I’m currently wading through no fewer than 78 queries from Caroline, the unlucky lawyer who has to sign off my book ‘Where’s The Money Gone?’
Some are serious, others less so. I’ll keep you posted.
Meanwhile on the latest episode of the WTMG podcast, we talk about the importance of a football manager to the progress of their club.
From the late 60s onwards, ‘The Gaffer’ has been an iconic figure in the game. I grew up with a knowledge of the importance of Shankly, Busby, Revie and Stein to their respective clubs.
Then came Brian Clough, possibly the greatest of all.
Clough transformed Nottingham Forest, taking a bunch of under-achieving pros from the middle of the second tier to the pinnacle of European football. Twice.
In later years, Fergie, Klopp and Pep have been hailed as greats of the English game.
But is it possible to over-estimate their achievements? Charlie Methven thinks so.
Charlie, a former director at both Sunderland and Charlton Athletic, tells me that while the manager is the most important appointment at a club, no boss will succeed without the ‘underpinnings’ being right ie the scouting and Academy structure.
Likewise, if this infrastructure isn’t functioning well, failure beckons.
Even Clough needed the support of his assistant Peter Taylor, who worked as coach, scout and general factotum.
When the pair were parted at Leeds United - when the ‘underpinning’ was removed’ - the result was calamitous. Clough was sacked after just 44 days, as chronicled in ‘The Damned United’.
Tony Mowbray, the manager of my own club West Brom, was handed his P45 just after we recorded this episode, with Baggies fans becoming increasingly restless. Relegation-threatened Cardiff City dismissed Omar Rizer on the same weekend, with just three games left to play.
Baggies and Bluebirds supporters may, briefly, have been satisfied, but in a classic case of ‘be careful what you wish for’ we also discuss the case of Steve Cooper, hounded out of Leicester City in November, with the club 16th in the Premier League.
The Foxes are now facing life in The Championship, after Cooper’s replacement Ruud van Nistelrooy led his charges into the relegation zone.
Charlie and I also discuss as US court case which opens the way for European football matches to be staged in America.
Does this herald the return of the Premier League’s overseas ‘Game 39’?
‘Where’s The Money Gone?’ will be available later this year via Byline Books.
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