Football Food For Thought / Frank Gregan / 26 March 2008 /

Legendary Non-League Manager Frank Gregan on why Gallas and Diouf have wound up their team mates and having your team knocked out by a side three divisions below you

"The Slug and Lettuce would beat them!" That was the final statement made to me during a verbal scouting report prior to a game that was the equivalent of the third round of the FA Cup in Wales. I was managing a Welsh Premier side and we were at home to a side three divisions below us with a name I couldn't pronounce. A fellow who had done scouting reports for me for years had watched our opponents and he was adamant that a shock was impossible, as far as he was concerned we were already in the next round.

It was what I needed to hear. We were third favourites for the competition and the club I was managing had not won the Welsh Cup since 1900. It was not a happy club, I had only been in charge a few months and I had brought in half a dozen English players. Taking inspiration from a conversation I had once been the sole witness to between Arsene Wenger and Patrick Vieria during which the two French speaking men spoke only English, I tried to ban the Welsh language from the dressing room and have the players share a common tongue. I may as well have suggested that we burn the Welsh flag in the centre circle whilst wearing tee shirts with logos proclaiming "I hate leeks and sheep!"

I have since worked with a lot of players and staff from South Wales and they are smashing people, but I had a terrible time of it further North. You learn from your mistakes and there is no doubting that I should have worked harder to get the Welsh and English players to gel both socially and professionally.
It was the most hostile dressing room I have ever worked in and on reflection it was because we were not winning as often as we should have been. We had one of the best squads in the league on paper but were lying sixth in the table. We had suffered a very heavy league cup defeat and we all knew we were underachieving. In these situations everyone needs someone to blame, invariably it is the manager, it goes with the office but occasionally the players start to point the finger at each other which is the worst thing that can happen.

That seems to be the case at Bolton and Arsenal where there are rumblings about El Hadji Diouf and William Gallas. The theory is validated when you consider that during "Spitting Image," not the TV show but the picture of Diouf dispatching his phlegm, his team mates on the whole rallied around him in support. They were winning then and in many peoples eyes they were over-achieving given their resources. Now they are in a relegation dog fight it is alleged that some of his team mates are questioning his desire.

Gallas has upset some of the Arsenal players after his reaction to the late penalty at St Andrews and his criticism of Theo Walcott in a magazine article. Again, this has come when Arsenal are experiencing their worst run of form on the park. It's at this time that the cracks start to show and the keyword here is "some.' Some of the players in both instances are unhappy with Diouf and Gallas, both players will also have their mates who are on their side. That is the most worrying aspect for a manager, a split in the camp. There is only one way to heal the rift, start achieving results that match expectations.

It is also at times like this that there is value to be had for the punter. I still think Bolton will escape relegation and I will be laying them at [1.82]. It's not too long ago that Arsenal were [1.73] to win the title, they can now be backed at [14.0] and I would not put anyone off a punt in that direction. It may prove to have been an unbelievable price come the season's end. I also like the look of the [2.4] that should be attainable on the Gunners to finish in the top two.

And so back to my Welsh Cup tie. My scout was right, I looked at the opposition during their warm up and saw a goalkeeper and ten fat blokes in trainers. We had a quality side which included Stuart Slater the former West Ham star who had previously been Celtic's record signing at £1.5 million and Jason Drysdale who Newcastle had paid £500,000 for. Frankie Bennett had played in the Premiership with Southampton and another three of my players had experience in the English Football League. We couldn't possibly lose.

We did! Their goalkeeper turned out to be a cross between Jim Montgomery against Leeds and Tomaszewski against England (younger readers may need to do a web search!)
We had 98% of the possession, hit the woodwork half a dozen times but lost 1-0 to their only shot of the game. The rift between my players was not helped when we got back in the dressing room and I asked the question "How did we lose that?" It was meant to be a rhetorical question, in hindsight perhaps I should have stressed it was a rhetorical question because the answer led to the biggest dressing room bust up I have ever seen in my life. "We lost because only half of us were trying and we are all English!" snapped one of my players. I have never wanted to see the Severn Bridge so much in all my life!

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