WHAT A week for football managers!
I didn’t envy the reporter asked to interview Fergie after his worst day in football.
I didn’t fancy taking up Mick McCarthy’s invitation to “come outside”, and I wouldn’t want to be in Steve Kean’s quaking boots at Blackburn.
Andre Villas Boas accused referee Chris Foy of making blatant mistakes, Uwe Rosler was sent-off for getting in the way of an official on the touchline and Martin Jol seems to be falling out with everyone at Fulham after just nine league games.
It’s a good job these guys get paid fortunes.
The buzz word in football is “branding” and a programme of matches that had enough talking points to keep us blokes happy for a year showed just why the Premier League is such a massive global magnet.
Mario Balotelli set fire to his house with a firework, then lit the blue touch paper at Old Trafford, John Terry was the latest to be accused of making racist remarks, there were more red cards than you’d see at the Labour Party Conference and a 15-year-old boy got leave from school to play for Derby County.
This is better than anything EastEnders or Emmerdale can come up with.
To deal with just two of those stories, the body language of Mick McCarthy and Steve Kean tells you everything about what’s going on at Wolves and Blackburn.
I’ve known Mick since he was the rock of the Barnsley defence and he’s somebody I would want alongside me in the trenches.
He sticks out his chest, sets his jaw and tells it as he sees it. He’s one of the most honest men in the game.
I’ve seen Mick upset Roy Keane, which wouldn’t be on any health advisory list, but I know who I’d back in a scrap and it wouldn’t be the out-of-work manager.
Wolves most genuine fans appreciate what McCarthy has done for the club and continue to back him, whereas no-one it seems in Blackburn gives Kean a prayer of survival.
His Indian employers have been supportive, but the longer Rovers are rooted to the foot of the Premier League table, the sooner the man who stood in a raincoat on the touchline on Sunday, will be given his P45.
