Kevin Muscat take a bow. 
There have been plenty of upset coaches this year, often for understandable reasons.
However, I think everybody needs to recognizse how well Kevin Muscat is doing as displayed during the Berisha non red card on the weekend.
I think all of the other coaches would not have handled this situation as professionally as he did - so well played Kev.
The Victory are on fire and have clearly been guided in the right direction.
He was inexperienced when he started at Victory but has clearly developed significantly.

There are too many people out there that remember how Kevin played and now need to move on to how he coaches before having a go at him.

P.S. - Yes Arnold is doing well at SFC and is the only other coach in Kevin's league at the moment.

You having a laff?

Get off his dick ASAP.

Good to see one Victory fan with common sense. 

The burn in here when he is offered a gig in Europe.

I expect he will be offered the natianal coach role once Ange finishes at World Cup.
(Many people are stuck on his past and not looking at what he is achieving now).
Aloisi is probably the next best option.
Maybe JG.

Hahahah fuck, can you imagine the salt if that came true?

-PB

Also, if MV continue to do well, with his profile and network in the UK I could easily see him being offered something from Championship down or Scotland.

Was thinking the exact same thing...

@i know best
I love the butthurt... they cant handle it. Thug turned tactician... record breaking domestic coach..
One of the main qualities hes carried over from his playing days, is his leadership. Hes a great leader of men.

The reality is - he is a good coach (and getting better).
Many can just not handle it.

You do know one comment is from a Victory fan, genius. 

He has managed to twice rebuild teams and team structure. This latest undertaking started slowly but is looking quite promising at the moment. 

It's odd to think of all the stick and comments on here from people saying he can't coach and is useless - despite his trophy cabinet and achievements.

As for 'the best' - not sure that exists. Horses for courses. 

One area where Muscat has excelled is players - man management, attracting players and scouting. Every player he has signed has performed, with the only one standing out being beister which is way too early to make a call on. 

Earlier in the season I identified a malfunctioning MV midfield as the problem.

As soon as Troisi came back, and obviously from  specialised work focusing on the middle of the pitch in training, it has started to fire. Troisi is close to the best player in the league ATM. Where he is better than Finkler is his speed, athleticism and linking of  the defence and attack when the other team has the ball.

I think Troisi should be a starter in the Socceroos.

As AM instead of Rogic? 

Interesting to win the 2018 title from 4th on the ladder in the home and away season.

I didn't see the specific games, but there were reports Muscat was booed by MV fans in some matches.

Wow. Five years ago but for once I still stand by a post 😂

I think you make a good point.

In press conferences Muscat often displays quite a deal of diplomacy and appears statesmanlike, nothing like his angry playing persona.  Maybe he has learnt from the impassive Ernie? LOL!

Victory and Sydney aren't even that good, the rest are just shit. 

Victory's first 30mins on Friday was good - very good.
Troisi and Rojas are building and by end of year will potentially be the best partnership the a-league has ever seen.
Muscat needs to be praised for getting both players back into the a-league.

In terms of value adding to mediocre, inexperienced squads, Okon and Jones are doing  great jobs with CCM and Jets.

I had no faith in Muscat but glad to be proved completely wrong again, the football is the best since Ange.

I love Muscat. We've always tried to play attacking football, no matter the cattle. His recruitment (bar maybe Beister but who knows) has been absolutely on point. Think he has learnt a lot from last year which was especially tough in losing Valeri and Millsy. 

Two criticisms I've had are with his substitutions and no plan B. His subs have been a lot better this year, often contributing directly to goals and helping close out games. 

With the Plan B, I think he's well and truly from the Ange school of preferring to make sure that we always do Plan A better.

bloke at the Jets obviously

There's been this ridiculous idea that Muscat is an inferior manager despite his success and has only achieved what he has so far because of lucky rexruitnent.

He's one of the best squad builders in the league, has a firm grasp of how exactly he wants his team's to play and his finger right on the pulse of the squads attitude.

That might make him appear stubborn and tactically inflexible compared to others but it gives his squad clear goals of what they need to achieve and makes his players want to go out to spill blood for him.

Nothing like a Victory wank thread to start the week. 

Victory fans crave attention, kind of like you posting in Victory threads.

Adelaide fans are always welcome to share and discuss the many great aspects of their club, if they can think of any.

