No offence, but RH is not one who should be jumping in on someone for negative, take-no-chances coaching
why not?, yes he was a defensive coach, but got NZ to the World Cup and survived unbeaten, got the Phoenix to the finals a couple of times - shows you can go out with a defensive mind set and still achieve results - Heraf could learn something from him.
Yes agree, Herbert achieved some remarkable results from limited teams.
But RH needs reminding when trumpeting his CV, that he only had to beat Bahrain over 2 legs to make that $20M or whatever for NZ Football.
The easiest World Cup qualifying path for any AWs coach (foreign or NZ bred) has had since............................ever.
The Hudson coached full strength AWs from last year, would have beaten the Bahrainis also. The Socceroos who finished 5th in Asia, probably not.
In fact don't see great difference between how either coach set up the AWs for their various WC playoffs (2009 vs 2017). Herbert just had a far far easier opponent, but maybe a slightly less talented side (debatable).
There's no doubt that Herbert had a less talented side in 2009 (Reid and Smith didn't come into the fold until after the play-off). He did have a more cohesive unit, with a number of players from the squad and in the playing XI being under Herbert at the Phoenix too, and a great leader in Nelsen. But there is also absolutely no guarantee that a Hudson side would have got past Bahrain. We tend to forget just how touch and go that tie really was - we very extremely lucky to come back with a 0-0 from the first leg, and then there was also the missed/saved penalty in Wellington. There's absolutely no guarantee that a Hudson-coached team would have got past a Bahrain-type side, firstly because it was by no means an easy task at the time, and secondly because at no point in Hudson's tenure did the performances indicate that getting past that level of opposition would be a given.