Gary O’Neil: Head Coach is NOT the most important role

Andrews is in his first season as a Head Coach, having previously been the Bees’ Set Piece Coach, while Nuno has managed 188 Premier League games across his time at Wolves, Tottenham, Nottingham Forest and West Ham.

However, Brentford completely outclassed West Ham, with O’Neil arguing that this showed structure at a club is more important than the Head Coach. 

He said: “Is Keith Andrews a miles better coach than Nuno? Probably not, but because of where the two clubs are at this moment, it definitely looked like that for 90 minutes this evening.

“So there’s a lot more at play than who’s the better coach. There’s so much more that goes into building a successful team, a successful football club, how it’s run.

“I think the role of a Head Coach is maybe not the most important thing at a football club. I think the structure is so, so important.”

This concurs with the views of Luke Bornn, the former Head of Analytics at Roma and with the Sacramento Kings, who founded Zelus Analytics.

Speaking on Episode 69 of the TGG Podcast, he said: “We have this real tendency to attribute all success and failure to the coach. It’s actually more common in England than elsewhere in Europe. I’m not sure why.

“Maybe it’s because they’re the most visible, maybe it’s because they’re the one that does the press conference afterwards. But we tend to attribute a disproportionate amount of good or bad to the coaches.”

And Dave Reddin, the former Head of Team Strategy and Performance at the Football who is now Head of Performance for Wales Rugby Union, said football’s preoccupation with the “unicorn” Head Coach is a “flawed leadership concept”.

He said: “This concept of the unicorn, who is paid 10, 15 times more than anybody else in the organisation, who has all the answers, is a flawed leadership concept in general and maybe underplays the value and opportunity from others in the mix.

“Maybe what we see going forwards, if we think about the move away from unicorn head coaches, is this idea of more democracy. The idea that the coaching team and wider multi-disciplinary team create more value by working collectively within an aligned strategy and vision.”

Reddin praised Andrews’ club Brentford as one which had embraced the concept of specialist coaching.

“I do see the huge opportunity in this model, both from a team perspective, the ability to really get down to the detail, whether that be set plays, throws or tactical elements and phases of the game, to the technical improvement of the players, at every level,” he said.