into the manager’s seat fails.

 

The aforementioned Ferguson probably won’t measure up to the benchmark he set for himself as a player as a coach having failed to make any real impression at Clyde, but at least he showed a willingness to drop down the leagues to earn an education. The same could be said for Paul Hartley, who must surely regard his success at Alloa as grounding for what followed at Dundee.

 

That is the sort of precedent the wider Scottish game must follow. There was a debate to be had over Cathro and the route he took to the Scottish Premiership, but the one that materialised was the wrong one. Now, we must look to discuss the right one.

 

http://www.thetwopointone.com/ian-cathro-discussion-is-wrong/

[JFK-1 1,693]

There were suggestions among their fans and even some among the Dunfermline fans that some of their players had been deliberately missing penalties during the penalty shoot out which ejected them from the league cup. The further suggestion being that they had been attempting to make the position of Cathro untenable.

 

If that were actually true I wouldn't want a single one of those players in my team in future.

[colinstein 294]

I just don't think that's true. The draw meant the players knew they were already out so the penalties would have come when their heads were down

[SteveC 150]

Cathro is going straight to a job at Wolves. Met them about it a few days ago apparently.

[Uilleam 5,960]

So Cathro, under contract at the Hertz, ken, is sacked and walks straight into a job at Wolves, which he had already negotiated with his old boss, and the Hertz, ken, in their haste to dismiss him, miss out on any compensation for the remainder of his contract.

 

Or have I read this wrongly?

[JFK-1 1,693]

Former Italy striker Fabrizio Ravanelli has applied to be Hearts' new head coach, but interim boss Jon Daly thinks he is ready for the job permanently. http://www.bbc.com/sport/football/40815164

Edited August 3, 2017 by JFK-1