Nothing like Flexy moaning in a Victory thread. 

Weird way to spell Guillermo Amor.

Butthurt, salt, burn... What are you guys 12?

You know why i hate it when everyone says youre a shit poster?  

Becuase they never give you credit for how many times you repeat the "are you 12" joke.

So salty hurr hurr durr. 

umad

-PB

In terms of points per match, Muscat has overtaken Ange and now sits in 2nd place overall;
http://www.aleaguestats.com/ALeagueStats_9CoachingHistory.html
This is all the more impressive considering he's coached 125 matches (obviously it's harder to maintain a high average over a long period of time), only 8 other coaches have coached more matches. 

Interesting aspect to KM's statistics relating to his "hard man" character...
http://www.aleaguestats.com/ALeagueStats_41_32CoachingHistory.html
... His team averages about 1 more foul committed per match than the A-League average, but it also averages about 1.5 more fouls committed by it's opposition than the A-League average. In other words, expect more fouls than average in a match when Muscat is coaching, but his team is generally fouled more often than they commit a foul.

The telling stat (IMO) for KM is the shots from inside the goal area. His team averages 7.48 per match (on par with the A-League average) but restricts his opponents to 6.84 per match. Switching over to the "Winning Stats" page (http://www.aleaguestats.com/ALeagueStats_38StatisticalImportance.html#Averages), you can see that shots from inside the goal area is one of the few statistics where there is a noticeable difference between the winning and losing sides.

In short... Even though I'm not a Victory fan, I can agree with the assessment of Muscat being the best coach in the A-League.

Ange coached at two clubs so you cant really compare the stats, I doubt Muscat would be so successful switching to another. 

Chuck us the crystal ball when youre done with it.

No need to be upset. 

Im not upset. I just want the crystal ball to see city lose the title (with the most expensive squad) now, instead of waiting until end of season.

Obviously dont need a crystal ball to see where the pissants ends up.

Top 6, see in the finals. :D

I can only report on what has happened, not "would have/could have"s.

That said, I do believe that if Ange had more time at Victory before moving on, his overall average would have climbed higher.
Unfortunately, i didn't record the detailed statistics on possession, etc until the 2013/14 season, so Ange's time at Brisbane isn't included in his "detailed statistics" section. Would be interesting to see what his stats would be like if they were included.

Imagine how much better his stats would be if:
Carl had not have lost most of last year through illness and Vukovic had this years form last year.
Both of these factors were totally out of his control and unforeseeable.
But Kevin is not into stats - just trophies.

This shows to me that Valeri carries your team and Muscat doesn't have the ability to get results with one player missing.

Most coaches should be able to adjust for a long term injured player - it is part of football.

Carl situation was very different to a normal injury. He was unable to play - but for how long ?
If you twist an angle the coach will know how long you are out for based on medical advice and they can plan around it.
With Carl last season - nobody knew how long he would be out for - that it highly unusual.
In hind-sight Muscat should have brought a player in to cover - he did not and it cost Victory the season.
The situation was compounded as Milligan going o/s at the start of the season.
Similarly with Danny - how does a coach deal with that situation. It was most unfortunate and out of his control - not like a standard injury to a player.

So last year - was Muscat the best coach in the a-league = no.
He has learnt from this - improved - as all good coaches should.
I was suggesting he is the best coach about now - not 12 months ago.

It is true that no one knew how long Valeri was going to be out for but Muscat should had adapted to the situation. The loss of one player should not make a good side a poor one.

Muscat is also not the best coach. Graham Arnold is. No team in A-League history is as good as his Sydney team right now and as much as I would hate to admit it I think Sydney can go the whole season undefeated.

Muscat has undoubtedly done well, but he also has the advantage of only having worked in what is arguably Australia's most successful club. I think a better judgement of his managerial ability would be seeing him manage a team without the resources Victory have. I still think the benchmark for coaching in the A-League is what Ange did with Brisbane, and what Graham Arnold did with CCM, and is now starting to do with SFC. 

I wouldn't put Muscat's name up for national team coaching just yet. Remember how Popovic was mentioned as a possible NT coach after one and a half seasons? He's not doing too well now, and his man management has been shown to be quite poor. Give it a few more seasons and then maybe Muscat might deserve a chance, however I still think Graham Arnold is the better manager. 

