| Bradley 22:55 - Jan 3 with 6957 views | shandyjack |
Oliver Kay from the Times tweeted that BB has an interview coming out tomorrow on the dressing room culture and behind the scenes at Swansea.
I hope the players get motivated by this stuff and fight hard to prove that the issue was him and not let him undermine them for his own gain |  |
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| Bradley on 01:42 - Jan 4 with 2168 views | Loyal |
| Bradley on 22:57 - Jan 3 by Cooperman |
Let's see what it says first. It might implicate Huwbert as running the show. |
Well, that would be a shock .... |  |
| Nolan sympathiser, clout expert, personal friend of Leigh Dineen, advocate and enforcer of porridge swallows.
The official inventor of the tit w@nk. | | Poll: | Who should be Swansea number 1 |
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| Bradley on 01:43 - Jan 4 with 2167 views | Davillin |
Not a clue. As usual. |  |
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| Bradley on 01:45 - Jan 4 with 2161 views | Loyal |
| Bradley on 23:54 - Jan 3 by QJumpingJack |
Why the hell didn't the board stick a confidentiality gag on him as part of his settlement? |
Probably because there is nothing to hide football wise, apart from the fact we know HJ sees himself as the transfer dude, nothing story.
Bob Bradley just left his own private Vietnam with his cnt ripped off. Couldn't control the little slanty sheepshaggers so he ran to the man.
Fck him. | |
| Nolan sympathiser, clout expert, personal friend of Leigh Dineen, advocate and enforcer of porridge swallows.
The official inventor of the tit w@nk. | | Poll: | Who should be Swansea number 1 |
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| Bradley on 02:36 - Jan 4 with 2112 views | MyFinalHeaven |
Here's the full interview from The Times that requires subscriber access:
‘Trust me, not one player called me Ronald Reagan’
Bob Bradley explains to Oliver Kay that his Swansea side did not have enough fighters
Bob Bradley believes in going “all-in”. Yes, it is an Americanism, one that some might find a fitting epitaph to his predictably brief spell in charge of Swansea City. It is the maxim of 100 per cent effort, of everyone pulling in the same direction, leaving cynicism and self-interest at the door, striving for improvement and success. All very obvious, you might think, but “in football”, he says quite pointedly, “it’s not something you see quite as often as you should.”
Throughout a 35-year coaching career – in Major League Soccer, with the United States and Egypt national teams, at clubs in Norway and France – Bradley has always prided himself on fostering an “all-in” mentality. At Swansea, as many had suspected, he tried and failed, sacked after 85 days in charge, and his replacement, Paul Clement, was confirmed yesterday. “It was eight points from eleven games and, if you want to do the math, that’s not going to be enough,” Bradley says. “I get that. I’m not the first guy to be sacked.”
That is certainly true, but, as the first American to manage a Premier League team, as a man whose two most recent posts had been at Stabaek and Le Havre, his appointment and subsequent struggle has attracted rare levels of curiosity, cynicism and, ultimately, schadenfreude. Whether or not he could ever have been the right man to manage in the Premier League, Swansea in 2016, under a new American ownership regime that was viewed with suspicion, looked like the wrong place at the wrong time.
“I knew there was turmoil off the field and that feeling of distrust from the supporters over the way Jason [Levien] and Steve [Kaplan] became owners,” Bradley says. “I was aware of that, but I wouldn’t have got to this position if I hadn’t taken risks along the way.”
So he went for it – all-in, of course – convinced that the only way to steer them to safety was by trying to rebuild the fractured confidence of a squad that had lost key figures such as Ashley Williams, the captain, and André Ayew since toiling against relegation last season and had not adequately replaced them.
“I knew the biggest challenge was to get points on the board in the short term,” Bradley says. “What I decided from the start was that rather than try to throw new football ideas at the players, the first job was to restore confidence and good habits. I went out of my way to be very positive with them because when a team is under pressure from the supporters and the media, you have to make them feel good about themselves. You have to be strong.
“The main emphasis was on making sure that when the guys showed up every day, we had an environment that was professional, appreciated and real. I’ve done these things at enough places, in enough countries, to be confident in my ability to give them that.”
Were the Swansea players convinced, though? It is reported that some of them, regarding him an American relic from the 1980s, referred to him as “Ronald Reagan” behind his back. “Trust me on this,” he says with a smile. “Not one of those players knows who Ronald Reagan is.”
