When using Barcelona as an example of my own personal aspiration of Ipswich Town FC, I am often derided as a loon, or as mad as a bag of frogs. I find these descriptions of me quite endearing actually, they do make me laugh and maybe I am slightly deluded in my views.

I do understand the hesitation “Yes, that’s all well and good but we aren’t Barcelona, we don’t have their money, infrastructure and fanbase" are often arguments that are held against me and that’s correct but we have challenged before, and I don’t mean throughout the 70s when, yes, football was a different game. We have to, as a club and as fans aim as high as we dare otherwise we may as well pack up and spend our Saturday’s in Tesco – God forbid.

So back to my case in point, when Barcelona won the Spanish league title in 1974 it was their first victory since 1960, we have seen similar resurgences in England with both Manchester clubs and I’m sure that most Liverpool fans are waiting for their time again.

An event though is required to spark this change in fortunes, for Manchester United it was the approach brought about through the manager and eventually exceptional talent through the youth system, for Manchester City it was the arrival of bucket loads of cash. For Barcelona it was the arrival in 1972 of one Laureano Ruiz.

At the time, Barcelona had an approach to player recruitment completely alien from what we see today. The mentality at the club focused on big strong players who would have survived extremely well in the modern Premier League! In fact, a sign on the wall at the club read “turn around if you are here to offer a youth player that is shorter than 1.80m”.

Ruiz took the sign down and started to develop the players control, technique and intelligence, a practice which has flowed through to the talent we see on the pitch today. Johan Cruyff redefined this in the late 80s, placing a greater emphasis on the Ajax approach to player selection and development (Technique Insight Personality Speed or TIPS) yet allowing it to work alongside the practices developed by Ruiz.

In addition to this he was the first manager of Barcelona to link the first team to the reserve and youth squads to ensure that all levels within the club played the same style and the same ‘way’.

The fact that these, and other coaches within the system constantly strive to improve is what I find most impressive, a statement Ruiz made during a conversation with a coach at Barcelona is quite telling: “Let us say that you and I coach two teams with kids that are 10, 11 and 12 years old and all are equally as good.

"You try and teach them to play good football, a passing game and with tactical basics, whilst I tell mine to only play long balls and try to shoot. I can assure you that at first I will always win against you, by using your mistakes. Break a bad pass and goal.

"If we however continue with the same training methods during a three-year period, you will most likely win every game against us. Your players will have learned how to play while mine haven’t. That’s how easy it is.”

Now, I am not naive enough to believe that any team is unbeatable but there is merit in what he is saying here, to summarise he is stating that “To beat us you need to capitalise on our mistakes, through training and development we make very few”. Chelsea’s Champions League victory over Barcelona encapsulates this very well.

The emphasis has and always will be on technical capability, by turning football development on its head young players were taught the finer techniques of football long before physical development took hold (at age 16/17 in Barcelona). The implementation of the 3-4-3 system on the pitch, thus allowing easier triangles to be worked giving players many more options for passing and closing down the opposition was also vitally important in providing them the tools to complete the job.

With intelligent players who can move from 3-4-3 to 4-3-3, depending what they see in front of them, the dynamics of football changed completely – in recent years we have seen Spanish teams operate with neither a recognised centre forward nor even recognised centre-backs, mind-blowing in England but it can work.

I’m not proposing that we should be looking at playing Carlos Edwards alongside DJ Campbell as our centre backs, what I am stating is that we don’t have to adhere to what we perceive to be the norm, we can strive to be different and better than the rest.

At the moment we find ourselves at a ‘tipping point’ (Mr Clegg’s words), our manager has left and we have a squad of pretty decent individuals and a training facility most clubs would be envious of.

So when asked who I want as the next Ipswich manager, I find this both easy and difficult in equal measure. I don’t want Laureano Ruiz, I want ‘a’ Laureano Ruiz, a catalyst who will kick start the club to reach heights we could only ever dream of.

(If you want to know more about the development of the Barcelona 'way' you might want to try Senda de Campeones-de La Masia al Camp Nou by Marti Perarnau)

naa added 16:02 - Oct 25 I like this idea, and I suspct that Burley actually employed a lesser version of it with Klug's youth setup. Sadly, it all went to pot the moment we started panicing as a club (ironically, it is in times of financial strife that this system should be able to help even more, as youth can flow into the team more easily). Let's hope we really do go for the long term approach now that Marcus Evans has hopefully realised that money and manager with past success definitely does not equal glory. Let's hope he's stopped going for the fast buck and quick promotion with no view ot the long term.

