The Lay Off Dale Mitchell Thread

[Grizzly]

The constant griping about DM is getting really tiring. It doesn't seem to matter what he does or says the immediate reaction from many posters is to starting bitching about him. He was far from my first choice for coach and the way in which he was chosen was poor. Yes he made some mistakes in the U-20 though the jury is still out whether this caused our poor performance or whether the team just wasn't very good. I am not yet convinced he is the right man for the job but before bitching about him f-ucking up let him actually f-uck up. He has only had three games two of which we played well in and one in which we sucked. The performances were still far better than the first performances under Hart who everyone now loves.

The type of venom with which people are attacking him is pretty hard to understand. It seems like he is the whipping boy for people's frustrations with the CSA and this is unfair. Yallop led the team to our worst finish in decades in large part due to idiotic and unethical decisions yet his name doesn't get trashed in the mud like Mitchell's does. What has Mitchell done to deserve this?

I have no problem with him being on a short leash, ie. there need to be some positive results before the start of WCQ for him to keep his position (though I doubt the CSA is willing to fire him before WCQ). However, give him the chance to get some positive results before condemning him.

We all know he is not the greatest public speaker but on the other hand I find him very honest and professional in his interviews. He is not saying too much about those topics that he shouldn't (CSA, CONCACAF refs) but otherwise gives us a lot more information and honest answers than we have got from previous coaches. The last coach was media darling and what did that bring us?

I don't think it helps him do his job or helps the team to have people complaining about him before he has even been on the job for a reasonable length of time. What purpose does it serve anyway since we all know the CSA is not going to fire him because of pressure from this forum? To some small extent this constant criticism is contributing to the future failure of our team by making it harder for him to do his job and creating a negative vibe around the team.

By all means criticize him when he makes decisions that you don't agree with but be fair at the same time. At the moment it seems that there is a large group of posters that will bitch if he makes decision A and say that he should have chosen B but if he had chosen B the same group would have said he should have chosen A.

If we keep playing like the South African game up to WCQ I will be the first to say he should be fired. If we don't at least get to the Hex I will be the first to say he wasn't the calibre of coach required for the job. If he starts playing his buddies and choosing USL players and 17 year olds instead of Premiership players I will be as harsh on him as I am on Yallop. However, I will save my condemnation until it is warranted. I for one hope that he will get some positive results, prove his critics wrong and allay the doubts that I have about him.

[loyola]

Who are DM buddies? Just so we know who they are in advance and avoid the tiring "buddies" stuff everytime DM plays someone the V's don't like....

[Cheeta]

shrug

Didn't think Mitch was getting that rough a ride to be honest.

No one want Mitch to fail. If he fails it means we're doomed to watch another WC from the outside. But no one wants Dale Mitchell's tenure as MNT coach to turn into another post-Yallop "I told you so".

Dale Mitchell's lot is Dale Mitchell's lot. He's a CSA staffer. He carries the advantages of being a CSA staffer, it's what got him his job and resulted in the MNT Coach selection committee pissing away a year, so he also gets to carry the burden of the disadvantages of being a CSA staffer.

He's come into the senior position with a dodgy record from his previous work in a more junior position. If people aren't cutting him as much slack as previous coaches have received it's entirely because of that very fresh record. World Cup Qualifying starts this summer. There's no time for Mitch to settle in. He's got to show he can get it done and get it done now and so far he hasn't.

Mitch made his own bed. He's quite rightly getting very little leeway, and as far as I can tell he shouldn't. He hasn't yet proved he deserves any.

[El Hombre]

quote:Originally posted by Grizzly

The constant griping about DM is getting really tiring. It doesn't seem to matter what he does or says the immediate reaction from many posters is to starting bitching about him. He was far from my first choice for coach and the way in which he was chosen was poor. Yes he made some mistakes in the U-20 though the jury is still out whether this caused our poor performance or whether the team just wasn't very good. I am not yet convinced he is the right man for the job but before bitching about him f-ucking up let him actually f-uck up. He has only had three games two of which we played well in</u> and one in which we sucked. The performances were still far better than the first performances under Hart who everyone now loves.

