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Tuna

Puel interview with Glenn Hoddle

By Tuna, in Leicester City Forum

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Tuna

Tuna

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'Southampton were mad to sack you... not many English managers can do what you do': Glenn Hoddle meets up with old Monaco pal Claude Puel

  •  
  • Glenn Hoddle recently caught up with former Monaco team-mate Claude Puel
  • The former players talk sackings, success and the future of English football
  • Ex-Monaco stars Hoddle and Puel first met back in the summer of 1987

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-5616415/Southampton-mad-sack-Glenn-Hoddle-meets-old-Monaco-pal-Claude-Puel.html#ixzz5Ch4SsneV

 

Glenn Hoddle and Claude Puel first met in the summer of 1987. Hoddle was the 29-year-old star foreign signing for Arsene Wenger’s Monaco and Puel was the 25-year-old academy graduate, a one-club man who would become a Monaco institution, going on to manage them to the French title.

 

But in the late Eighties he was the workman-like squad player for Wenger — a young, aspiring coach who had just joined the club from Nancy. Hoddle and Puel couldn’t have been more different in profile. 

 

As they embrace as friends 31 years on, ROB DRAPER listens in as they recall those first encounters in pre-season training…

 

GLENN HODDLE: It’s good to see you!

CLAUDE PUEL: It’s the first time you’ve come to see me! You didn’t want to at Southampton?

GLENN: I was letting you get your feet under the table. And I was concerned. I was remembering our first day in training at Monaco...

CLAUDE (smiling): He was angry with me! For me, there was no difference between the training session and the game. And if he was the other team [Puel punches his fist into his palm to indicate the type of tackles which were flying in]. But we played well together.

GLENN: That was Claude. He would want to win, whether it was five-a-side, everything. He was quite calm normally. But when the game was about to start, in the dressing-room, he had an English mentality. He was very vocal.

CLAUDE: I have two personalities! I should have made my career in England and Glenn in France.

GLENN: I didn’t understand him but me and Mark Hateley [the England striker who had joined that summer with Hoddle] knew that whatever he was saying in French was: ‘Come on. We’re going to win.’ I wanted to experience playing abroad but with players who wanted to win. For Mark and me everything that Arsene did was new. I remember the first time me and Mark did the warm-down in the stadium the day after we played. We’d never done a warm-down. And Arsene said: ‘You have 25 minutes. You have to run.’ The day after the game! Ten o’clock in the morning! So me and Mark, we were so tired. We would run so slowly, just jogging, chatting. And Claude would put 12 laps in, lapping us. We thought he was crazy.

CLAUDE: We needed to have some players like me to work for all the great players like him to create something.

GLENN: Arsene had the balance right.

CLAUDE: It was a good balance. I recover the ball and I give you the ball. I played simple, one-touch or two-touch.

GLENN: When Arsene went to Arsenal, he played the same system with two holding players, like you and Marcel Dib. And then the No10, myself. And we had Youssouf Fofana out wide. And at Arsenal he had Marc Overmars. We had Jean-Marc Ferratge, who could tuck in and break, and he had a Ray Parlour. It was a replica of what he did at Monaco. And it worked perfectly. We won the league that year and played in the European Cup.

CLAUDE: Glenn was not a recovery player! We needed to have behind two strong players to recover the ball and use his quality. And he was fantastic. He was a player for France. He wasn’t a player, at this time, for England. If he had come earlier to France, it would have been better for him. Because all people could see his quality.

GLENN: In England I had to go box-to-box.

CLAUDE: When Arsene came in at Monaco, it was all new. Some new tactics and a new physical approach. He had the same effect at Arsenal. He trained Nancy the season before and had been relegated. And the president, Jean-Louis Campora, took him anyway.

GLENN: I didn’t know that he had gone down with Nancy the season before. Maybe I wouldn’t have signed if I’d known that! That’s a big decision.

CLAUDE: It was. But Arsene had personality. He’s calm, never angry.

GLENN: Well, some half-times…

CLAUDE: Yes. In the game. But never angry [outside of this]. He was never … on the bench and five minutes later after the game in front of the media, he was calm.

 

GLENN: When you were a player you took notes during training. Did you always want to coach?

CLAUDE: During the period with Arsene, I had been training young players, 11, 12 years old. It was my passion. I continued to pass my diplomas until the end of my career. At the end of my career I became an assistant manager to Jean Tigana. But it wasn’t in my mind to continue as manager. I became an assistant manager and had responsibility to develop young players. The year after I did training with the first team and managed the second team. I came to Monaco at 15 years old and stayed 25 years. I was an academy player, professional player, assistant manager and manager. It was my club.

GLENN: You must have been proud to win the league in 1999-2000 as manager.

CLAUDE: It was fantastic. I took that team after Jean Tigana. It was January, we were 11th and we finished fourth. They gave me a contract and the next year we won the league with, I think, the youngest team in history.

