A brief discourse on matters of management

James
Jan 7
11 min read

It already feels like we’ll look back on 2025-26 and the absolute lunacy levels of football as a low-water mark for the game.

And it’s not players, not even referees, it’s managers, boards, fans and the media that are dragging the game into the mire.

Whereas few will have sympathy with the managers who have recently been relieved of their duties, theirs is a poisoned chalice at best, as the level of idiocy from the terraces and incompetence in the dug-out, the boardroom and copy desk is surely at an all-time high.

Amorin sacked, that’s the same Amorin who the Portuguese press openly ridiculed when he was hired by Manchester United, claiming they had taken the wrong up-and-coming coach out of Liga football.

Amorin was lucky, however, he wouldn’t have lasted anything like as long at any other club, but we all know that United’s fans are the least knowledgeable in football and just turn up gawping in their replica shirts, blurting “but it’s United”, taking their lead from the myriad media mouthpieces they have craftily installed in once reputable institutions.

It truly is a wonder that from some quarters there was still a dribbling denial that he was the "right man for the job", given the ink was still wet on the contract when those in the know told United they'd picked a wrong'un. That he never failed to live down to his reputation could only happen at a club like United. But this is a club infested by rats and water, and their solution? Just close your eyes and wear a hood.

Taking of reputations, and not good ones, there is Enzo Maresca. On a downward spiral after six months at Leicester. Few mourned his departure for Chelsea, but he did have the impressive distinction of being the first promotion-winning manager to be the subject of matchday protests; Chelsea, however, as always, thought they knew better and decided "Enzo the Backwards" was the yes-man they needed for their Moneyball footballer-flipping franchise.

It didn’t work out that way, though. What Boely and Co. can’t grasp is that football fans give a toss. Even Chelsea fans do when they’re not calling for Katie Hopkins to be knighted, and even they recognised Maresca’s dreadful style of play for what it was. Literally and metaphorically taking the club backwards.

So it probably wasn’t the brightest move to goad his tetchy bosses in public, then demand a new contract. At least it inspired Amorin to go on his Falling Down rant at the Theatre of Asset Strippers.

But it’s not just in the rotting plastic seats of Old Trafford and the Plastic Six that the lunacy prevails.

Anything you can do, Glasgow can do better. Wilfried Nancy, probably the worst Celtic manager of all time, and that’s really saying something given John Barnes existed, was relieved of his duties in double quick time.

It’s sad, really, football will miss his literal real-time lunatic utterings, but it begs a question:

We know that the Old Firm rivalry is intense, but outshitting one another on managerial appointments is surely taking things a bit too far?

What other club would look across the city, see their hated rivals make total fools of themselves hiring delusional master Russell Martin and think… “We’ll have a bit of that”.

Don’t worry, though, Celtic have MON in charge, just the man you want around you in a time of crisis. At least he’s a bit too old to run away with his toys this time.

Indeed, it is one of the universe's great mysteries as to whether Martin O’Neill has ever actually been young. Perhaps that’s why he’s so angry.

Talking of angry blokes, Gary O’Neil is by all accounts rocking up at Strasbourg.

How the less-than-impressive duo of O’Neil and Derry will follow in the cultured footsteps of Liam Rosenior is pretty much already nailed on.

Three months at most, and some very unsavoury behaviour on the touchline.

Derry & O'Neil, the Strasborgian chuckle brothers

It's a far cry from Rosenior, who is, without doubt, one of the new generations of footballers.

Urbane, intelligent, engaging and surprisingly modest - after all, who else would have let Wayne take all the credit for relegating Derby to the third tier?

But for all his positive attributes, there is little doubt he’s made one of the biggest schoolboy errors imaginable. Such is his impossible dream that it would be truly surprising if he out-tenured the Strasbourg Two. Still, at least he's more likely to work again.

The difference is that he doesn’t deserve what is coming, but he has no one else to blame but himself.

He really should have called Harry Potter, and Solihull's finest would tell it straight: sometimes the multi-million-pound pay-off treadmill isn’t what it’s cracked up to be, after all, how many black polo necks does one man really need?

Then again, maybe not; it’s a clear life lesson that you shouldn’t take advice from Graham Potter; he’s simply incapable of making a sensible decision. He’s already had more sackings than the elephant man, but on the credit side, at least he managed in a few short months to push Porno Sullivan to the brink.

Potter n Sullivan, whatever they're selling I'm not buying

The beauty of life under Unai is that you rarely look down, only up, so many would be forgiven for not realising how far that horrid little club had fallen. Suffice to say, they have no way back, and another strangely feted manager looks a dead man walking.

