The Premier League: The musical chairs of failure in managers across time
By Derek Ross
Enough already! Time to end this tedious cycle of the Premier League and the musical chairs of failure in return for some fresh faces.
Ah yes, fresh faces. It’s a term we football fans approve of isn’t it? We like it because we like to know they (the club) are about change, particularly if they’ve arrived from our club’s youth academy. It’s makes us feel warm and that the club’s in good hands and being run properly.
These new faces get us excited. They represent the future, as well as a significant saving in the transfer market if they make the grade. Unfortunately the term ‘Fresh Faces’ doesn’t get us half as excited when it’s applied to the managerial merry-go-round in the Premier League, where it’s sadly become more like the ‘Same Old Faces’. It’s like watching a forever rolling episode of ‘Dad’s Army’ where everyone gets fired but nobody ever gets shot!
I’m talking about those serial managerial failures who continue to be appointed to struggling clubs, many of whom have previously showed them the door about five minutes ago! Now I’ve no personal axe to grind when it comes to Alan Pardew, David Moyes, Sam Allardyce or Tony Pulis etc, but between them these four managers have more sacks than the Post Office.
Why do clubs continue to appoint underachievers?
Why do clubs continue to appoint these constant underachievers, proven strugglers, and serial non-winners of trophies or indeed who’s teams play a brand a football worthy of the exorbitant season ticket price? And lest we forget that the current Crystal Palace manager was one of the most disastrous England appointments in living memory. At least Christian Benteke isn’t taking corners!
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Dismissed by Crystal Palace in December 2016, Alan Pardew rocked up at West Bromwich Albion in November 2017, to put a seal on another failed appointment. Likewise, six months after presiding over Sunderland’s relegation to the Championship, David Moyes arrived at West Ham in November 2017, where he’s currently having a damn good go at doing exactly the same thing.
Sam Allardyce, the Red Adir, of English football’s perennial strugglers can count the admirers of his brand of football at current club Everton on… no fingers! He’s expected to depart this summer. I’m sure Stoke City are monitoring the situation?
Last, but by no means least, Tony Pulis is proving his worth at Middlesbrough safe in the knowledge that no writ is coming his way for an absolute mess in which he left West Brom. You can bet your mortgage that when he and Middlesbrough come to the inevitable declaration of ‘leaving by mutual consent’, he’ll have his feet up on the desk of one of the Premier League’s bottom four clubs before the weekend.
So there you have it…
Four managers, nineteen Premier League clubs, very few achievements and not much by way of attractive football or satisfied supporters.
And what can be more disheartening for fans than to call for the head of one perennial failure, only to see another one pull up in his top of the range BMW twenty-four hours later? And yet their careers go on, recycled more times than a pair of soccer player football cleats.
It seems to me that if you want to be rewarded millions of pounds for achieving zilch but constant failure, then Premier League management is the way to go. So where then, I ask you, are the fresh faces of new management? Why are they not being appointed and please, please don’t even begin to mention that sorry old chestnut ‘they lack experience’ because the aforementioned failures have plenty.
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Moreover, these men are now a barrier to any new ones coming through. We all like to see bravery and chances taken on the pitch, well it’s about time these percolated, into the boardrooms of clubs who cannot and will not, see past the list of usual suspects when their team hits a run of bad results.
‘Tried’ and ‘tested’ is the hackneyed phrase. A ‘Safe Pair of Hands’ is another. The only problem however is that the hands of these men are covered in butter fingers!