Darragh desperate for great player to become great manager

Sacking Grant McCann has hurt Darragh MacAnthony.

The chairman’s emotional Facebook posting the day after he despatched a club playing legend and personal friend made that clear.

Like the rest of us he desperately wanted a player who had graced the ABAX Stadium turf and scored some vital Posh goals to succeed as a manager.

That’s why he was given longer than Graham Westley, Dave Robertson, Jim Gannon and Mark Cooper - all previous MacAnthony appointments - to put together to at least threaten a return to the Championship.

But MacAnthony finally saw what others had been seeing for a while. Mistakes were being repeated, while the football, particularly at home, was stale, negative and, most damningly, often very boring.

The chairman was publicly backing McCann 10 days ago after his side had played okay in securing a draw at Blackpool, but he was also throwing in some tweets that hinted at unhappiness at what he appeared to be getting for a £1.4 million outlay.

Those tweets gathered pace either side of Saturday’s dismal display at home to Wimbledon.

Before the game MacAnthony said: “Any manager I hire has to have aggressive passion running through his bones, show it on touchline and fire it into his team. Almost frighten them into winning,” which was more of a description of then Mansfield manager Steve Evans than it was of McCann, a man who often watched a game armsfolded seemingly without emotion.

MacAnthony then fired a big warning shot across the bows of the Posh management by offering detail on his £1.4 million outlay, and promoting the fact he had not dragged any money back by selling star men Marcus Maddison and Jack Marriott, both of whom attracted attention in the last transfer window.

Perhaps significantly the

three January arrivals, presumably all wanted by McCann, George Cooper (£350k), Joe Ward (£100k) and on-loan Omar Bogle (£100k on wages), were all left out of McCann’s final starting line-up. Cooper has barely been seen at all since arriving from Crewe.

Certainly the Wimbledon performance and result appears to have provided MacAnthony’s tipping point.

It was still one League One win in 2018 and yet Posh, on the surface at least, were still in great shape to reach the play-offs, just not under McCann.

“I’m not happy (with them) at all,” MacAnthony responded to one fan who questioned his management team and 24 hours later the boss had gone, which ruined the belief of some that McCann was merely a puppet for his chairman.

MacAnthony had departed for Dubai for a long-planned family holiday by then, but he re-surfaced the following day to describe McCann as a ‘club legend, loyal, ambitious, positive-minded, energetic and hard-working’ and he then apologised for ‘letting Grant down.’

But the chairman also moved on quickly. Last week, when chatting generally on social media, he was asked how long it would take to appoint a new manager.

His reply suggested Posh would have a new man in place when they travelled to Shrewsbury on Saturday. And they have in the aforementioned Evans

MacAnthony said. “When you sack one, you usually have a good idea who you want or in some cases a deal has already been done.”

Of course MacAnthony’s record of appointing managers is not great. Darren Ferguson remains the only one (out of seven) to have secured a Posh promotion for him.

“In life and in business the easy decisions are the lazy ones never made, but the tough decisions are the ones that define us,” MacAnthony said after despatching McCann

“I own all decisions I make and I do them with the best intentions and for the right reasons. Time and history will judge me for them!”

Darragh MacAnthony and Grant McCann.