The Nuno myth, though, is powerful. Fueled by Mendes’ asset-doping stable, Nuno couldn’t do anything after taking Champions League players out of the Championship before everyone got fed up with his moaning.

After a brief stint at what should have been his spiritual moaning home he rocked up in West Bridgford with a massive bag of chips on his shoulder and proceeded to field one of the most aggressive football teams in decades and somehow be indulged by match officials up and down the country for 3/4 of a season, only to implode in his own largesse on a boat streaming red smoke on the Trent, like a modern day Mr Toad.

But good God, at least he wasn’t fraudulent Ange.

There’s literally nothing that can be said about the Aussie imposter that hasn’t already been said. In fact, his stock is so low, even getting Basingstoke Swimming Bath u10s 2nd XI to win something in his second season will see him celebrated as a generational talent once again. To be fair, that’s a bit of a high bar for him.

Like the master, though, one of his dopey disciples has been outed as a ringer and sacked this week by “the Biggest Club in the Midlands ™️”.

Ryan Mason, the most misguided managerial appointment out of Spuds since Tactics Tim. Who’s next for the Baggless? Few will notice, even fewer will care.

Talking of never knowingly successful Tottenham, it looks like Frank’s days are also probably numbered, a right stroppy little so and so is Thomas, but he’s many, many rungs above the Aussie interloper.

It’s normally said that when you lose the fans, the end is nigh. But given Spurs fans’ default operating mode is to boo and exclaim a lack of fitness to wear a shirt, the adage really doesn’t apply. It’s clearly asking too much, but maybe spending a bit less time booing and more time looking at their history may provide some sort of perspective that helps Danish Tom live another day.

As we’re on perspective, that’s always the best way to look at Abu Dhabi FC, nee Manchester City, led by Pep the predictable, father of Arteta, Maresca and a load more wannabes destroying the beautiful game with stultifyingly boring football.

The problem is that surveying Pep’s success always seems to lack the most important perspective, and it’s a really obvious one. He will only manage the richest club in the League.

Barcelona, Bayern, Manchester ~~Unit~~ City, sorry I came over all Robinho then. There is a theme; it isn't difficult to work out.

He has to win the trophies, it is true, but his success has very little to do with playing centre backs at full back and eschewing silly notions of a centre forward.

What really matters to Pep is that you can pick up and discard players at will and never give a damn about their careers or who's settling the bill. Just ask yourself how many players have developed under his stewardship. Actually, put it another way: how many players have simply walked away from the club knowing they were wasting their time working through the ranks when Pep’s chequebook was at hand every time he had a difficult decision to make. We've got two in our starting lineup.

For every one player that will eulogise him in retirement, there are five who will tell you different. Still, the money was good, eh, Fabian?

Talking about Fabian, he still owes us a story, or rather a mythical tale of the snake who wasn’t.

On the subject of myths, have you heard the one about ‘playing the Arsenal way’?

Ange may always win something in the second season, but little Mikel always finishes second every season, so there is that. Now, though, the artful Arteta has a cunning plan, playing for set pieces, hoofing it high and long all day long.

Arsene Wenger would be turning in his vinegary grave if he were dead. We only know he isn’t because he keeps advocating payola-driven football initiatives that he would have baulked against once upon a time. Very Sven.

But don't expect the Arse fans to recognise their Wimbledon-esque football as it really is, they, after all, are only narrowly beaten by Manchester United in the least knowledgeable fans in football stakes.

The thing is, though, United’s lot know they can’t hold an argument and tend to be rather backwards in coming forward, that is, unless Marcus Rashford is involved.

For Arsenal, however, they have a very different approach. They’ll go out of their way to demonstrate their moronic lack of understanding of even the basic tenets of the game. But living in a world where beating Tottenham is your benchmark must be a very sad place to be. As is the Emirates, Highbury was dead, but at least they had the sparkling football of George Graham to savour.

Moving out of North London, literally, there’s another Ange baby on the loose, and unlike his mentor, he’s made it to January; the next month, however, may not be so kind.

CD from the sty. Terrible football, a constant string of denials of playing terrible football, sinking nearer to League One than the play-off raffle and about as popular with the staff at the training ground as Ruben Amorin is with the Sancho household.

In no way affectionately nicknamed “the cucumber c**t”, you’re doing something seriously wrong to be less popular than Rooney and his camping chair. If his future depends on a straw poll of popularity among his peers, then he's yesterday's man already. Wayne's available, though.

Talking of Wayne the Brain, he’s too busy learning moronic monosyllabic mutterings to use on Match of the Day to be interested as Yanited link themselves with a caretaker, because Ralf Rangnick worked out well.