But, did we really play well in those two games? I've heard this before but I'm not quite sure how accurate it is. I personally was a little disappointed with how they both went.

This means that over the past year I've seen a number of Dale Mitchell teams (senior and U20) play and nary a one stands out as a "good performance" in my mind.

[Gian-Luca]

quote:Originally posted by Cheeta

shrug

Didn't think Mitch was getting that rough a ride to be honest.

It does honestly seem that rarely does any length of time pass by before someone on this board calls for his head or rips apart his ability to be a successful talk show host.

I suspect it is because the 2007 U20 results were such an embarassment that people are still bitter towards Mitchell, which is fair enough, but I think we need to move on

I also agree with Grizzly that we must be careful not to surround the team with an unnecessarily negative vibe. We should be really excited about our chances to qualify and the matches ahead & yet it seems in the past few weeks most of the posters here are tripping over their own shadow with fear & worry about the games ahead. I'm looking forward to them and I can't wait.

[gkhs]

Honestly, I was as positive - if not slightly more positive - as the next guy about DM before South Africa. And I still think its absurd to talk about ditching him before he's even had a proper camp.

But after South Africa (when he seemed to miscast virtually every player on the pitch, and undermine the positive trends established under Hart) I seriously want DM's employment reconsidered after the camp and the February friendly.

If he has another disaster I would like to see him yanked then to give his replacement a friendly and two second round matches.

[gkhs]

quote:Originally posted by El Hombre

This means that over the past year I've seen a number of Dale Mitchell teams (senior and U20) play and nary a one stands out as a "good performance" in my mind.

What about Canada v Scotland U20 last March?

And didn't we hang a nice result on the US U20 at one point? (Though I didn't see the match)

[youllneverwalkalone]

I supported the hiring and, as Grizzy rightly points out, three friendlies isn't really enough time to fairly evaluate.

Having said this, there is not one positive occurrence that I can think of since he took over:

-Player selection? Not really, it's natural that all the country's top players make themselves available ahead of a world cup cycle. His decision not to start Occean in South Africa should be criticised as Olivier has a huge physical presence and could have held up the ball and sorted out our tactics.

-Tactics. This has been the hugest disappointment. The players need to accept some of the blame for not being able to string three passes together in SA, but Mitchell came out on SoccerCentral claiming that we took the friendly because the SA side is similar to what we'd see in CONCACAF. This is rubbish! No Central American side would ever put us under that much pressure. He needed to throw out a simple 4-4-2 counter attacking formation and allow our players of superior skill to punish that cheeky attack.

-Discipline. Yallop was never able to control his players and I would have thought Mitchell would be much better at this. To let your captain spout off to the ref like he did and then do nothing about it is a total embarrassment to everyone involved. Stalteri should have been substituted immediately. And if he ever plays for Canada again he needs to learn to shut his hole because CONCACAF refs wills gave way worse penalties and take way less dissent. If he ever wears the arm band for Canada, Mitchell should be questioned for a total lack of leadership.

-Team Talk. Ok, I wasn't there, but how hard would it have been to tell the players that SA were under a ton of heat and going to come at them hard. That they should relax and make high percentage passes. How many flick ons did we see? Tricks are for poofs if it means your going to lose the match as a result.

Is there anything encouraging so far? If so I don't see it. I don't give a hump what he says in interviews. Interviews are not the focal point of his job. With these results he would be under pressure in any self-respecting footballing nation. Why should we adopt a lower standard?

[David C.]

quote:Originally posted by youllneverwalkalone

-Tactics... He needed to throw out a simple 4-4-2...

Can't say I agree with this idea. One thing that I've admired about the MNT is that they have stuck to a consistent formation (4-5-1).

Although everyone has their favourate way to organize things, the MNT's 4-5-1 actually started working at the end of Yallop's tenure, then flourished under Hart, so it makes no sense (to me) to suddenly make changes now -- with qualifying just around the corner.

Plus, the idea of having a playmaking quartet feeding off of a target forward really suits us well, especially against Latin-American teams.

