I've been reading the forum for a while but never posted before, but been wondering, not sure if it had been asked or mentioned anywhere else, whether or not Harrison will be bringing in a new assistant manager to work alongside him or even his own coaching staff?

Not sure what first team coaches are even left at the club. Seeing how Bates did pretty well as interim boss at the end of the season, would he be player/coach alongside Harrison?

Hello Matty , to answer your question , I hope not m8.

I see what you mean, there is normally a piece about wanting own backroom staff etc, however with the current financial retraints, it may be make use of what we have.
He probably knows about Bates and sicknote from Boro.

Financially the best decision is to let Bates and Parnaby coach and spend any money we have on new players. Simple.

We also have Ian McGuckin who is a UEFA A qualified coach and Sweens who is doing his badges.

Having the coaching badges alone, don't necessarily make you a good coach though.

Bates was 13 when Harrison left Middlesbrough!

I've noticed on the official site that Adrianno Basso isn't listed on the staff profiles section, if he isn't at the club anymore that would leave us without a specific goalkeeping coach.

I agree that we need to make use of what we have, but that shouldn't come at the expense of having sufficient coaching staff to train the players we have.

I think we need to have a clearout. Harrison needs to bring in his own staff , hopefully he will be here for at least 3 years. A successful club should have lots of knowledge and experience in the backroom. As an example Darrell Clarke brought ex players Steve Yates ( 500 + pro appearances ) in as a kitman ( yes KITMAN ) to Bristol Rovers in 2013. He did his badges whilst washing the kit, and then stepped up to became their defensive coach, the following season they got out of the conference. Just saying like ...

And?

I'm just saying it's unlikely that they know each other from Middlesbrough and the fact Bates is only 30 which would be young for someone to move into coaching when they are still playing.

Jonah Jones was allowed to bring in his coaching staff, Harrison deserves the same opportunity.

When Bates was 13 Monkeybutt used to rave about him non stop such is his expertise at spotting potential.

You beat me to it Chip, and will pick up something Harrison himself said in his interview it's all about player recruitment. Pick up good players that complement each other and that's worth far more than coaching. What the hell do you coach someone once they are a professional player anyway? All this bullshit with cones and drills on the training ground leaves me cold.

Ideally you first source the good players. who are good pros , who people respect and are willing to follow and work hard for , and that is the main thing for me, unfortunately its a thing you either have or you haven't, cant buy it, cant be coached it, all the badges in the world wont get necessarily get you it.

Not saying they would of made good coaches, but we did the above with likes of Barron, Humphreys and Tinkler, they became interwoven into the fabric of the club at the time and you would of thought would of naturally went on to the coaching side with us, alas when they finished playing the club was starting to fall apart at the seams and the chance was lost. That's how other successful clubs seem to do it , a conveyor belt of people stepping up when someone leaves , Bournemouth and Brentford spring to mind. Hopefully Harrison can build things up again, we need 3 or 4 key players who are going to be with us for 7 or 8 years , then who might becoming coaches or managers of the club one day. Of course key to this is the infrastructure of the club and support from above, and as we all know that is the concern. Without that , there is little chance of the above happening.

The fashion in lots of sports is to talk about the marginal gains you can get through diet, individually planned training based on data and so on. Squeezing the extra couple of % out of your squad by using experts to and coaches to help them reach maximum performance levels.

Makes sense if you have one of the best squads in the world and you're going head to head with another top squad. If you're coming off the back of a relegation to non-league and a lot of your better players have already gone it makes no sense at all. When you need a 40 or 50% improvement you need to get some better players in and should spend whatever time and money you've got on that.

Don't get all this data analysis, diet and nutrition and strength and conditioning shi*e, surely that should come under a coach/scouts remit. Only for the clubs who can afford it , with the best players, at a lower level jobs for the boys, no wonder it costs so much to watch a game.

Playing devils advocate here: does Iceland (pop 330,000) really have better players than England or just better coaching?

Yeah OK, it's horses for courses. Pools aren't likely to be playing England in the Euros any time soon.

I suppose it depends what we mean by coaching here. I would imagine Iceland's players had far less 'quality coaching' then the England players have all the time in their clubs and with England. Iceland just picked the best team and sent them out to play in a formation that suited best the personnel available to the manager with a clear purpose, desire and collectiveness.

The great Clough/Taylor partnership famously did not do technical coaching, it was all about picking players to compliment each other and focusing on the basics in each position. Clough famously states that players once pro shouldn't need coaching how to play the game

At Pools I would suggest we are seriously lacking a rigorous fitness regime. I know way back when Paul Murray was at club additional fitness sessions in afternoon were optional, most players buggered off home apart from him (a real professional keeping himself at peak fitness at end of his career) and a few of the kids. I was horrified by this when I heard it

Do you genuinely believe that coaching is pointless?

