Jobs for the boys? Just look at the usual suspects
NO other industry appears to reward failure more than football’s managerial merrygo-round.
Last summer, you would have got long odds on Paul Lambert, Alan Pardew, Carlos Carvalhal, David Moyes, Roy Hodgson and Sam Allardyce all being managers in the Premier League by January.
Good luck to all of them, but when people talk about jobs for the boys in football, they need look no further than the usual cast of suspects.
Lambert takes charge of Stoke for the first time this weekend. I don’t know the fellow, and I wish him all the best, but when the fans were calling for Mark Hughes’ head in the Potteries, is this what they wanted?
I understand why Stoke called time on Hughes, but why didn’t they have somebody lined up before they pulled the plug?
Gary Rowett, Quique Sanchez Flores and Martin O’Neill were all on Stoke’s radar before Lambert became, by all accounts, their fourth-choice appointment.
If he rekindles the success he enjoyed at Norwich, where he won back-to-back promotions, Lambert will be an inspired choice. And, in fairness, he at least kept Aston Villa up. But he did not pull up any trees in his last three jobs at Villa, Blackburn and Wolves. He was not an obvious candidate.
Swansea have got rid of Paul Clement, who kept them up last season, and turned to Carvalhal, who failed to get Sheffield Wednesday out of the Championship. Again, I didn’t hear fans at the Liberty clamouring for him.
Not many people leave a job where they have fallen short and land another one higher up the ladder. Nice work if you can get it.
Pardew is an experienced manager, but he has landed on his feet at West Brom, after presiding over a shocking year of results at Crystal Palace.
Although he reached the FA Cup final, Pardew won only six Premier League games in the calendar year 2016. The obvious choice to take over from Tony Pulis at The Hawthorns? Not in my book.
David Moyes has steadied the ship to some extent at West Ham, and I’m pleased for him because his career had taken a lot of knocks since being named Sir Alex Ferguson’s successor at Manchester United.
But Sunderland went down like a lead balloon under Moyes last season. He was not the indisputable choice to take over from Slaven Bilic.
Roy Hodgson has done a brilliant job to turn Palace’s season around after they started with no points and no goals from their first seven games.
At 70, he has brought all his experience and knowledge to bear, and I am genuinely happy for him because he is a very nice man. But his England reign was a disaster.
To come back from that nightmare shows commendable desire on his part, but was he lucky to land a shot at redemption in the Premier League? Yes, I would say he was. Even Sam Allardyce, who has never failed as a firefighter when clubs hired him to avoid the drop, might count himself fortunate to be back in the mainstream because we thought he had retired six months ago.
At least you can understand why Everton went for Big Sam. He has a fair track record and I also felt he was harshly treated by England.
But there is a common thread here: what chance do up-and-coming bosses have, when the usual cast of suspects are often rewarded for failure?
I can’t think of another multi-million pound business which is so ready to recycle people whose track records are of recent failure.
And when are we going to see the likes of Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard and Paul Scholes given a chance to manage?
Great players don’t always make great managers, but I hope a golden generation of fantastic players’ knowledge is not going to be lost when they surely have something to offer as coaches.
It makes me want to scream when people turn round and say they have no experience in the dugout. Well, give them an opportunity and let’s find out!
And what kind of message does it send out to the likes of Sheffield United’s Chris Wilder, Lee Johnson at Bristol City, Kevin Nolan at Notts County and Nathan Jones at Luton, when it’s the same people who land on their feet time and time again?
You never see these guys linked with plum jobs in the Premier League.
I can understand clubs in the top flight going for familiar faces but, in too many cases, promising coaches are finding their route to the top blocked by tried and trusted acts.
Tried, trusted – and failed.