GLENN: How do you assess your time at Leicester this season?

CLAUDE: It’s the first time I’ve taken a team in the middle of the season. It was a team in difficulties [Leicester were 14th but one point off the bottom three]. The challenge was to try step by step to change but not a lot. You need results with a change at the same time. Their difficulty was the way Leicester played and won the Premier League with a fighting spirit with fantastic togetherness. But after that, other teams knew Leicester. They sat deep with a strong defensive block, no space, no possibility to play direct play. No space for Jamie [Vardy]. It was important step by step to keep the counter but to learn a little more possession and control of the game. And to try to play a more open play. It was important to have a different response against different teams. For example, we cannot play against Manchester City and say we will have the ball. We need to have a strong defensive unit, a good structure and a good counter-attack. [But] for me it was not long ball, not a battle. It was quality with the ball. One-touch, two-touch. Take space.

GLENN: It’s a big difference. You have a possession-based game. With Leicester now, possession is better and it’s a far better team. With another pre-season and you bed down it will grow even better.

CLAUDE: Some of the players only know one way of playing. For a lot of players it’s the first time they’ve started to play out from the back and to be available for their team-mates between the lines. A lot have improved, like Wes Morgan, Danny Simpson. And Harry Maguire. He is fantastic. Many of these are players who won the title. But to get them to accept this, we needed results. They had to keep the counter-attack but have a good alternative.

GLENN: Before Leicester were one-dimensional. Now you’re trying to play different ways and possession-based. Keep an eye on Leicester next season!

 

CLAUDE: Glenn was the same as a player and a trainer. For me, it’s different. I was not a technical player, I was a worker for him. But as a trainer I like quality and creative players. And for any position, I want a player who is comfortable on the ball. We work with the recruiters, the staff, the academy to give a direction to the club.

GLENN: That’s your experience at Monaco and working with young players. So you’re not scared. Some managers think they need more time.

CLAUDE: For me, it’s not a problem to give them game time. I know for some managers they cannot, because there is a lot of pressure in our job and the directors want results, results, results… [with] young players, sometimes it’s very good; sometimes it’s bad. But if we want to develop some players, it’s crucial to give them game time and take some risk for the future of the club. After Lyon, I managed Lille. At the time they had no stadium, no training ground, no team and the lowest budget [in the French league]. The first two seasons we played [just] to prevent relegation with young players from the academy. We finished 14th and 10th. 

And after that, no club wanted to play in the InterToto Cup. So we played in it and we took them like friendlies. I used academy players at the beginning. We won the InterToto, played European games until the last 16 of the Europa League and we finished second, in the Champions League positions. With the same team, we continued and I think it was 2004, we rotated between seven and nine players every game. And we finished second playing 64 games in the season. We played against Manchester United and [Sir Alex] Ferguson in 2005 in the Champions League and eliminated them [Lille beat Manchester United 1-0 at the Stade de France, as their own stadium didn’t meet Uefa regulations. They finished third in the group, United fourth]. He was angry! When we sold the players, in total, it was for 

€150million profit. We gave Eden Hazard his debut.

GLENN: That’s fantastic. No English coaches will have done what Claude has done or have that experience on their CV. It’s not a case of giving him money. He understands youth, building the team, doing something outside the box. And he’s been successful. He was successful at Southampton. He should never have been sacked at Southampton. Look at them now.

 

CLAUDE: When I was at Lyon [where his team reached the Champions League semi-finals in 2010] it was a team that needed to always finish in the top three but develop young players.

GLENN: When you look at Claude’s experience you know that Leicester or any club he’s going to manage is in really good hands. You can see the foundations being built.

CLAUDE: But I don’t know if in the Premier League we have enough patience about this. But my feeling is to keep this mentality to work for the club. And perhaps it is finished at the end of the season, or at the end of next season. But my work is to work for the club and continue to develop the players.

GLENN: But there’s a formula that Claude has and it creates good foundations. Southampton made a big mistake and didn’t give him time. And Leicester will make a mistake if they don’t give him time. It’s a question for the owners. Do they understand that he has the right formula? More important than what he’s done is how he’s done it. This is what you’re doing at Leicester. What you would have done at Southampton. Let’s hope they give you the time. They’d be fools not to. This squad for me plays better football than the one who won the league.

CLAUDE: At Southampton, we reached the League Cup final even though we were playing every three days. It was the first time the club had done that.

GLENN: And you deserved to win the League Cup final. But what you did at Southampton, you’re doing here, for the long term. At Southampton they cut you. They panicked. They didn’t realise what they had. But wherever he goes, he’ll do this job and given time, will have success. Not many English managers work like this.

CLAUDE: But I’m not naive. Owners and chairman are under pressure. It’s difficult to keep building and winning.

GLENN: And that’s what we miss out on in English football.

