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View Full Version : This article deserves its own thread. Kevin Cranson take a bow!



GazFish35
01-04-2013, 09:34 AM
http://www.theherald.com.au/story/1400242/comment-fresh-voice-needed-for-jets/?cs=306



A SEASON that promised so much for the Jets came to a bitterly disappointing conclusion against the Wanderers on Friday.

On a perfect evening for football in front of a magnificent crowd, Newcastle’s season fizzled out with them barely firing a shot.

Their limp exit was in stark contrast to the sheer belief of the Wanderers and their fans.

In 2008 that passion and fervour was all Newcastle’s, and the 20,000-plus crowds were not bolstered by 8000 visitors.

Just as coach Gary van Egmond got the accolades for the 2008 championship, so too must he be held accountable for this season’s failure, for it was a disaster of his own making.

He ran the show and had financial backing and support of Hunter Sports Group, who gave him a contract extension in September – before the season even started.

Any checks and balances went with the removal of the so-called Jets Advisory Board, and any dissenting voices among the players have been weeded out.

Van Egmond will argue that he should get the chance to finish what he started, but he had that chance this season and he blew it.

He has fallen short on every marker that you could judge a coach by.

Not only that, he has gone about his business in such an arrogant and bloodyminded way that he has lost the faith of supporters and alienated a proud and faithful football community.

The planets aligned for van Egmond and the Jets in 2008.

This time, the chemistry just isn’t right, and he should go.

RESULTS

Ultimately, this is what any coach lives or dies by. After leading the Jets to a game short of the grand final in his rookie season in 2006, when he took over seven rounds into the season from the sacked Nick Theodorakopoulos, van Egmond won the championship in 2008.

The Jets got the wooden spoon the following season, and van Egmond left to take up a position at the Australian Institute of Sport.

When van Egmond rejoined the Jets after round three last season – again picking up the reins from a sacked coach, Branko Culina – his mantra was an up-tempo, possession-based passing game.

Fans gave him the benefit of the doubt as he stuck rigidly to his philosophy while giving the appearance of a man trying to bash a square peg into a round hole with the squad he had inherited. The Jets eventually finished seventh.

This season, though, there are no excuses. Van Egmond was given the opportunity to rebuild his squad into one that could deliver his brand of football.

The result, however, has been even more abysmal than the preceding season.

The Jets won four of their first six games despite not playing well – most notably home victories over the Mariners and Victory when they were clearly outplayed – and this had them in a false position at the pointy end of the table for a large slice of the season.

But they won only four more times over the remaining 21 games.

That they were still a chance of making the play-offs in the last round says more about the absurdity of the six-team finals format than the Jets’ title chances. They finished one point off sixth, but 10 off fourth, 26 off first and only four above last. Their final position of eighth was a true reflection of their performance.

RECRUITMENT

This is another key component in judging a coach – the ability to know the players to keep and the ones to let go.

Van Egmond cleaned out a host of older, established players who couldn’t deliver for him and was given an apparent free rein to bring in the cream of Australia’s young talent, many of whom he had first-hand knowledge of through his time at the AIS.

Van Egmond also picked up Swiss defender Dominik Ritter and Brazilian midfielder Bernardo Ribeiro as visa players. Both were young and had little senior experience. Ribeiro had a particularly thin CV but, according to van Egmond, would provide an ‘‘X-factor’’ as a playmaker.

When former England striker Emile Heskey was signed as a marquee player a matter of weeks before the start of the season he was described by van Egmond as the final piece in the jigsaw – although the coach had little to do with his recruitment.

That was sealed by Hunter Sports Group boss Troy Palmer and Jets chief executive Robbie Middleby with the assistance of Newcastle’s other former Premier League star, Michael Bridges.

Incredibly, as the youth-dominated squad struggled, experienced defender Tiago Calvano was offloaded to Sydney, captain Jobe Wheelhouse left, and Ryan Griffiths was allowed out of his contract to join Chinese club Beijing Baxy.

Zenon Caravella was a handy late-season pick-up, but it was too little too late.