I don't think that we can afford to keep changing formations for each game or have time to make a drastic overhaul of our team set-up. With the few opportunities we have to prepare as it is, I think that we need to stick to a consistent plan and go for it.

[Grizzly]

quote:Originally posted by youllneverwalkalone

-Player selection? Not really, it's natural that all the country's top players make themselves available. His decision not to start Occean in South Africa should be criticised as Olivier has a huge physical presence and could have held up the ball and sorted out our tactics.

Given our recent history with Ossieck (who some of our best players didn't want to play for) and Yallop (who didn't want some of our best players to play for him), I think the good player selection of Mitchell/Hart has indeed been a positive.

Most of your other criticisms pertain mainly to the South Africa game. I think Hume as starting single striker can be put down to an experiment that failed. Occean did look to be an improvement over Hume when he came on but he is not that big of a player nor a very physical player as you claim. I do think we played well against both Iceland and Costa Rica and could have won either game. No they weren't dominant performances but they were not weak ones by any means either.

Again I am not saying he shouldn't face any criticism. But lets not have every interview with him descend into a thread about how poor and unmotivating a speaker he is. Let's not have one poor performance turn into statements that it is a foregone conclusion that Mitchell is going to screw up our WCQ. I do think though he needs to call up a full A squad for our next friendly and get a good performance and result in order to create some positive feelings among the players and fans.

[David C.]

quote:Originally posted by Grizzly

I think Hume as starting single striker can be put down to an experiment that failed. Occean did look to be an improvement over Hume when he came on but he is not that big of a player nor a very physical player as you claim.

Yeah, I think that Occean is further down the depth chart than most people think. With Friend not being available and Gerba not getting any club action, playing Hume alone up front must have simply been an emergency experiment.

Given Iain's skills and long-range shot, he is a natural fit in our playmaking quartet -- possibly as cover for Radzinski.

[ag futbol]

quote:Originally posted by David C.

Can't say I agree with this idea. One thing that I've admired about the MNT is that they have stuck to a consistent formation (4-5-1).

Although everyone has their favourate way to organize things, the MNT's 4-5-1 actually started working at the end of Yallop's tenure, then flourished under Hart, so it makes no sense (to me) to suddenly make changes now -- with qualifying just around the corner.

Yes but that was against a teams that were going to let us string passes together in the back without much pressure. When SA was pressing against our back four we were terribly exposed. Tactics needed to change.

Nothing wrong with setting your style and not playing to the other team but it has to be effective. When you're still trying to play a certain way and you're getting knocked around it makes no sense.

I don't see why this thread is necessary. We have a lot of hopes for qualifying so yes Mitchell is under the microscope, especially after the circumstances behind his hiring. Our player pool is getting better and we're asking for more from the coach as well.

[El Hombre]

quote:Originally posted by gkhs

What about Canada v Scotland U20 last March?

Yeah, that was alright. If we didn't turn around and lose to them 3 days later though, I'd give more credence to that result. Nevertheless, you are right, that was a good performance.

quote:Originally posted by gkhs

And didn't we hang a nice result on the US U20 at one point? (Though I didn't see the match)

After being blown out by them 4-1, we did beat them a couple days later. That was a US B squad and the game I saw live in Ottawa was embarrasing. I didn't see the game we won.

quote:Originally posted by Grizzly

Again I am not saying he shouldn't face any criticism. But lets not have every interview with him descend into a thread about how poor and unmotivating a speaker he is.

This I agree with. I've never understood why being a smooth public speaker is important for a coach. Once a poster starts harping on this, I skip over the rest of his post.

[Bertuzzi44]

quote:Originally posted by gkhs

What about Canada v Scotland U20 last March?

I was at that game and the score was not indicative of the run of play. Yes a win is a win and we played ok, but by no means did we 'deserve' to win that game. I'd say it should have been 1-1, especially if you discount the two brutal goal tending mistakes made by the Scottish keepers. Those goals count to, I know, but we are talking about how the team played...