The interview ends and Puel embraces Hoddle as he compliments him. Hoddle returns the gesture warmly and then stops and fixes Puel with a steely stare. ‘You know really I ought to hit you,’ he says. ‘After all the kicks you gave me in training!’




 

 


 

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Dan LCFC

Dan LCFC

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Hoddle seems well up his arse lol but it's a good read and to be fair, past the abysmal commentary, I don't think Hoddle's got a bad football brain at all - although not having his comment at all about us being better now than when we won the league. That's the definition of footballing snobbery.

 

There are small things like this that make me think I'd like to see him given the chance to shape things his way, but we've got to be a lot more convincing on the pitch to buy that time, and we've been wank for a while.

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Stadt

Stadt

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I'm not a huge fan of Hoddle but he's essentially right in saying that Puel is a long term builder. We could become a QPR and sack manager after manager in the hope of short term success but it rarely works, even if Puel doesn't set the world alight he'll at least build a solid foundation which is what we need with a squad requiring an overhaul.

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Fox92

Fox92

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This is exactly what we need... Puel to build a team and given time to do it. He's inherited a squad that's used to hoofing and still trying to change our style even though we're still starting the likes of Morgan. It's tough.

 

He needs time. If we keep on sacking managers eventually we'll go down.

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FLAN

FLAN

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24 minutes ago, Fox92 said:

This is exactly what we need... Puel to build a team and given time to do it. He's inherited a squad that's used to hoofing and still trying to change our style even though we're still starting the likes of Morgan. It's tough.

 

He needs time. If we keep on sacking managers eventually we'll go down.

He’s making it tougher by starting Morgan. 

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pazzerfox

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Puel positives:

*  Blooding youngsters through (Chilwell, Choudary, Diabite).

*  Playing a more possession based game and look more comfortable on the ball.

 

I'm fed up of this player power (if the stories are to be believed). 

There comes a point where the directors need to say enough is enough and ship out players causing issues.

I honestly think if the owners back the manager 100% and allow him to bring in and ship out the players he requires, we could be a decent side.  Players throwing tantrums for not playing particular tactics need to be shipped out.  There is no sentiment in football anymore....Ask Drinkwater, Kante and soon to be Mahrez!

 

Messgae to the owners.  Back him 100% or get someone in who you will back 100% for a prolonged period!

 

Nigel didn't get results overnight, Pep didn't, Jose hasn't at Man u, Klopp hasn't at Liverpool.  TIME IS NEEDED.

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STEVIE B

STEVIE B

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56 minutes ago, Raj said:

I switch off whenever Puels on the media. He's a boring tw@t

He is speaking in a foreign language to be fair ( albeit poorly for a man in his position ). If l tried speaking French, l would hardly come across as Mr Exciting either. 

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Raj

Raj

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10 minutes ago, STEVIE B said:

He is speaking in a foreign language to be fair ( albeit poorly for a man in his position ). If l tried speaking French, l would hardly come across as Mr Exciting either. 

Rubbish arguement.

The like of Ranieri,ConteKlopp,Guardialo etc...all have English as a second language but you could listen to them for hours. The passion shines through. This bloke is just bland. When you see images of him telling Appleton things on the bench you can tell Appleton is just thinking about what he's having for dinner!!!

Edited by Raj
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STEVIE B

STEVIE B

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9 minutes ago, Raj said:

Rubbish arguement.

The like of Ranieri,ConteKlopp,Guardialo etc...all have English as a second language but you could listen to them for hours. The passion shines through. This bloke is just bland. When you see images of him telling Appleton things on the bench you can tell Appleton is just thinking about what he's having for dinner!!!

I understand your positive comments regarding Klopp & Guardiola. Conte just rants/jumps up & down (passion ?) is miserable during interviews, ( see yesterdays, when they won ), Claudio, lovely man as we all agree on, but hardly a man of passion, the season he was sacked, he looked and sounded clueless. We both have have different opinions Raj, that’s all :thumbup:

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volpeazzurro

volpeazzurro

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To back this man and give him a reasonable amount of time with his own signings is surely the only sensible thing to do. For those doubting he has a vision well it's here to see. It also tells us what he sees he's inherrited and i think his reading of it is spot on. To try and replicate what went before without the same players makes us relegation fodder. He's trying to do it however with some unsuitable players some of which are incapable or unwilling to change.

 

Until some of these players are dispensed with, whoever the manager is, the club will be unable to move forward. This season we have to put up with dull short term pain for long term gain I believe. If we're not patient and clamber manager after manager for quick fix entertainment then I honestly believe Championship football beckons.

Edited by volpeazzurro
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Matt

Matt

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25 minutes ago, peterborofox said:

Play better football than when we won the league according to Hoddle.

 

Maybe in our own half going backwards.

Well I get the impression Hoddle thinks there is nothing wrong with England and that they're exciting to watch.

 

That tells you everything.

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