Premier League Manager Merry-Go-Round

The Game Room
1

Ok, this season is only three weeks old and is shaping up to be the wierder than an episode of the Twilight Zone.

After the transfer Day shenanigans and Man City becoming the richest club in the world…

I still have trouble comprehending that

…

And now Keegan is possibly in/out/not fired/resigned/fired/talking at/from/with Newcastle United and Alan Curbishley has jumped from West Ham United despite a good start to the season.

So should Keegan stay or should he go?

Where is Curbishley off to next or has Mike Ashley already made him an offer?

Can this season get any stranger?

2

To us City fans, it is still a confusing time, a lot of the supporters I know are torn between having the ability to spend on great players, adn becoming the next Chelsea, or og forbid, that other Manchester club.

Being stateside, I don’t get exposed to as much of the rumour , but the KK situation seems to be a mess. There seems to be a total communication breakdown there… or the upper management and KK just do not get along.

3

He should stay, but he only will if they give him full control, especially over the transfers.

And yes, it’s all pretty bizarre / entertaining. (And we thought Pompey winning the FA Cup was odd!)

4

The only thing going on at Newcastle is them trying to provoke Keegan into resigning to avoid paying up his contract. Keegan is not playing ball. A clear case of constructive dismissal I think.

And as a Man City fan I have to say - it’s great. We’ve been such a mismanaged club for so long we deserve some luck.

Anyway - as the wealth is oil wealth I confidently expect it all to be wiped out by some bastard cracking the fusion power thing in the next fortnight or so. Or the Rich Arab will turn out to be that Sun reporter guy. This is City we are talking about. Something will go badly wrong.

5

Why should a football manager have full control of transfers? That’s not his job, and if he thinks it is, he’s overstepping his bounds.

The manager’s job is to take the players the club puts under contract and form them into a team. Certainly, a good club management will consult the manager to see what his preferences are. But if the business side of the club requires that a player be sold to avoid a bad result from the business end down the road, that’s just the way it is, and a good manager should be able to deal with it.

Alan Curbishley’s insistence that he should have veto power over the business decisions of West Ham’s business people on transfers shows he’s too damn big for his britches. West Ham were right to ease him out the door.

6

In the English game it has always been the manager’s job. It is his vision of how the team he is building can play. It’s the difference between making your own lego design and following instructions. Things have begun changing in that respect but I don’t think it’s for the good.

I can see how business requires selling sometimes over the manager’s wishes but I can see why a manager would not, as in Keegan’s case, want someone like Dennis Wise foisting players upon him. Or have his best players sold without expectations being drastically reduced.

I hope at City it is Hughes who calls the transfer shots.

7

The papers seem to think he had no say in the Robinho deal, but was pretty happy about it all the same.

Hopefully, this was just due to the impending deadline and an announcement of intent rather than a pattern. I’d like to see City do well, it’s always been a fun away day.

8

I hope it was a rush job but for the players the Dubai lot had put huge bids in on were no-brainers. Keegan turning up for work and finding a striker he’s never heard of let alone seen play is another matter.

I’m more dubious about them apparently wanting Van Nistleroy. Great player in his time but that time has gone. Get me the great players with some mileage left on the clock and some resale value.

9

And there goes King Kev, off into the sunset, resigning from Newcastle Utd.

What are the odds on Dennis Wise being Manager by the end of the week.

10

Well I just got home from possibly the worst holiday since crowshit was created but more about that in a rant to follow.

As a Manchester City fan and proud of it I can only say that it’s about bloody time we had a bit of luck.

The good times are a coming, yessir, you betcha:p

11

Well, on the one hand City probably deserve a break, inasmuch as a financial organisation that turns over millions upon millions of pounds a year can ever be said to “deserve” anything. So in that regard, I wish you well.

On the other hand, and I know this is spectacularly easy for me to say as a Liverpool supporter and thus one of the Champions League Privileged for lo! these many seasons: don’t you find it a little depressing that the only route to progression these days is to find a sugar daddy with a sufficiently high ratio of liquidity to brain cells? You’ve got Bill Kenwright coming out and saying that Everton’s only hope is to find someone similarly stupid and rich, and while in another era you might take that for the cynical “please buy us” plea it surely is, at the moment it’s pretty hard to argue with the sentiment.

When you have clubs operating with almost no recourse to fiscal reality, is football really still a fair competition? For that matter, fuck “fair”: is it even fun any more? We’ve all played Championship Manager with all the cheats turned on, but wasn’t it ultimately soul-destroying and shite? Doesn’t it even slightly worry you that real life is going down that route? Again, I acknowledge that had my own team been taken over by the Fairies Of Infinite Money I would probably have been ecstatic at first, but I would also hope that I would then have sat and thought what the broader implications were.

