Mark Taylor

I think Rotherham have shit the bed by sacking Matt Taylor. It's a big mistake in the grand scheme, unless they have someone special lined up as his successor. I get that recent results and performances haven't been up to scratch. And I get that the manner of some defeats this season have been particularly bad. But injuries have crippled them. And there's a much bigger picture that Tony Stewart isn't seeing. Rotherham aren't like any other club in the Championship, and they shouldn't play by the same rules. There are certain trends in the modern game that they should detach themselves from if they want to survive at this level. They have to be different. If they just go about their business in more or less the same way that everyone else does, their budget dictates they will finish bottom of the table nearly every time. And probably the single biggest imbalance in the game right now relates to process and outcome perspectives. Everybody has to have a process, which is fine - but that doesn't mean everyone should be judged on process above all else. And today, process mainly means one thing: your playing style or philosophy. That's what gets scrutinised when things aren't going well. People want to look on the pitch and see an identity. It's reached the point where many outcome-focused managers (from a personality standpoint) pretend to be process-driven. They put on a mask through fear of being judged as dinosaurs if they don't play the game everyone wants them to play. But Rotherham cannot afford to develop a coherent playing identity at the expense of other advantages. Otherwise, what do you think will happen when everyone figures it out? Yes, process is important. But process can mean many things. A quality process can be your match preparation, training ground routines or other logistics. Either way, the process you work to must suit you and your circumstances as a club. Unless you're near the top of the food chain, you have to be pragmatic on some level. I believe Taylor understands this better than almost anyone else the Millers could attract as his replacement. Taylor is unique. He is unapologetically outcome-driven. And I really respect him for it. So far, he has managed to stay under the radar with this contrarian outlook, avoiding any unwanted labels. But that's down to his results, which have improved year on year in 4 out of 5 seasons. And he always out-performs his budget in terms of league position. He's doing it again right now. Relative to other managers, Taylor doesn't care much for what goes on in the middle third of the pitch. Teams rarely score from the halfway line, so that zone all boils down to what he calls 'field position'. Shape, basically. Instead, players are judged by what happens in both penalty boxes, to the point that it becomes ingrained in their behaviours. They know they will be forgiven more readily for mistakes in the middle third, so they don't sweat those so much. But when the ball approaches those danger zones, they switch on. They come alive. They bring the best version of themselves in those moments as they know Taylor will come down hard on them if they don't. Taylor develops a culture that's driven on cost-benefit analysis. Not all moments in matches are created equal. You develop an instinct for knowing when a particular action really matters. This perhaps explains why Rotherham achieve so many results against the xG. Last season, they accrued 22 points in matches when racking up less than a whole goal of attacking xG. This season, they've added another 6. Don't get me wrong. xG matters, of course it does. Survival requires a bit more than just smash and grabs. You have to create chances to score goals. And you have to reduce them at the other end to keep clean sheets. But the sanctuary of that metric matters much more to process-driven teams than outcome-driven. Like it or not, having an inferior xG most weeks is just a sad reality of being Rotherham United in the Championship. The main thing is that you stay in games for long enough to profit on any scraps that might drop your way. And to stay in games you need fresh legs, options and rotation. Which Taylor hasn't had. Rotherham are currently 4 points adrift of safety with 30 games to play. People look at the league table, then look at the performance data (which is even worse) and jump to the conclusion that this is heading nowhere good. But the performance data was awful last season, yet Taylor kept them up. They entered January having picked up just 6 points from the previous 12 matches, made some astute signings in the window, and finished the campaign with a respectable 5-8-7 record. A repeat of that might not be enough to keep them up this time around. But even if they do return to League One - as they ought to - Rotherham would then be ready to rock and roll with one of the best managers in the division. And you'd have thought Stewart appreciates the value of that continuity more than most, having trusted Paul Warne to bring them up back 3 times. Yet relegation under Taylor isn't the forgone conclusion it always seemed under Warne. Mentally and emotionally, his teams are more robust. The injury situation is extremely relevant. It's not so much about the quality of the players who will eventually return to action, but the many alternatives they provide. It's back to that point about being different. Unpredictable. You can't spring too many tactical surprises on opponents when they can guess in advance what your starting 11 is likely to be. Which then, in turn, makes it rather obvious what your formation is likely to be. That capacity to spring a tactical surprise is a big deal for outcome-driven managers when in charge low-budget teams. Yet Taylor hasn't had the luxury of those options. Instead, someone else - who might value quality or continuity over variety - gets the benefit of any variety to come. When assessing managers, I tend to look beyond results and judge them by their words and actions, as they align with what I know of their personality type. You know a manager's in trouble when they show signs of stress and stop being congruent with their saviour functions and start talking with their demons. Taylor's a straight-talker. He's not afraid to deliver uncomfortable truths. If his team aren't at the level required, he'll tell you. And he's said that a lot this season. Without beating his players up or throwing them under the bus. But is he panicking? Not in the slightest. Has he sounded like a manager scraping the barrel in his post-match summaries? Absolutely not. No hiding. Just uncomfortable truths, delivered with rational caveats about what's required to solve those problems going forward. It's a long season. Taylor just accepts the current situation for what it is, while evidently backing himself (by virtue of his calm state) to find the right answers in due course. He hasn't failed in this job. Not by any stretch. And Rotherham's loss will be someone else's gain.