Clarke was simply too tough an act to follow
WOW. They really went overboard with the mushy gratitude, didn’t they? Stop it now, lads, we’re welling up like it’s the final scenes of
The Champ here…
Sixty-eight words. That’s all Angelo Alessio was deemed worth in yesterday’s official statement confirming his dismissal. It works out at a smidgen over three words per game.
Sixty-eight sodding words. And five of those were ‘The Kilmarnock Football Club Limited …’ Still, what do you expect the Rugby Park board to say? That they got it completely wrong in appointing a man who had risen to a sort of hipster prominence as assistant to Antonio Conte at Chelsea, Juventus and the Italian national team?
That they should have sacked him after the debacle of losing to Welsh part-timers Connah’s Quay Nomads in the Europa League?
They would certainly find it hard to explain the specific timing of this decision — just kicking off the busiest spell of the season for any Scottish club — to those on the outside looking in.
Sitting fifth in the table, no mean feat after a miserable start, they’re nobody’s idea of relegation fodder. Not yet, anyway.
Yes, recent results — one win from eight against a real hodgepodge of competition — hardly inspired confidence.
But was the language barrier really that big of a problem? Can it be true that Alessio — a long-time assistant who acted as conduit between several different highly-strung dressing rooms and gaffer Conte — had no relationship with his players?
If that really was the case, well, those who made the decision to hire the Italian deserve a bit of time in the stocks over this Christmas period.
Because they really should have known better than to drop such an alien character, a man who had barely even seen a game of Scottish football, into our uniquely challenging little corner of Planet Football.
Yes, we get it. There is something exciting about making the flashy appointment.
And Alessio’s CV would, when viewed in the right light, contain enough big names to make many a chairman swoon.
Juventus. Chelsea. The Italian national team, for goodness’ sake. Stylish, charming, foreign… what’s not to love, right?
It’s such an easy mistake to make. Call it a side effect of the Scottish cringe, this assumption that outsiders will always know better than someone steeped in the domestic game.
Recalling a conversation with one coach who had moved north from a seemingly comparable footballing environment in the south, however, what really surprised the guy in question was the intensity of… well, everything associated with Scottish football.
Players who had performed at big, historically important and well-supported English clubs would pitch up at Hamilton, Livingston, Ross County or St Mirren, make an assumption based on the surroundings — and then be run off their feet by opponents so committed that you would think their lives depended on nicking a point.
You don’t get quiet days in the Scottish game. You aren’t allowed to simply turn up, play some decent stuff and walk off with a result.
Steve Clarke understood that right from the off. Ah, yes, Steve Clarke. Talk about a hard act to follow.
There has always been this feeling that, no matter how well Alessio did, there would be a group of Killie fans sitting with faces torn, just ready to blurt out: ‘You’re not my real dad!’ Plenty of those punters were ready to kick their new father figure right out of the family home after the utter humiliation of Connah’s Quay.
Maybe that result really was what did for Alessio. Perhaps, after that, it was only a matter of when, rather than if.
Timing is always an issue with these things. Just yesterday, Hearts owner Ann Budge admitted that she probably should have binned Craig Levein in May; hindsight offers plenty of opportunities to pick over mistakes of inaction and sins of omission.
As for what happens next, well, word is that Alex Dyer — a key backroom figure under both Alessio and Clarke, following the latter to the Scotland national team while retaining his club role — isn’t exactly desperate to push himself forward for the gig.
In the short term, though, the fact that he has been around the club for a comparatively long time should help him to put things right.
He inherits, after all, a team with the third-best defensive record in Scotland’s top flight, Killie’s goals-against column trailing only Celtic and Rangers. How terribly Italian.
Alessio? A nice enough bloke who tried his hardest, putting in a lot of hours, he leaves with the following heartfelt send-off via an anonymous statement: ‘Everyone at the club would like to thank Angelo for his efforts during his time with Kilmarnock and we wish him every success for the future.’
Oh Lord, we were holding it together there, as well. But that’s us away again, howling like we’ve just watched Toy Story 3,
Sophie’s Choice and the final talking-heads segment in Band of
Brothers on one entire afternoon of tear-jerking misery.