As a Manchester Untied supporter, this season I've been nothing short of delighted! Winning the Premier League and The UEFA Champions League was fantastic. Of course most people sung praises for Ronaldo and co. However to me it was mostly the manager.
Sir Alex Ferguson.
After spending years and years at the club, Manchester United is one of the most successful, popular, attractive football club in the world—credit to Sir Alex.
So what brings success?
In today's world of club football, managers come and go—and this season was no exception. With Mancini leaving Inter, Grant being sacked by Chelsea and Sven Eriksson departing by mutual consent and Sam Allardyce not given enough time, the question remains what must a manager do to keep their job?
And I believe... well... I thought I believed—do well at the club, but obviously that's not enough anymore...
I'll start off with Avram Grant. When Mourinho, aka "The Special-One," was sacked by Chelsea, taking over from his reign, lets face it, is no easy task. One of the most popular managers in the world, not just popular with the Chelsea fans, even with fans from rivals (I thought he was one of the greatest assets the EPL had!!—Quite the character as well) was sacked and step in Mr. Avram Grant.
How does a relatively unknown man become the head coach at Chelsea? Being Director of Football at Chelsea he decided to take on the coaching role. Within eight months, Chelsea lost the EPL on the final matchday, the UEFA Champions League through penalties. Yet a couple of days later he was sacked.
I personally didn't like Avram Grant, and his press conference after the Everton game late on in the season made me wonder what good ol' Peter Kenyon was thinking. However, at the end of the season he was one of my favourite football personnel.
Why? Cause he managed to get a team that was mourning from the loss of Mourinho, so close to the EPL title—and lose the UCL on penalties. It really doesn't get anymore unluckier than that.
He had the backing of all the players, staff and by the end of the season most Chelsea fans stopped chanting rude "We want Mourinho back" chants!
A manager with relatively no experience in managing (only in Israel really), brought Chelsea to their first European Champions League Final! And then was sacked a few days later.
In short, Avram Grant was sacked—for coming second in the EPL (even that on the FINAL matchday), taking Chelsea to their FIRST ever UCL final, and then unluckily losing on PENALTIES!
In other words—he was sacked for coming SECOND!
Next—Roberto Mancini. Three Serie A titles back to back—sorry Mancini that's just not good enough. Simply rubbish that is. Or at least that's what Inter is publicly suggesting. Ok sure, Inter don't do much in the UCL—but they were run ragged by a rampant Liverpool who have Europe virtually running through their veins!
(Once again Mourinho somehow manages to be the centre of attention in this manager transfer saga). Take centre stage Mourinho—hopefully you can take Inter to a UCL Final and win. That might, just might save you your job in the future. Don't worry about the three Series A titles back to back—that's just for fun.
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6 months ago
Big Sam had some time..the other 3 perhaps you are right..very expressive article..Thanks for Sharing Chirag.
6 months ago
Nice article , i totally agree. Even Sam wasn't given enough time. Newcastle was a sinking ship when he joined a new face doesn't change years of underachievement overnight.
After a bad start of the season , Grant made Chelsea's season look good albeit they missed out on the trophies they were very close.
Managers need time to settle the players, Liverpool, Arsenal and Man U give their managers time however sometimes I wish Roy Evans and Gerrard Houlier were given too much time and Benitez had a big task replacing 90% of the team as they were average at best.
6 months ago
yeh i agree! and maybe thats what the board of directors think nowadays! that they dont wanna give the manager too much time where it would just become a waste of time! even houllier - Liverpool won the FA Cup, League cup and UEFA cup under him in 1 season! its just silly though... i mean Mancini actually won back to back titles... still sacked!
6 months ago
Sam Allardyce was one of the worst managers to be given the job at SJP. His negative tactics only worked at Bolton becasue they had no other option and were graceful just to be in the EPL. When he moved to Newcastle, he bought Smith instead of Elano which shows what was in store for us. A defensive formation against DERBY. They got 4 points off us, if they'd played us every week they would have got 70 somethin points and qualifyed to the UCL. His tactics were crap, his personality was crap and he was telling us to be patient with our expectations! Patience come with Improvement, none under Allardyce but Keegan will get it because of the encouraging results. Blackburn be warned, you're going down the league if you take Fat Sam on.
The other managers you're right about they showed improvement to the clubs
6 months ago
What an utterly bizarre business English soccer has become?
Two coach/managers take on very different but equally challenging tasks and achieve far more than most realistic expectations could have possibly hoped for.
Avram Grant was up against it at Chelsea after "the special one", but against considerable odds, succeded in taking the club to double finals being extremely unlucky not to come home with the trophies.
Sven-Goran Eriksson (and his amazing entourage) turned around a moribund MCFC in breakneck time pre-season and went on to produce the best results in 30 years, revitalise the fan base and earn virtual Sainthood in the eyes of the Citizens by beating United TWICE for the first time in most fans living memory.
It appears that Sven has been the victim of fate twice now.
Firstly when TheFA bowed to the "creative" xenophobic hype from a few scandle sheet newspapers and ignored the Official England fans Save our Sven campaigns and howls of public protest and stabbed him in the back shortly after extending his contract. Big mistake as (after losing only five competitive games under Svennis!) the "golden generation" crashed in flames for Euro2008 and England appear to have a far less certain future for W-Cup 2010 than was ever the case during Sven's tenure.
Now the strange apparent "suicidal death wish" for Man City by the ex-Thai dictator has removed possibly their best hope for future glory and demoralising the fan base and team members in the process after Sven's season had just rebuilt support and generated a real sense of hope within the club.
The most bizarre twist of all will be if Avram and Sven now swap clubs as has been rumoured in the sporting press?
6 months ago
haha! that would be quite the turnaround - what would make it worse is that both clubs would to some extent lose out! Sven is perfect for City - he has his players there, and Grant is perfect for Chelski! Ahh well! welcome to the most fascinating league in the world!
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