An Ode to Modern Football Managers

By Andy Jones

What a week? Now I know I’m meant to focus on the Premier League, but may I say congratulations to both Arsenal and United for their demolitions of Porto and AC Milan.

And in relation to these two giants of the game, I want to begin my focus on managers this week by commenting on the two of longest serving managers in the history of the English game, Sir Ferguson and Mr Wenger. Ferguson has been at United since 1986 while Wenger has been at Arsenal since 1996. Both have led their clubs through their most successful periods, Ferguson racking up a record breaking number of 11 league titles and Wenger building a team who went a whole season undefeated in the league, these are no easy feats. As I said, both managers have led their respective clubs through their most successful periods and you have to look at the other clubs in the league, especially those who change their managers frequently and wonder, what if that manager was given an actual chance instead of just one or two seasons?

Ferguson didn’t win anything for his first three years, the FA Cup being his first trophy and the Premier League another two years after that. Wenger took one year to win his first League title, but arguably he had it easier than Ferguson as he had one helluva mean defence, but remember it did have it’s problems, with one player being an alcoholic.

You have to wonder, would Ferguson have survived if he had just begun his tenure at United now, would Wenger have survived at another club? This brings me on to other managers, ones who have been fired despite success, such as Mourinho, because his team didn’t play exciting football, while others are fired for obvious failings and short comings. Whenever a manager gets fired now, it’s all in the papers and the same question is asked, was the manager given enough time etc etc?

Quite often I will agree a manager hasn’t been given enough time and they shouldn’t of been sacked, but quite often I have the opinion that a lot of these managers just aren’t good enough to cut it in this league, especially those who are in the bottom 2 or 3 of the league and it comes down to their tactics, because when these teams do play adventurous football they can beat the big teams. Hull, who frankly are a hopeless team in my books, beat Arsenal, and I do believe they got a draw or lost by just one goal at United. When Reading came up to the Premier League a couple of seasons ago, they were riding high in the league when they were playing attacking football, but the moment they resort to long ball tactics or just parking all their players behind the ball, they fail. In the defence of clubs that do sack managers I feel some managers have been very lucky. Phil Brown at Hull should of been sacked a long time ago I think. Yes, he brought them up through the leagues, but he doesn’t seem to inspire his team to play at all, and the fact that they are fighting off relegation again isn’t good, at all. His team don’t really go for the win like they did in their first half of the season in the Premier League and for that reason, I would sack him. It is good though to see managers being given reassurances that if their team is relegated they will still have a job like Steve Bruce was told this week and how Gareth Southgate still has a job at Middlesbrough.

I think in general, if you have a good manager and give them a chance to build a team, then that stability and allowing the manager to do his job, gives your club the best chance of winning and growing. For me the best example of this is David Moyes at Everton, he works on the tiniest of budgets and yet Everton are always up there in the league, they do well in cups and they work as a team even though they don’t have a big superstar player. I would like to see more clubs give managers an actual chance, but this also ties in with clubs financial predicaments, a lot of managers are too restricted because of bad ownership which means teams are affected by knowing a club is having financial difficulty, both on the pitch and through sales of players or having to buy a player who doesn’t actually cut it at this level.

What’s your opinion on this?

Finally though, pick of the weekend games:
Birmingham vs Everton has to be the pick of the games, these two are right next to each other in the league and are with some luck maybe in touching distance of European football next season. Keep an eye on Arteta to pull the strings in this match.