goodfootballerornot

So Keggers has gone, again, and Toon are a shambling wreck of a club unlikely to attract top managerial talent. I mean really, look at them.   8 managers over the past 11 years, not to mention the timings of some of the sackings, a football director or two in London, madness.  This time for Keggers the issue seems to be a similar one with many managers and clubs now, who has control of bringing in or selling players?  Lets face it some managers have wasted millions on some right dross, Newcastle being a prime example of having a string of managers who filled the club with players best left on the dole.  Mike Ashely, who it transpires brought the club before waiting for a due diligence report (that’s checking the books to you), found himself unexpectedly several more million quid out of pocket.  That he wants to keep an eye on the cash and perhaps not make the mistake of previous owners and keep the managers purchasing of the crippled and the talentless in check is understandable, but why Dennis Wise?  In London?  He was a marginal manager at best and as yet seems to have done nothing in terms of bringing in some talent to Newcastle.  That the choice came to Keegan or Wise and Keegan lost is surprising to say the least.  Curbishley also went this week citing similar circumstance, players being sold when he wanted to keep them etc. while the club have said quite the opposite that he was told in all circumstances, but the complaint is the same.  Benetez also appears to have had problems with getting players he wants, and he doesn’t have to deal with dross being brought in by a sporting director, he can buy his own dross, if the owner lets him.

Worse for these owners who are seeking to protect their cash and reign in bad managerial purchases is that the game is full of sporting directors who aren’t really up to the job.  Comolli at Spurs appears to be a bit of a comedian, 16 million for Darren Bent?  Come on!  There also appears to be questions asked of his failure to sign another striker before the transfer deadline and the list of attempted signings is farcical.  There are others but the point is that many are just not doing any better than the managers.

Whatever the situations managers & clubs appear to need a reality check.  Theres too much money at stake to allow most managers free reign on who they buy and for how much.  Players often want to move and there’s naff all that can be done about it.  Players who look a good prospect turn out to be a bit shit, no matter why buys them and worse a class player is brought but has left his magic boots at his old club.  It happens, a lot.

Worryingly for English managers, what are the odds that an English manager will be offered either job?  Blackburn took the bold and pretty much unprecedented step of appointing Paul Ince, a manger who did at least have a good record at a lower level.  If English football is lucky maybe another young English manager will be given a chance and maybe one day the England team will be managed by and Englishman, or will we have our clubs and country managed (badly) by italians?  Im looking at you here West Ham, the only managers linked with your club appear to be Italians?  Why?  While there is no doubting the credentials of some of the Italian talent saying they are interested in coming here, why not look to the Championship, there are some talented English managers who, if given the chance, could well prove themselves.  Is there really such a risk?  Same for Newcastle, who are you going to appoint?  Dont drag out the still twitching corpse of failure that are the unemployed ex preimiere league managers, pick someone who hasnt had a chance at the top level.   The clubs already have Sporting Directors to stop them making expensive mistakes and the coaching staff is in  place, unless the new guy comes in and really changes everything the team at least should be able to continue on wards without a dramatic drop in performance even if they are a bad choice.  Hell Avram Grant got Chelsea to a Champions League final and he apparently didnt do anything at all! Neither are top 4 anyway and now Man City appear to have limitless fund they are unlikely to be able to be top 4 without the sort of money the owners dont seem to have.  Realistically they can only be expecting mid table mediocraty now and maybe a fight for a UEFA cup spot which has just got one place harder to get.   So whats stopping you?  Newcastles last choices of Reoder and Allardyce were sound in this way at least, trying to give a fairly proven manager a chance at a bigger place.  Ok so they failed, but there are no certainties in life and both Newcsatle and West Ham hardly have the worst squads in the league or anything to loose right now.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 5th, 2008 at 9:23 am and is filed under Opinion, Premier League. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.