We went through all this with the Chelsea takeover, of course, and the argument that all the money in the world will still only get you 11 players on the pitch at a time still stands, to a point. Moreover, the stupid money gets cycled back to other clubs who will spend it more wisely, but certainly in the short term money buys success. The “11 players” argument falls flat, too, when you consider the benefits of a stonkingly deep squad (Mourinho’s fabled substitutional acumen, for example, owes more than a bit to his being able to call on £30m+ of talent from the bench). And when you finally realise that it’s Manchester Fucking United who may end up getting £135m for a single bloody player, well, then you really start to cry into your overpriced, oversalted concession stand pie. How much are you paying for a season ticket at the Middle Eastlands? How do you feel about that, given the infinite resources of your club’s new owners? Who, in fact, is the club run for? Is it really you?

This isn’t aimless carping; I’ve been feeling fucked off with football for a while now. My housemate the Hull supporter has far more fun following his team than I do mine, and that’s not a patronising observation, nor is it just because he gets to wear a tiger head hat to games (although that is fucking brilliant). It’s because his team still exist at a level where success isn’t predicated on swinging a £20m transfer in a saga that rumbles on for the best part of a year, leaving all who follow it wishing they were dead (my friend Sam actually died from reading all the Gareth Barry rumours). Hull still have room for the sort of brilliant story that saw Dean Windass score the most beautiful volley you’ll ever see to put his team in top flight football for the first time ever. I got goosebumps watching that, and I’ve got no reason to give a crap about Hull (honestly, does anyone?). No matter how many goals I see beautiful Fernando score, it’s never going to mean quite as much, even though we saved up to buy him like a grubby child eyeing that nice pair of football boots through the shop window until the nose mark was permanent. Sure, Stevie’s 2005 miracle was about as good as it gets, but I don’t think we’ll ever see the likes of that again. It’s almost unimaginable now to look back and see us succeeding with that squad. And when you consider how ludicrously privileged we were to have that squad in the first place, you start to realise just how inaccessible top level football has become to all but the very few.

For the very first time, I’m starting to think that a salary/expenditure cap might not be a bad idea. I’m also starting to think that I’d love to be an Arsenal fan, and something has to be wrong with the world when that starts happening.

Anyway. This has been long and rambly, and I’m going to stop now. Nonetheless, I’m glad the takeover somewhat made up for your holiday… :slight_smile:

(Finally, and I’d really appreciate an answer to this bit: can I ask for your honest feelings about this photo? How does that make you feel? Can you ignore it as a photo-op, or does it make you a little bit queasy about your club’s direction? It’s an honest question, not a trap…)

12

It was all going pretty well until you admitted to being a Liverpool fan. At that point, all sympathy drained out of me. People poke fun at Man United fans (of which I am not one either) living in places like Surrey and Thailand, but Liverpool fans are just as geographically diverse. The amount of plastic scousers I encounter down here… And they all forget or are too young to remember what a deadening influence Liverpool were on English football in the seventies, back when they were winning things. They were horribly dull and cynical, and everybody hated them.

Quite frankly, seeing a Liverpool fan moan like that fills my heart with joy. The best thing about all the changes in English football in recent years has been Liverpool dropping out of the elite. It’s all been worth it.

13

Right, let’s admit it.

Any football fan wouldn’t give a toss how much his teams owners had spent in order to get the best players in the world.

I don’t care how City do it, if they win all the silverware in sight by buying those players then I’m happy and that’s a fact.

14

There’s a big dfference between a club selling a player because they need the money (disappointing, but a business decision) and buying players without consulting the manager (which apparently happened to Keegan).

Nobody on the board knows about how to form a successful team, nor how long it takes to assimilate new players.
Look at the disapointment of Shevchenko coming to Chelsea. Never achieved his potential and I’m confident it was Abramovich, not Mourinhino who signed him:

Shevchenko, 29, claims Abramovich tried to sign him for three years before he eventually joined

Keegan apparently had several players dumped on him and some sold against his wishes:

Newcastle boss Kevin Keegan yesterday made Fabricio Coloccini the most expensive defender but insisted James Milner would not be leaving the club to balance the books.
…
Keegan is holding firm.

“The last player we will want to sell is James Milner, and I am talking about the owner (Mike Ashley) and myself, and I am sure he will not be leaving St James’ Park.”

(The popular 22-year-old has completed a move to the Midlands on a four-year deal, which is understood to have netted Newcastle in the region of £10million.)

15

Huh. I thought I wrote a pretty reasonable post to be honest with you, but I guess no football thread can ever prevent itself from derailing into a pissing match about who is a “real” fan.

Like I said, sure, I’d be shitting bricks of pure happiness if the money fairies came to Liverpool. But that doesn’t mean it’d be a good thing for football in general. Do you really think it’s brilliant that the club which relentlessly comes fourth in the league can be described as “out of the elite”? Are you really happy that football is that impenetrably mapped out now? I thought this article says it pretty well:

That prediction was made in 2005, by the way, and is no less true today. How rubbish is that?

This is not whingeing about Liverpool’s plight. I’d be perfectly happy for us to come mid-table or lower this season, if there weren’t such a yawning chasm between 4th and 5th that it meant we’d never get to the top again. I’ll come right out and say it: I don’t want Liverpool to be in the Big Four. I don’t want there to be a big four. Not to this extent.