[gkhs]

quote:Originally posted by Bertuzzi44

I was at that game and the score was not indicative of the run of play. Yes a win is a win and we played ok, but by no means did we 'deserve' to win that game. I'd say it should have been 1-1, especially if you discount the two brutal goal tending mistakes made by the Scottish keepers. Those goals count to, I know, but we are talking about how the team played...

I personally would put the Scotland match alongside Iceland or Costa Rica as matches in which a DM squad played quite well for stretches, without ultimately dominating the balance of the match.

(Though Costa Rica was clearly the best performance of the bunch.)

[redhat]

You're only as good as your last performance.

Yes we should lay off Mitchell and give him some latitude, and avoid comparing the

current performance with the latest U20 experience even though WCQ is ... in the next

few months.

I reserve the right to have my doubts about Mitchell as the level and style of play

over the past few games differ from the performance (and success) demonstrated in the

Gold Cup. I could care less about his PR style (or lack thereof) or the fact that he

blamed his players after the U20 disappointment. He did choose a pretty good squad for

the past 3 friendlies, but what he got out of them (and the tactics he employed) were

disappointing.

But I'm still hoping the best is yet to come out of his tenure. He better not take

St. Vincent or any other CONCACAF nation lightly.

[gkhs]

I think its a more interesting question to ask how much latitude we should give him.

Lets hear some opinions on that.

I'll go first.

There is no way on earth I think we should give him an entire qualifying campaign as a test. He's not Rene Simoes, or someone like him, to whom you entrust your campaign and expect results.

He should be given an opportunity to prove himself, period. Not an opportunity to shoot our chances at 2010.

Plus the fact that we have an assistant who is arguably a more proven, more accomplished coach, and familiar enough with the squad to take over without any awkwardness.

The camp and one more disasterous friendly would be enough for me to form my opinion. If the Feb friendly shows improvement, I would give him the March friendly and one St. Vincent match...but I would never entrust him with the entire campaign. Baby steps.

[Grizzly]

I think he should be given until April to show he is up for the job. If things are in a poor state at that point I have no problem with people bitching like they are now. I just think he needs to be given a fair chance before we write him off and demand a new coach. Of course it is inconvenient that we are so late in the process to determine this because the CSA took so long to hire anyone but that is not his fault. It just gets tiring to read constant attacks on him everyday on this forum by posters who I don't feel have given him much of a chance. Especially when one considers that even though the recent U-20 WC did not go that well his record as U-20 coach was pretty good overall. He qualified for the tournament every time and we had a pretty good run in UAE. Compare that with finishing last place in the first group stage of WCQ last time under Yallop a guy who has never faced the type of criticism leveled at Mitchell. And Yallop completely sabotaged our WCQ, if we had just let someone pick a decent player selection and let them go play without a coach I am sure they would have done better than the B-teams selected by Yallop. It is kind of like Clinton getting impeached for a BJ while Reagan was selling weapons to America's enemy Iran and trafficing in drugs to fund an illegal war in Nicaragua but yet is remembered as a great president. I have my doubts about Mitchell too but so far he hasn't been so bad as to deserve the abuse he is getting. I don't mind the valid critiques of his tactics but the gloomy we are doomed in WCQ posts are over the top. Considering we are not going to be playing until the training camp in January I hope that we are not going to keep getting a daily dose of the "fire Mitchell he's crap" posts until then.

To respond to what I think is a valid discussion point, I actually disagree with David C. about sticking to 4-5-1 for all of our games. I think we have to have the ability to switch formations when required both during a game and depending on the opposition so I think we should be using a 4-4-2 at times. I certainly would not like to see us playing a 4-5-1 against St V and G. Of course we didn't have a lot of depth at striker in this lineup so that may have mitigated using this formation. Also as I have stated Occean is not a true target man so it is not like he started small speedy guy over a target man but a smaller guy over a hybrid type of striker. I would have preferred to see Occean as well but maybe Mitchell wanted to see where Hume fit in his plans. I also don't think a 4-5-1 necessarily has to have a target man as striker but if a smaller technical player is used he has to get good service from the mids and Mitchell was probably as surprised as we were that the mids were so poor in this game.

