John Helm: We're managing!
ONE thing we never seem to tire of in this country is discussing the merits of the football managers.
Is Rafa getting to Fergie? When will Arsene ever see the same game? Who’s next for the chop?
Now we have Bill Kenwright claiming that David Moyes is the best manager in the world, and Mohamed El Fayed calling bosses ‘donkeys’.
Stuart McCall is threatening to walk away from his beloved Bradford City because he hasn’t delivered, and Jose Mourinho wants to come back to England because it possesses the best league in the world.
Let’s take Fergie first. He does himself no favours by being a bad loser.
We all know he hates to lose at cards or even subbuteo, but to blame the Wembley pitch and Mike Riley for Manchester United’s season turning into a quad hunt rather than a quintuple was downright ridiculous.
The simple fact was that Berbatov and Ferdinand took wretched penalties, and he picked the wrong team.
Ferguson loves the mind games (just ask Kevin Keegan) and his sparring with Benitez has been amusing, if juvenile and futile.
The Wembley surface is poor bit I don't go along with his super fit professionals being so sapped of energy by the turf that they wouldn't be able to perform satisfactorily three days later.
As for the Everton impresario’s nomination of his manager’s standing as the best in the business ahead of Ferguson, Wenger, Hiddink, Capello, etc it’s laudable but somewhat premature.
I have a lot of time for Moyes and he’s now being talked about as Ferguson’s potential successor, but he has yet to prove himself able to handle superstars before earning the ultimate accolade.
He has very shrewdly signed ‘C’ celebrities and moulded them into a top six team in the Premier League.
Even now Joleon Lescott, Phil Jagielka and Tim Cahill would not near be a Premier League Dream Team but in company with solid professionals like Phil Neville and Leon Osman they form the core of a side that is extremely hard to beat.
Stuart McCall used to be ‘a Toffee’ – indeed he scored twice for them in a Wembley Cup Final against Liverpool.
There is no more honest, or hard working professional in the league and he has spilt lots of blood for the claret and amber of Bradford City.
Yet blind loyalty doesn’t necessarily go hand-in-hand with successful management, and it could well be that both he and Alan Shearer will have to acknowledge that their legends will be limited to playing rather than managerial careers.
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