16

The game = fucked and all that.

95% of fans just want to see their team win regardless of who’s signing the cheques. Hard to argue with really, things have gotten a little out of order if you’re legitimatelly fretting over the finances of a sporting organisation that doesn’t give a fuck about you. I’ve got enough problems of my own to worry about without taking on Bill Kenwrights.

I don’t even think that the 5% of fans who do value their club’s heritage and are emotionally involved represent some sort of hardcore support - that correlation is not there. Just take a look at how the Koppites, who make a sentimental farce of their heritage like no other supporters in the world, quietly bent over and took a seeing to from a couple of clueless cowboys. Any other club would be the same - it’s great for us Blues being the last bastion of authenticity in the prem, but I don’t know too many Evertonians who wouldn’t trade that in without a second thought if Igor LoadsaRoublesov comes calling.

I’m in the minority, and certainly not a hardcore fan. I’d honestly tell Igor to get tae fuck my own self - what’s the point of supporting a franchise club like Chelsea or Citeh that have no real connection to the club you went to see with your Dad as a kid, and with your mates growing up? No connection to the area, no local players brought through? May as well just support Man U and get it over with.

I like your point (Dead Badger) that you wouldn’t mind finishing 15th, if you knew you could finish 1st next season. That ship has well and truly sailed.

17

I always love your posts, Dead Badger; they are well stated, full of beautiful language, and thoughtful at some level. :slight_smile:
Face it, top-flight football in Europe is in transition. Within the decade, all things going according to plan, the top 20 clubs in Europe won’t even PLAY in their national leagues. There will be a top-flight of European football that isn’t masquerading as some sort of cup contest. And the Man U’s and the Galacticos and the AC Milans of the continent will clash with each other and then we’ll see some parity.

Or maybe not; perhaps the rich will get richer and they will dominate Europe instead of just their own little national leagues.

I’ve stopped watching the Premiership for the purpose of seeing who wins the thing; that’s of passing interest at best. I watch the relegation fight, and I watch to see who manages to scrape into places 5 - 8, so that they have chances at European football. I watch what goes on at the lower levels (current focus for me: will my favorites (Foxes) manage to reverse their course and start back up the table, and has Leeds finally fallen to its level of incompetence?), and wish that we here in the States could get those games. And I enjoy tremendously the fact that, despite the money that must be involved, we are allowed to watch games between teams OTHER than the top three, so that I can spend a Saturday morning at White Hart Lane, looking down at Spurs playing Sunderland from that lovely rooftop camera they use there.

For my money, the faster the national leagues get rid of the top dogs through formation of a true European SuperLiga, the better for everyone involved.

As for the manager controlling what goes in and out thing:

I know that at some level this has been true of English football. But I don’t think that it has always been true that they’ve had absolute control, and frankly, the model adopted by American sports franchises shows that it isn’t even the best model. It puts much too much emphasis on the importance of the manager, instead of putting it where it belongs: the players on the field. Really good managers find a way to get their players to work together in a system. They don’t just pick and choose players who they can work with so as to make their system work.

ETA: The funny thing is, this whole sugar daddy thing makes the manager almost a passing thought. I think Rafael Benitez is a classic example of someone who is a good manager, but whos abilities as a manager would be much less important if Liverpool simply bought a stable of excellent players and dumped them on the field like so many jackstraws…

18

Oh, thanks very much. Nice to know my beer-fuelled wibblings make sense to someone. :slight_smile:

In Bill Lumberg style, however, I’m going to have to go ahead and disagree with you on the transfer policy point (at least partially). You’re quite right to note that it’s different for US sports franchises, but I think they’re operating in a very different environment. Salary caps, drafting and relatively restrictive free agency rules mean that it’s far harder for clubs to draft shopping lists, diminishing the importance of squad assembly because the manager isn’t realistically able to demand certain players. By contrast, in the relatively free labour markets of professional football, player movement is much more fluid, making squad assembly a much more important part of the manager’s job. The American model is quite probably better for American sports, but it’s not clear that it necessarily extends to the world context.

Curbishley’s demand for full control over transfers and contracts is certainly overreaching somewhat; I wouldn’t advise giving full financial control to anyone with a less persistently parsimonious record than Wenger, and in reality as you say this has hardly ever been the case. But in a context where player movement is so common, the manager has to have significant input. It’s pure madness to have a manager bereft of defenders get presented with a unknown, unwanted striker while his valuable squad players are hawked around without his knowledge. If you further consider that the manager is the main public face of the club, and as such takes the consequences of these decisions in the neck whether they’re his fault or not, and it’s not hard to see why Keegan felt his position was untenable. He wasn’t hired to be “first team coach and media punching bag”, and you could see from the beginning that he was completely blindsided by Wise’s appointment. If you’re going to try a new management structure you’ve got to make it clear to people before you bring them on board, and Mike Ashley clearly failed in that.