With Rooney ruling himself out with a pulled-down baseball cap, a pork pie and a can of Stella, United are reportedly looking elsewhere for their saviour, but seriously, would you want any of them even taking care of your wheelie bin?

Darren Fletcher, Michael Carrick and Ole Gunnar Solskjær…. Anfield had the Boot Room; Christ knows what you’d call United’s equivalent.

Suffice to say, Rooney, tired and emotional in his camping chair, would do a better job than those three.

Talking of saviours, the United hierarchy already has a plan for a permanent appointment… and that man is Eddie Howe.

If that doesn’t shock the United-verse into realising their true level, then nothing will, but they do love to bask in delusion, knowingly or otherwise.

Delusion, though, is nothing new to Eddie, so he should fit in well; his steeds have apparently been “far more successful than Villa” over what is loosely described as “at the same amount of time”… tis true they’ve won something but.. really? Is this the same Newcastle that Unai Emery rejected out of hand with an excuse about kids in school, the sunshine and the dog needing feeding at 3pm, only to rock up at a club he wanted to be at?

To be fair, although never hitting the heights and highlights of Villa’s last few years, Howe has kept them close by, pretty impressive when you consider he's had to work with a deafening cry of "net spend!!!!" wherever he goes. But you simply can’t be serious comparing a club that couldn’t get out of a straightforward Champions League group to one that beat Bayern, PSG reached the quarter-finals and then only missed out on a second successive season in the Big Cup due to Thomas bloody Bramall. And who benefited? Howe and his angels.

Sliding doors and all that, just a shame Bramall’s head didn’t get caught in one.

Whilst we’re on the subject of benefitting from dodgy refereeing, the controversy from the Liverpool-Fulham game still burns on.

The decision and cover-up were bad enough, but Slot’s tone deaf response just showed the man up for what he is.

Clearly out of his depth, without even a modicum of personality or humility, he really is the total antithesis of Jurgen Klopp.

2024-25 saw him do a Di Matteo, the frontman, with an added dollop of ego, whilst the players ran the team. For Cech, Terry and Drogba, read Virgil, Trent and Salah. Letting Trent go was silly, and buying what he bought for the price he bought them was simply insane. It's hardly surprising 2025-26 has given us Slot 2.0. He literally urinated on his own chips.

However, Liverpool are slow to resolve errors. Souness, Rogers, and Hodgson can attest to that. So Slotty boy may get a bit more time.

But one thing is for sure: just as German midfielders cannot cut it in the Premier League, neither can Dutch managers. It’s something to do with being humourless, spoilt toddlers, evidently.

Every dog has its day, of course, but the truth is there are not many good managers around, there are even fewer good journalists, with the vast majority of modern-day internet scribblers incapable of recognising, or admitting that the game has moved on from the halcyon days when United won everything. Perhaps we should just call them clickbaiters instead and be done with it.

It’s not that the Sky 6 won’t win anything again, it’s that the vast majority of engaged, thoughtful, analytical and intelligent football fans don’t give two hoots about them.

But in a fabulous piece of post-modern social-media age irony, the media produce more content aimed at the lowest common denominator, whilst the rest of us walk away, unfulfilled, shrugging our shoulders and accepting that there was more of a level playing field at Underhill than there will ever be in football journalism.

Indeed, it’s only the rags, red top and broad alike, and the puppet masters, Sky, who keep their collective myths going. Sadly, given the vast majority of Big 6 fans have zero engagement with their club through any other means, it’s not surprising that they and their brethren continue to live in the past.

So does that mean a European and Domestic treble for Villa this season? Err, well, no, possibly not. But it at least means we should be “there or thereabouts” for a few more years yet, and whether trophies begin to arrive at VP again isn’t really the point. The point is that we’re building a sustainable future and are not being dragged into the ever murkier depths of the lunatic majority in football.

There are, of course, no guarantees, but the sheer self-inflicted mess at other clubs should be manna from heaven for Villa.

With a coherent structure, interchangeable parts, extreme talent and minimal ego, combined with a willingness to work hard to succeed, the ingredients are there.

Football fans are an impatient lot, but it actually hasn’t taken Villa that long to mould a club fit for the long term, one that should be able to continue improving regardless of personnel changes along the way.

We could lose players, dare I say it, we could lose the manager. But the vision of NSWE means we have the structure to bring in the right people to deliver continuity of improvement.

And that, proudly, is what sets us apart from the rest.

As the likes of TalkSport and Sky tout Unai Emery around to a “big club”, they are simply unable to understand that it’s not a single element that delivers success, and one man who knows that better than anyone is Emery.

There simply is not a better place in football right now for Unai to deliver his masterplan.

We might not end the season with a creaking trophy cabinet, but boy, have we got a lot to be thankful for.