It did seem there was a credibility issue, though – that, as Bradley said in an interview back in 2011: “When you’re American, it’s different . . . you have to fight for respect.” Was that more of a fight at Swansea than it should have been? Bradley’s response suggests that while he felt accepted by his players, there was never quite the collective buy-in that he required. It was not “all-in” – and perhaps when we look at Swansea’s fortunes since the Capital One Cup success in 2013, tracing back through the latter days of Michael Laudrup and the tenures of Garry Monk, Francesco Guidolin and Bradley, we are left wondering whether this squad, having lost several influential figures over recent years, has gone “all-in” often enough.
“The idea, in all sports, is to have a winning culture – players who are strong, good for their team-mates, who put the team ahead of themselves, players with that pure commitment to make the environment better and train at the right level,” Bradley says. “That, without a doubt, becomes a big challenge in the Premier League, where you have so many guys making so much money. Football has changed.
“One of the things that I’ve always felt great about in previous jobs is that I’ve been able to put a real stamp on the team and challenged them to understand what it means that you’re in a team, that these guys are your brothers. I always say about coaching that it’s really easy for players to go in halfway. What do I mean by that? I mean that when things are good, when everything goes your way, you act like you’re all-in, but you’re not really.
“People like to cover themselves – ‘the manager didn’t like me,’ ‘I didn’t like the training,’ whatever. If everybody makes a lot of money and thinks they’re a great player and is more worried about their status, then the modern-day manager has an even bigger challenge. That goes for all managers.”
Bradley is talking in general terms, careful not to point the finger at anyone at Swansea, but he had also made clear – perhaps too clear, he suggests – in his discussions with the board that he felt that the squad lacked a winning mentality.
“Part of what I said was that we needed more winners, more fighters, more guys that come in every day desperate to improve,” he says. “I think in the last 18 months or so, as different players have left, the club hasn’t been able to replace some players with others at the same level.
“When a team goes through a tough period, you need people you can count on, people who are strong, people who will stand up for the team. It takes that kind of strength to get back on track. I was very direct in those conversations and at some level I think that came back to hurt me.”
Ultimately, of course, what really hurt Bradley was results and in particular the tendency to concede goals at an alarming rate. In 11 games in charge, he fielded six back-four combinations, none of them convincing, and they conceded 29 goals. His hopes of making it through to the January transfer window, to sign reinforcements, were wrecked by a dismal 4-1 home defeat by West Ham United as a mutinous atmosphere took hold around the stadium. “I think somewhere in the second half that day, when the crowd was pretty angry, somebody lost their nerve,” he says. “Someone’s head was going to roll and I think inevitably in that situation it’s the manager.”
Bradley wishes Paul Clement and Swansea the best, but he has a warning. “There is a real trust issue between the supporters and the people involved in the change of ownership,” he says. “That has to improve. The other aspect is the team. When you take over a team and you’re in that part of the table – just like when I took over from Francesco – it’s for a reason. The reason is that the team needs to be improved.”
As for Bradley, 58, he feels wiser and ready for the next test. “Wherever it is, if it’s the right opportunity, I’ll be there,” he says. All-in, of course.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/sport/trust-me-not-one-player-called-me-ronald |  |
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| Bradley on 03:04 - Jan 4 with 2065 views | Humpty |
Nothing too controversial there. Good luck Bob in whatever you do next.
You should never have got the job because you weren't up to managing at that level, and we got rid of you because you were shit. All the best for the future. |  | | |
| Bradley on 03:15 - Jan 4 with 2048 views | swanseajack4eva |
| Bradley on 03:04 - Jan 4 by Humpty |
Nothing too controversial there. Good luck Bob in whatever you do next.
You should never have got the job because you weren't up to managing at that level, and we got rid of you because you were shit. All the best for the future. |
That's a fair summary. He was just out of his depth. |  | | |
| Bradley on 03:44 - Jan 4 with 2023 views | stAteSwan |
Bradley is in an unusual position. He pretty much knows that he's got a managing job locked up in MLS if he wants it because of the weight his name carries in that league. I think he sort of feels like he can say what he wants without worry of hurting his future employment.