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hogster1970 added 16:29 - Oct 25 for long term rebuilding you hit the nail on the head, get your youths and reserves to play the same way and sytem as the first team, so jumping in to fill a gap or for player devolopment wont be a problem, how ever after we won the reserve leaque them few years ago and the prem kicked us out and other teams the reserves has gone to pot, with no game stecture at all, so fringe players aint getting minutes on the pitch or up and coming players aint mixing it with the big boys who may coming back from injuary ect, the manager we want and need has to rebuild even the core of the team, when the great george came here we still had a core of a team he just went for the big fish in the little pond type player, eg holland, stewart, johnson just to name a few, also used as much youth as possible, there we have a good back bone of a team then its just a matter of drip feeding with the odd great player, how ever over the years all we and other clubs do is use the loan system to try and build a team, this is no good unless its a view to buy loan then its a good idea, but its all about getting the team to play a good style of football but also be deadly with it, this you need some players with vision and flair for a killer pass or to use some personal skill, alot of modern players dont have this attruibute im afraid, in spain all kids as stated above just get taught ball skils and game skills, as they can run around all day on a mars bar, and only when they are around 16 do they devolop there fitness, as i say you can make any one match fit, but not every player has that extra bit of skill as it needs devoloping, this is were we have gone wrong, you look at all them loanees, apart from higginbottom and DJ is any of them any better than what we have, thats a big fat NO, dont forget again it was buy pure chance that leadboots got injured and he brought in hyam dury martin triangle and with jet and murphy on the wings that we saved our season last year, it was buy pure grit and determination that then center 3 saved us that year, closing down play , intercepting the ball creat space and set up some good goals, this is what we miss, players just not closing down play, playing possesion football but with no cut and thrust to it, this also comes to the keeper on realesing the ball quickly for a counter instead of hooving the ball, for me ditch most loanees, bring back carson and hyam into the fold, and lets build for the future, but all depends who we get in charge f that will happen, for me number target has to be robinson, then davis then curbs or burley, but wouldnt mind tarrico either,

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britrim added 16:36 - Oct 25 Brilliant philosophy of the game and ideal for the long-term situation at Itfc. Get that continental coach in now from Dortmund, Ajax or the like to observe 1st team while working with u-21's til end of season, being primed to takeover reins in summer. Interim appoint a Harry Redknapp, Mick Mills etc to try to get out of this 'hole' who can then move to director of football to advise SC who can then solely concentrate on administration and commercial aspects.

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Edmunds5 added 16:46 - Oct 25 Good interesting blog The 4-3-3 is certainly becoming a bit of a trend due to Spain and Barcelona's success and we have seen this deployed in the Premier League with decent effect at Swansea. your right as Barca seem to play Alex Song at centre half and have persisted with Mascherano there for many years because him and Pique can start attacks, They rely heavily on the midfield keeping the ball and the formation plays to there strengths. In our case its obviously difficult and has to be really structured with good coaches who know what they are doing. We haven't really had a footballing centre half for ages and I would welcome a player who can disribute the ball well, Higginbotham and Chambers are very bad at this in my opinion. Likewise we need midfielders who want to dictate play and from I have seen this season Luongo is the only player who has shown signs of this but hasn't really been used. I think the biggest thing is players know there roles and we have to really believe in what we want to do and not just change if we lose because patience is key for this. I think someone like Ian Holloway or Karl Robinson may be able to give us this kind of flexibility because they encourage passing football and can get our attacking players in the right areas, such as Martin and JET who I think are players you have to be clever with or they will always be on the fringes of the game. Great ideas, all positive stuff

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whymark4lazio0 added 17:08 - Oct 25 Good Blog! But I'm also a loon so I'm not sure my opinion counts. I agree with others that Karl Robinson fits the bill, read this: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2012/sep/24/mk-dons-karl-robinson-sunder He seems to pride himself on developing passing teams and young players.
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blueblood_soldier added 18:19 - Oct 25 Great Blog... i was all for young, passing manager.... ie Tarrico (as i think hes a fighter who coaches a passing team) or the up and coming robinson. BUT after listening to Burley this morning he sounded so passionate about the club still and i found that really quite refreshing!! so head says youth, But heart says Burley!! maybe ill settle for Tarrico in Charge with Burley as director of football???

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blueblood_soldier added 18:38 - Oct 25 whymark... just read the link... sounds like he has his head in the right place and a good philosophy!! also sounds pretty dedicated to MK though??
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StochesStotasBlewe added 20:53 - Oct 25 Poyet/Tarrico managing. Muhren/Kluivert coaching. Total football. Perfect.
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uefachamps added 07:06 - Oct 28 we need experience,serge markarian would be my pick.
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Elizabeth added 21:24 - Oct 29 The bottom line is we need a management team that can relate to players and coach them accordingly . This must be one of the hardest aspects of the job !! Discipline plays a big part but so does nurturing individuals to believe in their ability. Just look at all the successful managers of past and present !! Hopefully tomorrow we will know who is at the helm !!
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