The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Changes on the horizon
IT WASN’T that long ago there was a lockdown on the managers’ jobs at England’s top four clubs. Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger were immovable. In Chelsea terms, Jose Mourinho’s three-and-a-bit years at Stamford Bridge was a lifetime, while the other established major power, Liverpool, had Rafa Benitez in charge for double that time. It’s a bit different these days. The big four has a new member, with Manchester City replacing Liverpool. There’s a possibility that within six months all will have changed their manager, and a probability that it will happen within 18.
Only a second Premier League title is likely to keep Roberto Mancini in his job beyond the summer, such is the size of the hole he’s dug through failure in back-to-back Champions League campaigns. And I can’t see him getting it.
Wenger has become part of the problem at Arsenal rather than the solution. Once he was renowned for identifying and developing young talent like Patrick Vieira, or re-energising misused established pros such as Thierry Henry. Now footballers under his charge are regressing rather than progressing, and so are the club.
He’ll probably hold out until the end of the season — though that’s not a given — before taking his leave.
If Benitez overcomes the hostility of his own support to become more than a stop-gap at Chelsea it will mean he’s won the league. Footballing miracles don’t happen for one club two years in a row, so we can assume that the Spaniard will join the long list of managerial Abramovich exes.
Ferguson could be the only man stopping it from being a full house in June, by hanging on for one more season, which is his stated intention.
A third Champions League success would surely hasten his exit though, as might a 13th Premier League.
Casting forward, there’s one man who links all these clubs — Pep Guardiola.
In what must be some sort of record, the Spaniard on sabbatical is the bookmakers’ favourite to be the next manager of each and every one of them.
It would be an interesting job share but, as talented and in demand as he is, he’ll have to settle for one. I hope he ends up at the Emirates. It’s his kind of project. At none of the other three would he get the blank canvas that Arsenal would provide to mould a Barcelona-on-the-Thames.
There’s a money mountain being built there and you’d trust him to spend it wisely. He’d be the Wenger of a decade ago.
City and Mourinho are a perfect fit. The fans there don’t demand a certain style of football or cultivation of homegrown youngsters like they do at Old Trafford. Beating United to silverware will suffice, and the squad already assembled could have been handpicked for a Mourinho team.
They’re the Noisy Neighbours and nobody’s more noisy than the Special One.
What to do with United after Fergie? The toughest gig of the lot.
David Moyes? Too pragmatic. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer? Too nice and too Norwegian.
I would seriously consider Gary Neville. Not since Andy Gray started moving about blue and red counters on a glorified Subbuteo table in the early days of Sky Sports has an ex-pro had as big an impact on the game with his analysis.
The way Neville picks apart the weekend matches on a Monday night tells you everything about his depth of knowledge on modern day football.
And his England coaching role will give him vital tracksuit experience at the top level.
Gray was offered the job of his dreams in 1997 to become manager of Everton but got cold feet, and eventually turned it down. I’m sure Neville wouldn’t do the same.
And Chelsea? Maybe Abramovich should just do a Ron Noades — the chairman who appointed himself as manager at Brentford.
He eventually sacked himself, but at least it saved on the pay off.