If Muscat ever wants to be the Australian Coach he needs to stop acting like a baby on the sidelines, its a bad look in the A-League and can not be tolerated at a national level. 

But in international football we would have independent refs rather than the anit-Victory same faces that ref the A-league week in week out.
(You know the ones - they give red cards based on who you are rather than what you did).
Hence with proper refs thiis would not be an issue.
Post match - he is more mature than most other coaches.

Would not change a thing, he is always acting like a baby and complaining on the sideline, even when they are wining. At a national level he would be just as bad or worse due to Asian teams wasting time and faking injuries, he would go off his head.

Post match he is fine and other coaches could learn a thing a two from him. 

You probably have a point with the time wasting in international games.
He has improved but that issue would really get under his skin.

This. He gets away with everything while Amor got a bullshit suspension for touching a fourth official in a non aggressive way.

Wait a second... Are you saying that theres a pro-muscat-anti-amor conspiracy going on?

Shit poster at it again. 

I have never said there was a conspiracy. I don't think Amor's suspension was fair when Muscat can abuse everyone and call them every word under the sun and get off scott free.

Is getting fined for calling referees cheats a plus or minus ?

Successful coaching in the A-League at the moment seems to me to be almost entirely based on picking the right players rather than a coaches wonderful skill with tactics, training etc.  MV is playing great football and working well together, a credit to Muscat.  But if I was going to pick one real strength of MV this season it is individual quality of their players, basically exactly the same with Sydney.  Most of that quality I don't think has anything to do with the training of them,  but just good recruitment and team building.

Not sure how that figures into the argument of who is the best coach, i just think its interesting that there is such a huge gulf in teams individual quality in a capped league.  I don't for one second believe it is the coaches magical man-management skills creating that gap.  Seems kinda sad.

Why? You dont think recruitment and team building are fundamental to what makes a good manager? 

Recruitment is one of the main criteria when assessing a good manager. Kev gets 10/10 for recruitment. Among the greats he has signed - the greatest defender to ever grace this league - MDP... then he also brought in FBK, Berisha, valeri Georgevski, the list goes on.... even ingham was a masterstroke in this moneyball league. 

"I don't for one second believe it is the coaches magical man-management skills creating that gap."

Lol. You underestimate a good leader. Thats how we decimated you guys so bad in that last gf at aami. 

I do think recruitment is a massive part of good management, just kind of pointing it out, it seems a bit sad to me that tactics, style and training sort of thing which I love are being a little bit overshadowed at the moment by individual quality.  Also makes it hard for me to judge managers, as players quality has so much to do with them, and is so variable in the A league from year to year that a long term record is needed to really judge recruitment properly.  I do think Muscat has done really well so far but just hard to tell the real answer to the 'best coach' question.

The man management bit, I massively disagree.  I think there are sort of extreme cases where the difference between coaches man management 'skills' matters a lot.  Most especially with under-confident youth (actually probably young players in general) or people facing personal crises etc.  But I think that overall it is one of the most overhyped myths in football.  You get a team of professional football players, many of whom have been so for almost a decade or longer, and think that a coach will inspire them with their excellent man management... its just a myth born out of over romanticised views on sport.  Any comment a coach makes that is actually of practical benefit to a players game (eg where they are making errors of judgement or mistiming runs etc) has a hundred times the effect of things like natural leadership motivating them.  Its not nothing but I just think it gets way overhyped.

I actually tend to think man-management is as big a part or even bigger than what people would have you believe once you are at the top level. The differences in skill levels between most professional footballers are relatively slim (within a league or within the top 4 etc) and it is all about getting the most out of these players and keeping them motivated.

Don't know what you've been on, Davide, but you've posted a lot of sense in many of your recent posts.

Ha ha
My posts and therefore my forum persona are generally a product of their environment, unfortunately.

Can relate to that haha

-PB

“All truth passes through three stages:

First, it is ridiculed.
Second, it is violently opposed.
Third, it is accepted as self-evident.”

If you keep positing  what you've posted recently I might have to nominate you as best established poster on 442 for Draup's awards!

Look out Davide

Next he'll be inviting you back to his place, plying you with alcohol, and parading his daughters.

:laugh::laugh: I remember that.

I'm quite a catch