In the final analysis, the younger players didn’t make the step up, and the Jets were woefully short of proven campaigners to steady the ship. The result was van Egmond’s dream team became a nightmare.

Meanwhile, players van Egmond let go were having stellar seasons, most notably Nikolai Topor-Stanley and Labinot Haliti at start-up club Western Sydney Wanderers, and Jeremy Brockie, who scored 16 goals for wooden-spooners Wellington.

When Wanderers played Newcastle off the park at Hunter Stadium on Friday to clinch the Premiers Plate and end the Jets’ play-off hopes, it highlighted just how wrong van Egmond had got things.

And when former Jets favourite Tarek Elrich’s desperate slide tackle on a runaway James Brown late in the game was applauded by both sets of fans, it was salt in the wounds.

TACTICS

Van Egmond stuck rigidly to his favoured 4-2-3-1 formation and trying to play a possession-based game. Nothing wrong with that, except that his rebuilt squad proved less capable of delivering his style than the preceding one.

After a bright start to his Jets campaign, Heskey became an increasingly isolated figure up front. A switch to 4-4-2 might have made better use of his strengths and shored things up defensively, but this was never tried by van Egmond.

His intransigence meant the Jets were easy pickings for opposing teams, who simply waited for the Jets to turn over possession with their fullbacks committed high up the park and counter-attacked through the space behind them.

Match day became Groundhog Day for Jets fans as they settled in to watch their side get their pants pulled down again.

The 5-0 away loss to Victory in round 23 was the low point. Sending the youngest side in Jets history out was a gamble; doing so with fullbacks bombing forward was suicide.




Continues.....

GazFish35
01-04-2013, 09:34 AM
TEAM SELECTION

Van Egmond’s constant tinkering with his starting side could be seen as an admission that things weren’t working, but his faith in players like James Brown, Scott Neville, Connor Chapman and Dominik Ritter was as perplexing as his refusal to give others a chance. Ribiero went the way of other van Egmond visa signings like Edmundo Zura, Jesper Hakansson and Jorge Drovandi, who were signed after painstaking due diligence then not sighted off Nobbys.

First-team regulars from last season such as Taylor Regan, Jacob Pepper and Marko Jesic were similarly shunned.

Young striker Adam Taggart made his Socceroos debut but struggled to get out of the Jets youth team.

Having watched as van Egmond spurned proven performer Kasey Wehrman last season, fans became increasingly restless as Bridges copped the same cold shoulder despite most believing him to be the one man capable of providing the composure and class the Jets so desperately needed.

Finally given a start in round 21, Bridges duly delivered, but it was again a case of too little, too late.

When Bridges completed a remarkable renaissance by getting a one-year contract extension, Ryan Griffiths, who was now free to speak his mind after leaving for China, showed his true feelings – and perhaps gave an insight into dressing-room harmony – when he tweeted: ‘‘Congrats @MickyBridges8 for signing! Jets would be up the top if u continued to play at the start of the season!’’

LOCAL TALENT

When Nathan Tinkler took over the financially stricken Jets in September 2010, it was all about doing it for the local community.

Tinkler’s own fortunes are more of a concern for him and his right-hand man Troy Palmer of late, so it may have escaped their notice that van Egmond has taken the ‘‘Newcastle’’ out of the Newcastle Jets.

The starting side against Wanderers did not contain a single local junior. There was one field player on the bench – James Virgili – and Ben Kennedy was the reserve keeper.

Did none of the likes of Regan, Pepper, Virgili, Andrew Hoole or even Josh Mitchell deserve a spot ahead of Ritter, Neville, Chapman, Brillante, Goodwin and so on?

And, of course, there was no Jobe Wheelhouse – captain, Toronto junior, fine player and one man you would like to have in the trenches with you – who left the club in February after declaring ‘‘my heart’s not here any more’’.

That this was allowed to happen is an indictment on the club.

Compare the Jets’ handling of the situation to that of the NRL’s Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs when their star fullback, Ben Barba, declared that he didn’t want to play any more.

