Is Plan B Right For Trigger Happy Chairman?

By Adam Gateley.

Since the start of the 2013-14 season, 30 football league managers have got the boot. A figure that is not surprising to your average football fan like me in this day in age. Chairmen and club owners are under enormous pressure from fans and their board to bring success to their clubs. But can they jump the gun and be too greedy just because expectations rise?

Let’s take West Brom and Cardiff for example. WBA sacked Steve Clarke on December 14th 2013, In 16th position in the Premier League. Their Sporting and Technical director (who sounds very sporty and technical) told the press ‘With key games coming thick and fast, we felt it was important we acted now to give the club the best possible chance to have success this season’. They appointed Clarke’s successor Pepe Mel on the 9th January 2014. A rapid appointment, considering games were coming thick and fast.

After guiding West Brom to a win over Swansea on Saturday, Mel has won just 2 games in 2 months at Albion and they sit in 16th place. The same position where Steve Clarke left them. His previous jobs in Spain were at Reyo Vallecano and Real Betis, where he got them both promoted from lower leagues. This job in the Premier League, however is a different kettle of fish. Within the first few weeks, he was told that his best player, Shane Long would be sold to Hull City. This is the reason West Brom have struggled for goals, not scoring more than 1 goal in their previous 6 games before the Swansea result.

Surely the West Bromwich Albion board would have been better keeping Steve Clarke in his position for another few weeks, even if it was just while, until they had someone else lined up to do the job. But waiting 3 weeks over the Christmas period to then bring someone in, who has no experience of English football at all, let alone the Premier League is a very bizarre decision. What do they now consider success this season? Gaining a place in the league up to 15th from 16th when Clarke was sacked? With games against Hull, Arsenal, Manchester City and Tottenham to come in their last 8, I cannot see them finishing higher than that. All because they didn’t have a plan B after sacking Steve Clarke. The man who gave them their highest ever top flight finish 6 months previous.

Another Chairman with the finger on the trigger in December was the Cardiff City owner, Vincent Tan. He appointed former Manchester United striker, Ole Gunnar Solksjaer to replace Malky Mackay. In this instance, I think he went for a big name, to get the fans on his side after they showed so much love for Mackay following the great job he did in getting them promoted the Premier League last season.

Ex Manchester United players have taken a lot from Sir Alex Ferguson and had a lot of success themselves in management. Steve Bruce is doing a great job at Hull. However it has not worked out well for many of them. Roy Keane and Bryan Robson for two, and they were arguably Fergie’s best two midfielders in his 27 years in charge. I have a feeling that Solksjaer is going to fail at Cardiff’s target of staying in the top tier of English football. 7 defeats in his first 10 league games is relegation form. Which is a shame as he talks a great game and seems a very nice bloke.

These two scenarios of Premier League sackings show that, if your plan B is at all there to be executed, make sure it is the correct one in the long term. Two examples of how these plan B’s have been pulled off to a tee in the lower leagues are Nigel Clough’s appointment at Sheffield United and Uwe Rosler’s at Wigan Athletic.

Clough got the sack from Derby, unfairly in my opinion as it was only a few weeks into the season. He did a good job on limited funds there and that’s exactly what he was thrown into at Bramall Lane. They are now on 10 wins in a row and are looking at a play off spot in League One. When he took over in October they were in the bottom 3.

Uwe Rosler took over at Wigan in December, coming from League 1 Brentford, where he was doing an excellent job. He has took Wigan right into the play off mix and they are my favourites to get the 3rd promotion spot following Leicester and Burnley.

These two manager appointments were carefully considered. They aren’t massive names and weren’t particularly medal winning footballers. But they are good young managers, not coming from foreign leagues with no English experience.

Most Premier league chairmen not only cannot wait to pull the trigger, but they need to seriously ask themselves, is the next man better than the one that got them where they are?


http://v2journal.com/22/post/2014/03/is-plan-b-the-correct-thing-for-trigger-happy-chairman.html

Good read. Gotta give some love to Villa for sticking with Lambert as well.

Only comment would be that, for every "trigger happy chairman" there's a manager with dreams above his station just waiting to walk out on a contract when a perceived career promotion (or at least more money) comes calling.
Both circumstances end in tears more often than they prove successful.
Good riddance to both.

Too much money around to expect loyalty and the old-fashioned concept that managers need time (more than money) to be successful.

Giving a manager time doesn't work anymore. If big a club gives a manager the time United gave Fergie the financial damage taken could be irreversible.

Nick,
It may work with Chelsea's money, not to mention "front office" continuity and a nucleus of great players, but a steady diet of managerial musical chairs seldom works in sport, any sport.

Whether Pepe Mel is the right choice remains to be seen, but as I've said on countless times now, Clarke had to go. He took a solid foundation created by Roy Hodgson and slowly but surely destroyed it. He had a good first 3 months in charge but it was downhill from there, Lukaku dragged us through the back end of last season single-handedly. We won 7 games in a whole year under Clarke, of course he had to go. There is also the fact that Mel did a great job at Betis, better than the one Clarke did at us, taking them to the Europa League. The fact his squad got butchered at the start of this season was no fault of his and the fans were still firmly behind him when he was sacked.

Long scored 3 goals for us all season, and they came in just two games, so selling him for 7 million with 6 months left on his deal was a no brainer. The only issue is we didn't use that money to replace him.

Just seen this, it is a good read.

Interesting that the bottom six clubs as it stands have all sacked their manager this season