Derby have given Paul Clement the chop this evening. Having a bad spell right now but still 5th in the Championship and only 5 points off the top
Partly agreed in return. I still prefer to give him some credit for having the balls for going out there and giving it a go. I am a bit more favourable to someone who does this over the sycophantic Liverpool guys in the media who spout rubbish and are quite content to draw a hefty salary yet won't put their reputation on the line.
There's a fine line between self confidence and arrogance. For me, Neville, with no past managerial experience has chosen to dive into the 'deep end', and found out that he can't swim just yet!
I find Clement difficult to assess. He comes across in interviews as a bit bullish, much like Pearson was at Leicester. He doesn't have a strong track record, yet seems to talk as if he does. To be 5th in a tough division at this stage of the season, is no crisis, but if I was a Derby fan, I doubt he would inspire me to believe he could turn their current dodgy spell around.
Gary Neville had the balls to take the job, yes, but it doesnt mean it was the right decision, in my opinion he had no right to get that sort of job in the first place. There are plenty of other good young managers both here and in Spain that have earned there right for a bigger job, doing this through working there way up the ladder, not just drawing fancy lines on a screen or talking about the game.
Zouma out for 6 months. That looked very painful yesterday, the poor guy was screaming with pain. Wish him a full recovery. This injury probably means JT will get his contract extended.
That injury to Zouma had shades of what happened to John Salako. The damage to the knee joint allowed the lower leg to move forward of the thigh bone. Salako's went a lot further forward and was truly sickening. It wasn't so long ago that would have been likely to end Zouma's career. Still,it was nice to see his captain, leader, bell-end, ignore referring to his stricken colleague and team-mate and use the post-match interview to solicit himself for a future contract.
It's the difference between a full and a partial ACL tear. They're both equally painful but with a full tear the knee isn't physically strong enough to bear any weight at all for at least a few hours, with a partial tear you can just about walk.
The one saving grace of an otherwise depressing transfer window now looks likely to disappear On the plus side, at least whoever takes over in the dugout will have the twat undermining him in the dressing room, stirring up training ground rebellions and shagging his missus.
I've always thought that,with Terry,it was a case of the "Crazy Gang" part 2 at Chelsea.Mind you,Terry wasn't quite as bad as the Wimbledon chopper turned actor.
If Gary Neville's very short spell in Spain ends soon, it will not have proved or disproved his credentials as a manager. Nor is his punditry the least bit relevant to that issue. He was paid by Sky to analyse football matches. He is very adept at that. His analysis is observant, relevant and insightful. Football management is about far more than analysis of games. The single biggest factor in successful management is the ability to manage people. SAF wasn't always the shrewdest tactician (his preferred tactics were pretty blunt - attack, attack, attack, at pace and in numbers and hope for the best), but he was superb at getting the best from people. His players wanted to succeed for him and gave everything in that cause. Even when they'd won things time and again, they wanted to carry on doing it. The ability to motivate and inspire day in, day out sets the best apart. Whether Gary Neville has those qualities, only time will tell. He needs the right opportunity - and going abroad to club which appears to be in a difficult place wasn't it.
Why would anyone need to be motivated to play football? If I was at a pro level I'd give my all every week unless undermined by a manager. The default position is to give my all.
The BBC is carrying a headline (albeit very small) on its Football web site that reads "United open Pochettino talks." Their evidence for this? An article in today's Sun newspaper. I really do hope that Poch and the club both come out very early to scotch these rumours. It's bad enough that The Sun does United's tapping-up for them, but for the BBC to join in is simply scandalous!
"That leads to another question increasingly being asked: although it seems more and more likely that Jose Mourinho will be the next United manager, should they be actually looking to the Argentine? Pochettino has been mentioned by some as a potential “compromise option” at Old Trafford, given that Mourinho’s approach still doesn’t entirely fit all of the club’s idealised principles. By contrast, Flores’ description of Spurs almost perfectly describes a style perfect for United, right down to the fact that it was applied by a team of outfield players all under 30 years of age. It comes down to this: Pochettino may not have the existing cast-iron CV of Mourinho, but he does have distinctive coaching principles that would appear to make progress - if not outright success - rather likely. What’s more, he also clearly has the mentality to take over a job as big as Manchester United. He would undoubtedly be good for the club - but would the club be good for him? For all that debate about his suitability to United, there is a strong argument Pochettino would be far better served by staying at Spurs for the foreseeable future. Things at Old Trafford currently require a lot of work and, although they have the money to temporarily address problems with high-priced signings, those type of buys don’t necessarily suit Pochettino's style. He demands players have a certain mentality in order to apply his game, and that is precisely why Spurs are so supremely drilled. Given the quality of the side, at that age, it would almost seem a waste to consider leaving so quickly - not that he is doing so. He is properly building something of his own at White Hart Lane, and there should be genuine excitement about what this group are capable of under Pochettino, especially since they are already so ahead of schedule. There’s also the fact that, quite simply, it would mean more. Higher achievements are more impressive at a lesser-resourced club - not that Pochettino allows anyone to think that way." Real journalism from UNIBET. I read an article recently written when Poch was doing great things at Espanyol linking him to Real and Barca. He said his children wore Espanyol pyjamas so he wasn't going anywhere. This guy is different. He demands loyalty and gives it. I trust him to see what he has in the above light and leave other projects to when he's succeeded with this one. What he wants is success, not money. He paid the £2m release in his contract with Southampton himself!