Interestingly, when Heskey was asked early in the season at a Rangers of 1884 Club lunch which player had impressed him most at the Jets, he singled out Wheelhouse.

YOUTH DEVELOPMENT

Van Egmond has been applauded for his willingness to give young players a chance, but any suggestion that he is some kind of youth development guru has been well and truly shot down this season.

Chapman may well be a terrific prospect, but playing him at centre half come hell or high water in an inexperienced and constantly changing back four – and left so horribly exposed as the Jets centrebacks so often are – can’t be doing him any favours. Goodwin and Virgili had their best moments in the first half-dozen games of the season. Brillante has been steady without being, well, brilliant. Taggart has looked likely when he got his chance. So too Hoole.

But have any of them blossomed under van Egmond? No. In fact, they seemed less assured as the season progressed and they found themselves in and out of the side and chopped and changed positionally.

Mark Birighitti in goal is far and away the pick of the young bunch. Credit van Egmond for signing him, but he is not the goalkeeping coach.

Then there was Mitch Oxborrow, who was thrown to the wolves against Perth and replaced at half-time. And what of Pepper, who played 17 games last season including a break-out two-goal effort against Melbourne Victory but barely got a look-in this year.

There is also debate in the Hunter football community about the amount of input van Egmond has in the Emerging Jets program.

THE FUTURE

The one positive coming out of the season is the Jets live to face another day.

But what is left after the carnage of this season is one or perhaps two grand campaigners in Bridges and Heskey, a couple of established A-League players, and a handful of promising younger players.

The Jets, who have not made the finals for the past three seasons, are again in a rebuilding stage, and Gary van Egmond does not appear the man to do that.


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His recruitment record and results this season suggest he is either a questionable judge of a footballer or he struggles to get his message across, or possibly both.

I believe that what the Jets need is a coach who respects the proud football history of this region, who is willing to work with the players at his disposal and build a side that reflects the values of the community.

Gary van Egmond has had his chance. It’s now time to give someone else a go.



Well said!

GazFish35
01-04-2013, 09:35 AM
Can see the club blaming the paper for the season now.

sammydog
01-04-2013, 09:42 AM
As usual Kevin Cranson comes out with the goods.

goaliepersempre
01-04-2013, 09:44 AM
Quality

RedMexican
01-04-2013, 09:54 AM
Can we hire this bloke as coach ?

westjet
01-04-2013, 10:06 AM
Great article, must of researched the forums before writing. Lets hope HSG are listening!

380
01-04-2013, 10:15 AM
^ I am sure they are westjet just not convinced they have the money to move on GVE early and replace him, nonetheless a great article backed by numerous points that most followers of the game in this area would agree with.

belchardo
01-04-2013, 11:26 AM
great article, only comment i have is re the locals. i don't really mind if our team is filled of non-local players at the moment, as long as they are laying the platform in the local comps to rectify it one day.

outsider
01-04-2013, 11:28 AM
A great article KC.You do realise that GVE will totally disagree with everything you have written.Makes him a minority of one.Keep up the good work

Jeterpool
01-04-2013, 12:28 PM
Great article.

plague
01-04-2013, 12:38 PM
Can't wait til he comes out tomorrow claiming it was all an April Fools joke.

sammydog
01-04-2013, 12:44 PM
Can't wait til he comes out tomorrow claiming it was all an April Fools joke.

Who GVE? Yep, he is a joke.

Zico
01-04-2013, 03:36 PM
Great article

snake
01-04-2013, 04:25 PM
last with locals > firdt with foreigners

Portillo
01-04-2013, 04:56 PM
Ribeiro disappeared half way through the season.

Porett
01-04-2013, 05:36 PM
Good article.

militiamon
01-04-2013, 05:52 PM
last with locals > firdt with foreigners

Honestly don't feel anything for most of the players in our team. Who are they? Why are they playing for us? Do they even care if we win?

hawk
01-04-2013, 10:35 PM
Honestly don't feel anything for most of the players in our team. Who are they? Why are they playing for us? Do they even care if we win?

they've only been here for 10 minutes and will be lucky to last 15. No wonder we cant connect with our/this team.