Like really believe that.

Despite all the evidence that coaches make all the difference to the same set of players. Wagner at Huddersfield, Howe at Bournemouth and Dyche at Burnley. Potchettino at Spurs.......

The game is much more than player recruitment

All those clubs Tim, have a good board and structure behind them. Would Dyche of done well at Burnley in 1982? even pools did well between 1999-2008 because of a sound structure behind them. It is about both, coaching and player recruitment, but most importantly about structure, support from above and that old chestnut MONEY !

Better attitudes, same can be said about Wales and Rep of Ireland, not superstars on 250k a week, championship / league 1 players with feet more on the ground , unlike a Rooney or Joe Hart, who were more interested in their hair, one getting some and the other making his shiny I'm only jealous like ...

I don't disagree with your 2 posts but to suggest coaching is pointless and makes no difference is bonkers.

Lots of stable clubs under achieve because they have the wrong coaches and by changing that changes results. LVG vs Mourinho at Man Utd for example. Not a great deal of difference in the players (forget the money paid for Pogba) used but a completely different season due to the difference in approach and on tactics from coaches

But you are talking about the Manager not the backroom staff/coaches at all those clubs. We have a Manager/Coach to use your definition in Harrison. The original post is about getting in a backroom team and yes I do question what added value there really is in all of this technical coaching done on the training ground. I've watched some of the sessions done as part of the UEFA badges and it's a load of bollocks in my opinion, totally unrelated to actually playing the game

So to be clear Tim I believe the coach is absolutely critical, the difference is I call him the manager cos I'm a bit old fashioned and all that. Let's hope Harrison turns out to be a good one

But not to do any work on coaching drills on the training ground to improve a player because once they turn professional you can't teach them anything is what I read from what you said in your post.

Still a bonkers view

Well I suppose the first job of a new manager/coach is to recruit the right backroom staff, so if it goes wrong, the manager is ultimately to blame.

I don't agree with all this running around training cones garbage either. I would like to see a bit of old fashioned running up the Hart to Haswell walkway and a 20 mile yomp around the Yorkshire Dales , with a couple of beers thrown in. Much more appropriate for clubs at a lower level, where strength both mental and physical and bonding/camaraderie are more important. Why not mix it up?. Why has everyone got to be the same, trying to emulate Man City or Barcelona

I think the good coaching thing is open to debate, however I do think bad coaching can seriously damage a clubs health, and clearly over the years the coaching at pools has been pi*s poor. Most pro players should know the basics by the age of ten, it comes from a natural instinct, such as shooting on sight, yet we were into our 40th game of this season before some of our players did that. Probably told by a coach , to keep passing until a goal is certain, by which time the ball is whipped off the players toes by a defender. Coaching is important, but I do think there are coaches out there who are just taking things out of a book, no original thinking.

Marginal gains in my opinion. The right players set up by the manager with clear instructions counts for far more than some drills with cones on a training ground. I think there is a lot of the emperors new clothes involved in football these days, the multiple backroom staff didn't seem to help under Dave Jones did it?

I'll send a memo to heaven to tell the great Brian Clough he was bonkers. I don't want to pull the Bunker classic of what level have you played to on you Tim but I am curious?

I am sure I read some where Clough never discussed tactics before a game, he selected the team and said you are professional footballers I don't need to tell you how to play or some thing along those lines ?

Different game , different times now. Players are certainly a lot fitter these days, in no part due to many not touching alcohol. I always believe mix and match, learn from the past, embrace the new. I think problem is these days, people think its uncool to take things from the past, possibly why football and the country in general is not what it used to be. I like mavericks, people who are prepared to try something different, in that respect Clough and Taylor were certainly that.

Diet and fitness side has changed beyond recognition I'll give you that. The basic principles of the game I'm not sure they have really. Pick the right players, and that means a team that compliments each other, make them understand simply the way you want the team to play and what their role is and man manage them well and Bob's your uncle

Football is not and never will be a highly technical game, the best players naturally make the best decisions most consistently and you can see this in kids by the time they are teenagers. For example you could try and coach Lewis Alessandra to not take the extra 2 or 3 touches he always does, resulting in generally no effective end product until you are blue in the face but it won't work now it's too late. This is why he's a technically gifted player who'll play most of his career lower down. Fine margins but nothing a coach can fix once he's a pro

I can never understand why the IPad/Note Pad comes out telling the sub what to do before he comes on ?