[Scottie]

I'd say make the call after the St. Vincent series. If god forbid we lose that then it's a no-brainer, if we win but only by a small margin and our build-up in friendlies was not great then we should still can him and let Hart handle the semis. If we win convincingly and have a good build-up, then there's no reason to not keep him.

I really hope it's the third option.

[BearcatSA]

quote:Originally posted by youllneverwalkalone

No Central American side would ever put us under that much pressure.

I disagree. The away tie vs CR in the last WCQ demonstrated many incidents of pressure on the mids and back four resulting in a myriad of backpasses for Onstad to thump up the field to our vertically- challenged front runners, Radz and Hume.

As Cheeta stated, Mitchell is under a microscope because the most recent addition to his CV is the U20 performance, and I'm not going to bother arguing the pros and cons of his leadership at the WYC. Remember, he also inherited a squad of players who has had success in a significant tournament, which in turn brings added pressure. However, I've always felt that any national team manager's success, anywhere in the world, is impacted by the availability and form of his player pool. I realize there are many examples in the past where serious defiencies in man management and tactics are the cause of a manager's failure, but I tend to think there are times where the gaffer doesn't have the horses or sometimes benefits from some great "in form" performances which makes the campaign a success.

[BearcatSA]

quote:Originally posted by Grizzly

It is kind of like Clinton getting impeached for a BJ while Reagan was selling weapons to America's enemy Iran and trafficing in drugs to fund an illegal war in Nicaragua but yet is remembered as a great president.

lol:DGood one!

[gkhs]

quote:Originally posted by BearcatSA

As Cheeta stated, Mitchell is under a microscope because the most recent addition to his CV is the U20 performance, and I'm not going to bother arguing the pros and cons of his leadership at the WYC.

I wouldn't neccessarily agree. He is under the microscope not because of what his resume has, but rather what it lacks: any experience at or near this level of coaching.

It is bad timing for him IMHO, since this is not a time for gaining experience, its a time for gaining results. Hart was given 10 games of experience at this level that might better have gone to Mitchell, if he was the heir apparent.

[BearcatSA]

quote:Originally posted by gkhs

I wouldn't neccessarily agree. He is under the microscope not because of what his resume has, but rather what it lacks: any experience at or near this level of coaching.

If Mitchell's team had a really good run at this summer's WYC do you think most people would be talking about his experience issues at the full national team level?

[nolando]

quote:Originally posted by Grizzly

Given our recent history with Ossieck (who some of our best players didn't want to play for) and Yallop (who didn't want some of our best players to play for him), I think the good player selection of Mitchell/Hart has indeed been a positive.

Most of your other criticisms pertain mainly to the South Africa game. I think Hume as starting single striker can be put down to an experiment that failed. Occean did look to be an improvement over Hume when he came on but he is not that big of a player nor a very physical player as you claim. I do think we played well against both Iceland and Costa Rica and could have won either game. No they weren't dominant performances but they were not weak ones by any means either.

Again I am not saying he shouldn't face any criticism. But lets not have every interview with him descend into a thread about how poor and unmotivating a speaker he is. Let's not have one poor performance turn into statements that it is a foregone conclusion that Mitchell is going to screw up our WCQ. I do think though he needs to call up a full A squad for our next friendly and get a good performance and result in order to create some positive feelings among the players and fans.

You are obviously directing a great deal of your comments towards me. What not just call me out personally?

For the record, I think the suggestion that negative comments about poor old Dale Mitchell will somehow precede dark clouds hanging over the WCQ camps and will somehow affect the morale of the program is outlandish beyond belief.

And I will quite happily make my own comments about how poorly a speaker and how poor a track record he has on a daily basis if I so choose, without feeling the need to sugarcoat or edit my reponses. At least in my own head I don't have any delusions that there are players and CSA staff panicking as the latest Voyageurs thread rips into poor old unfairly treated Dale Mitchell.

[gkhs]

quote:Originally posted by BearcatSA

If Mitchell's team had a really good run at this summer's WYC do you think most people would be talking about his experience issues at the full national team level?

Fair point, I guess...but was DM not part of the reason they didn't have a good tourney?