Curtins for John?

Just askin' the question

Photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash

Forgive the title. I’m a sucker for a pun.

This week’s news that Jim Curtin had been fired by the Philly Union got me thinking about John Herdman.

Truthfully, John Herdman takes up an uncomfortable amount of my thoughts in any given week — rent free, as the kids say — but the sudden availability of one of the most respected coaches in MLS has got me considering his performance as TFC’s coach even more than I usually do.

Thing is, I can’t say that my opinion on Herdman’s performance changed much in the last week (of course my opinion of his performance changes from hour to hour on most days). I just don’t quite know what to think about the 2024 Reds yet, or what role the coach had in what was ultimately another lost season.

I do know that I felt some lament that Toronto wouldn’t be among the places that Curtin will be linked to in the days ahead. To be clear, that’s because Herdman isn’t going anywhere. Speculating whether Curtin would do a better job is ultimately pointless.

The fact that I felt that lament, however, tells me that deep down I have yet to be convinced by Herdman. Part of me can’t shake the feeling that he was hired by Bill Manning in an attempt to distract fans and MLSE from the disastrous signings he made (and that ultimately caused him to lose his job as president of the football club(s)), rather than because he genuinely felt he was the man to lead TFC back to glory.

I’m just not sure, which is part of the reason I’ve been delaying this post for a while. I can’t deny that he’s done some really impressive things as a manager. The CanWNT was a trainwreck when he took over and the men, well…1986.

Even TFC last year showed more than we thought possible. Until they didn’t and they crashed down the table with a record over the last 2/3 of the season that was just as bad as 2023.

What I (and others) have always said about Herdman is that he’s a fixer. He’s able to go into a situation where things have gone wrong and turn it around. He does that by targeting the culture and creating a core group of players that he trusts to lead the turnaround. It works, but there’s a shelf life.

With national teams, where there are stretches where you aren’t dealing with the players on a daily basis, the good vibes could last for years before the cracks start to show. Herdman has managed to jump ship twice before just as those cracks started to show, so we don’t really know if he has what it takes to run a team for a long period.

With TFC in 2024, saw the Herdman trendline accelerated. We got the initial boost, but his magic also seemed to wear off quickly. The working theory is that his act wears thin when it’s every day. There’s evidence to back this up. By year’s end, the Italians (well, one Italian, anyway) were sulking and the rest of the team was just kind of sucking.

This time. there’s no place for him to jump so it’s up to him to prove that he’s more than a fixer and, instead, is a man who can lead a team to become great.

The question for TFC is how long do you give him. Realistically, when you hired him last year you have to give him this off-season. They had so little control over the roster in 2024, that it’s not entirely fair to hang everything on him. You need to give him a chance to succeed or fail on his own merits.

That’s now. He has roster control. So it’s time to start holding him fully accountable to the results. That accountability starts as soon as the Reds return to the field next February.

I don’t think the leash is as long as some people think it is, either. In fact, if the Reds continue to struggle in the first half of 2025, you need to start thinking about whether he is the real deal or if he’s just a guy who can fix national teams.

If it’s the latter, he can probably make a nice career out of it. Just not in Canada anymore.

There’s a theory (put forth by the book Soccernomics) that if a manager isn’t successful after 10 games there is little chance that he ever will be. That might seem harsh, but the numbers back it up. As stated, I’m willing to give Herdman a pass on 2024, but after the first 10 games of 2025…?

…Let’s revisit the question of whether he’s the right person to lead TFC on about May 1…