This article is part of Football FanCast's Pundit View series, which provides opinion and analysis on recent quotes from journalists, pundits, players and managers...
He continues to talk a good game, but words can only get you so far in this line of work.
Pep Clotet has gone through a rough couple of months, from fans calling him deluded, to being nominated for Manager of the Month. But things could be a lot smoother if he could just start delivering rather than pontificating about how nice he wants his team to play.
What’s he said?
Speaking during his press conference ahead of the game with Fulham, Clotet pointed out that a lot of the good or bad feelings that surround a club’s performances are dictated by the result rather than how well the club plays on the day:
"I understand that most of the time in football the result affects the judgement we make on the performance of a team. It shouldn’t be like that because it’s not like that in any other parts of our lives.
"The game is like that. If we play very well in Cardiff and we lose we might be thinking away from home that we should be more conservative.
"But if you play conservative and you lose you say ‘Oh we should be more offensive’. That’s because results condition out opinions."
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Time to put his words into action
He raises a great point in regards to fan's expectations and how they feel about the performance afterwards depending on the result, and how that seems to override how good or bad the display on the day was.
Perhaps it’s time that he starts listening to his own words and delivering what makes the fans happy in that case.
It seems as if Clotet is more concerned with trying to implement his own style rather than picking up results. This might explain why he’s made such a strong point about seeing away games as ‘bonuses’ rather than something that he can use to help build a platform off this season.
It really boils down to a simple equation. Having a great result and a great performance is great, but if you can only have one of them, then the result should always take priority over the performance.
Whilst he talks about the board and him having the same sort of vision for the club, there will come a time where he has to deliver them, and given how trigger happy the club have been when it comes to the men running the team, there’s only so much time that he’ll be given before results will play a part in his job evaluation.