He probably should keep his mouth shut though. He's never going to convince anyone of anything. |  | | |
| Bradley on 06:50 - Jan 4 with 1917 views | Dr_Winston |
Bradley was a terrible manager for us, but let's not pretend there aren't issues at the club in terms of player power and decision making at the highest level after one win against a shitty Palace team. |  |
| Pain or damage don't end the world. Or despair, or f*cking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man... and give some back. |
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| Bradley on 07:07 - Jan 4 with 1878 views | max936 |
| Bradley on 06:50 - Jan 4 by Dr_Winston |
Bradley was a terrible manager for us, but let's not pretend there aren't issues at the club in terms of player power and decision making at the highest level after one win against a shitty Palace team. |
No mud throwing therein fairness, he said everything that we already know, but in fairness the team stood up to be counted last night, but the did that in 2 of the games he was here, Palace home and Sunderland home, the rest was abysmal, Paul Clements job now is to get them to maintain last nights performance, tough job reinforcements must be brought in. |  |
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| Bradley on 07:19 - Jan 4 with 1839 views | Gowerjack |
I'm no fan of Bradley,his appointment has led to our forthcoming relegation but it's difficult to ague with this part of his interview....
“Part of what I said was that we needed more winners, more fighters, more guys that come in every day desperate to improve,”
It seems to me to describe to a tee what it must be like to deal with that vile egotistical waste of space that is Neil Taylor.
Or Jefferson Montero.
Or Ki. |  |
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| Bradley on 07:24 - Jan 4 with 1828 views | robbiejames86 |
He was way out his depth but, I feel there's been too much player power in the dressing room since the Laudrup days, with Ash and Monk tittle tattling to Jenkins to get him the boot, Monk and Guidolin too were undermined, and the behind the scenes shite is obvious, with Huw thinking he's Sir Alex, so it might be quite enlightening? | | | |
| Bradley on 07:34 - Jan 4 with 1790 views | ItchySphincter |
I never got this "all in" thing he seems to peddle. I've never seen a more cowardly Swansea team than Bradley's. He seems to think we shipped goals because we were 'having a go' when in truth the exact opposite was true. We were soft and hopeless with a terrible attitude and that is a direct reflection of the manager. |  |
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| Bradley on 07:35 - Jan 4 with 1787 views | Dr_Winston |
| Bradley on 07:24 - Jan 4 by robbiejames86 |
He was way out his depth but, I feel there's been too much player power in the dressing room since the Laudrup days, with Ash and Monk tittle tattling to Jenkins to get him the boot, Monk and Guidolin too were undermined, and the behind the scenes shite is obvious, with Huw thinking he's Sir Alex, so it might be quite enlightening? |
It goes back further than Laudrup.
Martinez was the first to do it when he bipped about Jackett behind his back. Seems to be an unbroken chain of a certain clique of players stretching from then to the departure of Ash. All big buddies, all used to getting what they want having seen the rewards on offer for stirring the shit. | |
| Pain or damage don't end the world. Or despair, or f*cking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man... and give some back. |
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| Bradley on 07:37 - Jan 4 with 1780 views | swan65split |
| Bradley on 07:07 - Jan 4 by max936 |
No mud throwing therein fairness, he said everything that we already know, but in fairness the team stood up to be counted last night, but the did that in 2 of the games he was here, Palace home and Sunderland home, the rest was abysmal, Paul Clements job now is to get them to maintain last nights performance, tough job reinforcements must be brought in. |
Maybe not mud throwing, but...........................
quote
Were the Swansea players convinced, though? It is reported that some of them, regarding him an American relic from the 1980s, referred to him as “Ronald Reagan” behind his back. “Trust me on this,” he says with a smile. “Not one of those players knows who Ronald Reagan is.”
Plenty of bitterness, and enough for a potential new Boss to think Feck him! |  | | |
| Bradley on 07:53 - Jan 4 with 1719 views | waynekerr55 |
| Bradley on 07:37 - Jan 4 by swan65split |
Maybe not mud throwing, but...........................
quote
Were the Swansea players convinced, though? It is reported that some of them, regarding him an American relic from the 1980s, referred to him as “Ronald Reagan” behind his back. “Trust me on this,” he says with a smile. “Not one of those players knows who Ronald Reagan is.”
Plenty of bitterness, and enough for a potential new Boss to think Feck him! |
Exactly.
Not one of them know who Ronald Reagan is. What an arrogant cÅ«nt. Fúck off back to teaching 6 year olds how to pass the ball with their instep or better still get a job on Fox Sports - your clichés and vacuous statements will be perfect in your role as a 'pundit' |  |
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| Bradley on 08:01 - Jan 4 with 1691 views | Cooperman |
Nothing to see here so move on. Just another example of Bob pimping himself.
The cold facts are i) he was never Premier League level before he arrived & ii) he endured poor results whilst he was at Premier League level.
