Shame on the journeymen players who get managers fired
the circumstances, Puel’s performance this season has been highly creditable, despite accruing 17 fewer points than last year.
Yet that drop is a common story midtable, because the elite have become stronger. Arsenal are the first club with 75 points not to make it into the Champions League. The top four — Chelsea, Tottenham, Manchester City and Liverpool — have improved on their points totals last season by 87. This leap has to impact somewhere.
Southampton keep selling their best players, so why shouldn’t it hit them? Given the club’s policy where, seriously, do the owners think they should be? Eighth and a final is a decent effort.
Somehow, it is still not enough. And if players can do for Ranieri less than a year after winning the most incredible title in the history of the English game, what chance Moyes or Mazzarri or Puel? The players think they could do better, the owners think they could do better and, together, they always get their way.
Yet those five Manchester City goals, not to mention the six Tottenham scored at Leicester, or even Stoke’s lone winner at Southampton, suggest not every failure is the work of one man.
Ahead of his time, Eddie Baily.
Bill NicholsoN, Tottenham’s Doublewinning manager, had an irascible assistant, Eddie Baily. he had been a fine inside forward, good enough to play nine times for England and score five goals.
Baily was also what could, even then, be termed old-school. Nothing much impressed him. in later life he became a scout and a familiar presence on the london football scene.
The late Ray harford used to do the most marvellous impression. ‘seen any players, Ed?’ he’d say. And then screwing up his face in the manner of Alf Garnett, would slowly turn his head and transform into a scowling Baily for the reply. ‘Players?’ he’d sneer. ‘F****** players? They get you the f****** sack.’ And he wasn’t wrong, by the way. certainly this new lot. Take sunday. having given the dressing room exactly what it demanded, Watford’s owners settled down to see what the team could really do, free of the miserable influence of Walter Mazzarri.
it was Mazzarri, having previously made Napoli the second best team in italy, and led them to their highest league finish and first trophy since the days of Diego Maradona, who had dragged mighty Watford down, apparently. he was arrogant. he was relentlessly demanding. he made the players train — get this — 12 days in succession.
With Mazzarri gone — he was technically in charge of the team, but had already been told this was his last game — Watford could at last perform unfettered.
No doubt there was surprise in the boardroom, then, to be 5-0 down after 58 minutes. Yes, the opponents were Manchester city, but even so. Watford were at home, the team had been released from Mazzarri’s shackles, as requested. here was the chance for the players to shine without his overbearing control.
instead, they recorded the club’s heaviest home defeat since the 7-1 victory of swindon in Third Division (south), september 6, 1951. Maybe, just maybe, the board backed the wrong horse.
MEANWhilE, on the south coast, southampton’s owners were getting exactly what they deserved from their final fixture of the season: a home defeat by stoke. The steady drip, drip of negativity against coach claude Puel served its purpose and a stoke team who looked as if they had knocked off a month earlier, instead recorded only their second win since March 4.
Puel was booed by fans as he joined his players at the end of the game, despite finishing eighth and reaching southampton’s first major final since 2003. he is judged to be on his way out, too, again with the suggestion the players are unhappy with his methods, and the set-up of the team. it is said Puel has his favourites, which is true of all managers. The ones who play: they’re the favourites. The ones who don’t: they’re the ones moaning about favourites.
And David Moyes has gone, too, with news of the turmoil surrounding his ill-fated year at sunderland slowly emerging. Moyes failed to connect with the players, too, after cancelling their christmas party. Well, what a rotter. Not since claudio Ranieri had the temerity to change the menu at leicester has there been such an outrageous abuse of power.
Moyes no doubt imagined that as sunderland had won three games in 14 by December 3, fancy dress and party hats might not be the right look on Wearside. Perhaps he had a point. As sunderland fans stomped early towards the exits, few were heard suggesting that the lads probably just needed a good night out. Yet there it was. By the time sunderland reached the final game of the season, rumours circulated of players refusing to play.
At least when leicester’s owners cowed to the noises off and sacked Ranieri, they could factor an impressive body of work into the conversation. The players had won leicester’s only league title, after all. They had progressed to the knockout stage of the champions league. They did deserve to be heard, if not so slavishly heeded. Yet Watford, sunderland, even southampton? What have these journeymen done to merit consultation? The majority are merely passing through and few have known success in the English game. certainly not many have track records to match their coaches. Who made them the authority on what works?
By the time Mazzarri’s team beat Manchester United on september 18, Watford’s sixth match of the season including a league cup tie, he had already used 27 players with 21 nationalities. Yet among the criticisms levelled at him is that he has made Watford anonymous and did not forge a connection with the supporters.
So whose fault is that? Mazzarri is Watford’s eighth manager since the Pozzo family took over in 2012. As of February 1, he had a 24-man squad that included four French players, three English players and 17 other individual nationalities.
how was he meant to juggle that at team talks, or have the bond sean Dyche enjoys with the locals at Burnley? And Watford dumped Dyche, remember — he was the first casualty of the Pozzo regime, despite leading the club to their best finish in four years.
it was Ed Miliband who coined the phrase ‘squeezed middle’ when talking to John humphrys in 2011, but it is a term that certainly applies to those coaches beyond the Premier league’s elite seven. What was Mazzarri meant to achieve at Watford — or Puel at southampton, for that matter?
in 2015-16, southampton finished sixth, then lost their manager Ronald Koeman, and three of their best players — Victor Wanyama, sadio Mane and Graziano Pelle. Mane has been among liverpool’s leading performers when fit, so too Wanyama at Tottenham, while Pelle’s club shandong luneng will go third in china if they win a game in hand. in