Paulo Sousa’s sudden decision to walk out on Swansea City after 12 months in South Wales and join Leicester means it will be the Foxes QPR fans trying to work out whether terminating his Loftus Road contract was a huge mistake or not will be watching this season.
Tactical genius?
“Bring a good book.” That’s honestly what I said today when asked by the Leicester fans at work what I thought of their impending appointment of Paulo Sousa. And I like Sousa.
I hated the way Sousa was ousted from our club with a poorly moderated message board thread providing sufficient ammunition for Flavio Briatore to carry out his latest whim based on perceived boring performances on the field. I hated the way our previously water tight defence and excellent fitness levels promptly fell apart almost as soon as he’d walked out of the door. I hated that he never had time to build a side at QPR and always wondered what he might have done given the chance.
At Swansea last season he took over a team very similar to our own – lacking firepower after Jason Scotland’s departure, fresh from a mid-table Championship finish, and free from any major financial worries. It provided an ideal opportunity to, Bullseye style, see what we could have won.
On the face of it Sousa did a fine job in South Wales – they finished seventh in the second tier, an improvement on the final position achieved by the revered Roberto Martinez the season before and in fact their best league placing for 27 years. In only their second season in the Championship they only missed out on a play off spot on the very final day of the season, and only after an improbable run of form (six wins and two draws from the final nine matches) from Ian Holloway’s Blackpool prevented them from competing in the end of season lottery. They conceded just 12 goals at home all season, only Forest with 13 got anywhere close to that level of meanness and only Newcastle (22) conceded less than Swansea (25) on the road. QPR kept 20 clean sheets of their own the previous season (not all under Sousa admittedly) and as the R’s started to ship goals alarmingly last season the decision of Briatore to force him out of Loftus Road appeared more and more foolhardy with each passing Swansea clean sheet.
Swansea finished higher in the league, lost half as many home games and conceded 28 less goals than the Hoops, and they did it all while we fell apart and worked our way through another four permanent managers.
And yet the number of QPR fans who wish Sousa was still our manager probably shrinks by the day, rather than grows. You see to go with the mean defence at QPR Sousa also presided over a rank attack that drew 0-0 11 times and failed to score on 23 occasions in 2008/09. This year at Swansea they scored just 21 times at home in the league, bottom of the table Peterborough bagged 32, and 19 on the road while second bottom Plymouth got 23. They failed to score on 18 occasions and ultimately missed the play offs because they could only draw 0-0 for the tenth time in the campaign on the final day of the season at home to a Doncaster side with nothing to play for.
Against QPR at the Liberty Stadium they won 2-0, but only after Rangers had gone down to nine men – and even then the second goal came as the eight outfield players pushed forwards for an unlikely equaliser. An often expressed theory at QPR during Sousa’s reign was that he was merely sorting the defence out first before moving onto the attack. A year at Swansea would seem to suggest, and a similar situation occurring at Leicester would confirm, that Sousa prefers everybody behind the ball and any goals scored are a bonus. He can coach defence, but even when allowed to add strikers to his squad (Swansea added Dobbie, Beattie, Kuqi and Trundle to their attack last season) his teams do not attack in numbers and do not score large numbers of goals.
Leicester, assuming talks over their managerial vacancy go smoothly, seem ideally set up for more of the same. They were impressive in two wins against QPR last season, but on both occasions the main strength seemed to be in the spine of the team rather than in any outstanding individuals. Brown and Hobbs at the back in front of a sound keeper, Richie Wellens in the middle of the midfield kicking anything that moved, and Steve Howard battering his way through up front. They have Matty Fryatt for goals, but have lost Martyn Waghorn whose loan deal from Sunderland has not been made permanent.
Assuming he takes the job this season will start to firm up some solid conclusions about Paulo Sousa the manager. Former Leicester failure Ian Holloway led unfashionable Blackpool to the Premiership last year on an ethos of attacking football – actually going away from home and trying to win, rather than setting out not to lose as is the default setting for Sousa and many other managers in world football at the moment.
After a dull World Cup dominated by a ball that doesn’t fly straight and a succession of inferior teams trying to grind out results by bringing everybody back behind the ball and killing the game fans are desperate for entertainment. Add in the economic crisis in this country that sees people watching the pennies while football clubs continue to charge ludicrous ticket prices – Leicester will sell some seats for £37 for "platinum" games against Coventry and Derby next season – and I think fans may well be a little less patient with their team if they set out merely not to lose, rather than doing as Blackpool did last season and going for the win. In general next season I expect to see managers put under pressure by supporters much sooner if they're too negative - people are paying lots of money in tough times to watch their team, they've seen the results Blackpool achieved last season and the Championship is rightly perceived as a weak league next season. Fans are not going to tolerate ten men behind the ball and trying not to lose rather than going for a win, particularly in home matches, and that's bad news for Paulo Sousa.
Assuming talks are successful and he does move to the Walkers Stadium Sousa is already on dodgy ground at Leicester and I'm surprised he's made what is pretty much a sideways step from one similarly placed club where his job was secure to another where it could quickly become unstable. He’s following a popular and successful manager into a club with a notoriously impatient chairman and a larger than usual floating support. Swathes of empty seats open up very easily at the Walkers after a few poor performances and Sousa needn’t think people will continue to turn up to watch his dour brand of tactics for long. He must discover a previously unseen attacking intent in his arsenal if he is to win friends, and football matches at Leicester.
Personally I think he should have been retained at QPR and given at least the 2009/10 season to prove what he could do. The reasons, both official and actual, given for his departure were a shambolic disgrace that reflected abysmally on several people at our club. I think there's little doubt we would have done better last season had Sousa been our manager throughout, although there's also little doubt we would have been pretty dire to watch and there would certainly have been no glorious September/October highlight to look back on. Long term we may actually be better off without him, depending on how adventurous Warnock intends to be this season, and I think he may well come unstuck at Leicester.
The general feeling seems to be fans are growing weary of football, footballers and the money aspect of both. People won’t pay £37 to watch Leicester draw 0-0 with Coventry for long, because that good book can just as easily be read at home.
Meanwhile back at the ranch
With the QPR players now back in training ahead of the first friendly next week it’s sad to see many of the same problems we had when Sousa was our manager still clearly in existence. The lack of steel, guts and heart in the team evident at numerous away games last season has perhaps been addressed by the arrival of Shaun Derry, Jamie Mackie and Clint Hill and you would hope that the managerial circus that has afflicted our seasons for the past three years is now at an end.
However we are still short of quality strikers, genuine pace in wide areas and overlapping full backs capable of posing an attacking threat as well as doing a decent defensive job. We still have a squad clogged with dead wood, we still have poor players sitting on fat contracts, we still have Patrick Agyemang and Fitz Hall and Rowan Vine, we’re still not sure about the physical condition of Lee Cook, Martin Rowlands, Akos Buzsaky and others.
There is much work to do and it’s galling to see Kris Boyd and Billy Sharp both move to other clubs in our league – a potentially lethal partnership together in this league – for money that would be well within the budget of our club’s owners. I don’t mind them not putting millions in and trying to buy success, but the club cannot continue to expect us to buy into some sort of Premiership dream while signing the calibre of players we’re currently bringing in. We’re either going for the top flight or we’re consolidating our position in this league – I’m not really fussed personally which it is – but at the moment we’re saying one thing and clearly doing another.
I’ll hope for either some exciting signings or less of the hype in the five weeks between now and the first game of the season.