So, goodbye Bob. I'm sure you'll end up back in MLS some time soon which will suit you down to the ground. |  |
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| Bradley on 09:21 - Jan 4 with 1581 views | macthejack |
He's the master of talking a lot without actually saying much. |  | | |
| Bradley on 09:22 - Jan 4 with 1580 views | headcleaner |
Whilst I couldn't even stand to listen to his post match interviews nor his arms folded clueless misdemeanor, I can't disagree with him that his squad of players are generally very soft and a bunch of bottle jobs. There isn't much steel throughout the side and when the going got tough this mob got going...in reverse.
$hit manager of a $hit squad at a pretty $hitty club (at the moment) and that hurts to say. I'm hoping that lessons have been learnt and we can dust ourselves off and PC is given everything he needs to rectify this mess only then can we forget that Brad bobbly ever existed as our manager |  | | |
| Bradley on 09:24 - Jan 4 with 1570 views | WarwickHunt |
| Bradley on 09:21 - Jan 4 by macthejack |
He's the master of talking a lot without actually saying much. |
Very slowly.
He should do a DVD of his conversations with Slo-mo Jenkins - a surefire cure for insomnia. |  | | |
| Bradley on 09:33 - Jan 4 with 1545 views | TheFranchise |
I could only read the first few paragraphs, zoned out after. |  | | |
| Bradley on 09:50 - Jan 4 with 1492 views | Clinton |
In the Premier league you need footballing guile, a plan, and an eye for detail. Bob didn't show he had it. However much you are in it all together and playing as brothers, as winners; it's not enough in this league. It's possibly unique in that regard.
It's possibly true that with Ash around, other leaders got pushed to one side or out the door completely and a new alpha male needs to flex his muscles.
Bit like that nature program where the presence of one big silver back gorilla in the troop stops the others getting too big and dominant. Well time has come for at least one to stand up and be counted. |  |
| If you can fill the unforgiving minute.
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son! |
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| Bradley on 10:17 - Jan 4 with 1425 views | AussieSwan |
damage control | |
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| Bradley on 10:26 - Jan 4 with 1408 views | LeonWasGod |
| Bradley on 09:21 - Jan 4 by macthejack |
He's the master of talking a lot without actually saying much. |
An interesting comment stood out in the PC interview posted up on here a few days ago. He was talking about coping with the languages at his differnt European clubs and said that it had turned him into an efficient communicator. He reckoned coaches often liked to talk too much to the point of saying nothing of use. No prize for guessing who I immediately thought of! |  | | |
| Bradley on 10:44 - Jan 4 with 1360 views | monmouth |
He likes the limelight and is desperate to stay in it, rather than disappear back into his usual obscurity.
Our club had turned to shit, but that doesn't make you any less shit. Shit plus shit equals more shit, so just scuttle back to nowhere, there's a good lad. You're not going to get another gift or sympathy job that you don't deserve. |  |
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| Bradley on 10:47 - Jan 4 with 1343 views | NeiltheTaylor |
| Bradley on 02:36 - Jan 4 by MyFinalHeaven |
Here's the full interview from The Times that requires subscriber access:
‘Trust me, not one player called me Ronald Reagan’
Bob Bradley explains to Oliver Kay that his Swansea side did not have enough fighters
Bob Bradley believes in going “all-in”. Yes, it is an Americanism, one that some might find a fitting epitaph to his predictably brief spell in charge of Swansea City. It is the maxim of 100 per cent effort, of everyone pulling in the same direction, leaving cynicism and self-interest at the door, striving for improvement and success. All very obvious, you might think, but “in football”, he says quite pointedly, “it’s not something you see quite as often as you should.”
Throughout a 35-year coaching career – in Major League Soccer, with the United States and Egypt national teams, at clubs in Norway and France – Bradley has always prided himself on fostering an “all-in” mentality. At Swansea, as many had suspected, he tried and failed, sacked after 85 days in charge, and his replacement, Paul Clement, was confirmed yesterday. “It was eight points from eleven games and, if you want to do the math, that’s not going to be enough,” Bradley says. “I get that. I’m not the first guy to be sacked.”
That is certainly true, but, as the first American to manage a Premier League team, as a man whose two most recent posts had been at Stabaek and Le Havre, his appointment and subsequent struggle has attracted rare levels of curiosity, cynicism and, ultimately, schadenfreude. Whether or not he could ever have been the right man to manage in the Premier League, Swansea in 2016, under a new American ownership regime that was viewed with suspicion, looked like the wrong place at the wrong time.
“I knew there was turmoil off the field and that feeling of distrust from the supporters over the way Jason [Levien] and Steve [Kaplan] became owners,” Bradley says. “I was aware of that, but I wouldn’t have got to this position if I hadn’t taken risks along the way.”
So he went for it – all-in, of course – convinced that the only way to steer them to safety was by trying to rebuild the fractured confidence of a squad that had lost key figures such as Ashley Williams, the captain, and André Ayew since toiling against relegation last season and had not adequately replaced them.
“I knew the biggest challenge was to get points on the board in the short term,” Bradley says. “What I decided from the start was that rather than try to throw new football ideas at the players, the first job was to restore confidence and good habits. I went out of my way to be very positive with them because when a team is under pressure from the supporters and the media, you have to make them feel good about themselves. You have to be strong.
“The main emphasis was on making sure that when the guys showed up every day, we had an environment that was professional, appreciated and real. I’ve done these things at enough places, in enough countries, to be confident in my ability to give them that.”
Were the Swansea players convinced, though? It is reported that some of them, regarding him an American relic from the 1980s, referred to him as “Ronald Reagan” behind his back. “Trust me on this,” he says with a smile. “Not one of those players knows who Ronald Reagan is.”
It did seem there was a credibility issue, though – that, as Bradley said in an interview back in 2011: “When you’re American, it’s different . . . you have to fight for respect.” Was that more of a fight at Swansea than it should have been? Bradley’s response suggests that while he felt accepted by his players, there was never quite the collective buy-in that he required. It was not “all-in” – and perhaps when we look at Swansea’s fortunes since the Capital One Cup success in 2013, tracing back through the latter days of Michael Laudrup and the tenures of Garry Monk, Francesco Guidolin and Bradley, we are left wondering whether this squad, having lost several influential figures over recent years, has gone “all-in” often enough.
“The idea, in all sports, is to have a winning culture – players who are strong, good for their team-mates, who put the team ahead of themselves, players with that pure commitment to make the environment better and train at the right level,” Bradley says. “That, without a doubt, becomes a big challenge in the Premier League, where you have so many guys making so much money. Football has changed.
“One of the things that I’ve always felt great about in previous jobs is that I’ve been able to put a real stamp on the team and challenged them to understand what it means that you’re in a team, that these guys are your brothers. I always say about coaching that it’s really easy for players to go in halfway. What do I mean by that? I mean that when things are good, when everything goes your way, you act like you’re all-in, but you’re not really.
“People like to cover themselves – ‘the manager didn’t like me,’ ‘I didn’t like the training,’ whatever. If everybody makes a lot of money and thinks they’re a great player and is more worried about their status, then the modern-day manager has an even bigger challenge. That goes for all managers.”
Bradley is talking in general terms, careful not to point the finger at anyone at Swansea, but he had also made clear – perhaps too clear, he suggests – in his discussions with the board that he felt that the squad lacked a winning mentality.
“Part of what I said was that we needed more winners, more fighters, more guys that come in every day desperate to improve,” he says. “I think in the last 18 months or so, as different players have left, the club hasn’t been able to replace some players with others at the same level.
“When a team goes through a tough period, you need people you can count on, people who are strong, people who will stand up for the team. It takes that kind of strength to get back on track. I was very direct in those conversations and at some level I think that came back to hurt me.”
Ultimately, of course, what really hurt Bradley was results and in particular the tendency to concede goals at an alarming rate. In 11 games in charge, he fielded six back-four combinations, none of them convincing, and they conceded 29 goals. His hopes of making it through to the January transfer window, to sign reinforcements, were wrecked by a dismal 4-1 home defeat by West Ham United as a mutinous atmosphere took hold around the stadium. “I think somewhere in the second half that day, when the crowd was pretty angry, somebody lost their nerve,” he says. “Someone’s head was going to roll and I think inevitably in that situation it’s the manager.”
Bradley wishes Paul Clement and Swansea the best, but he has a warning. “There is a real trust issue between the supporters and the people involved in the change of ownership,” he says. “That has to improve. The other aspect is the team. When you take over a team and you’re in that part of the table – just like when I took over from Francesco – it’s for a reason. The reason is that the team needs to be improved.”
As for Bradley, 58, he feels wiser and ready for the next test. “Wherever it is, if it’s the right opportunity, I’ll be there,” he says. All-in, of course.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/sport/trust-me-not-one-player-called-me-ronald |
Hard to really get het up about that. | |
| Joe_bradshaw -I thought the cryochamber was the new name for Cardiff's stadium.
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