I just made this comment on another thread and it occurred to me that it might be an interesting thread to highlight how football management pays some of the lowest managerial achievers with unbelievable amounts of money. I think football management must be the easiest way to make serious money in the world, perhaps apart from politicians. Once you can pull off the trick of convincing a chairman that you are the man to bring him success on the field there's your first million, if you then win a couple of games bring through a new player, give the press a good story or two you are on your way to your second million. Then comes the sack, which for most of us is a bit of a failure, not in football. The sack is usually filled with an apologetic pay off of a million or so, then off you go to convince the next mug to part with a few of his multi millions with promises of glory. Good example AVB! one season's success at Porto, a club positioned so that most people with some knowledge of the game would achieve a measure of success there and you are off on your way to multi millions for failing to achieve very much at all. AVB has done quite well, the boy, How many millions and he can't even play the game, but is it Souness? Is he the best of the failures, the worst of the best paid dunces? Look at his list of clubs: Rangers Liverpool Galatasaray Southampton Torino Benifica Blackburn Rovers Newcastle United You would have thought it might occur to some of these chairman that actually he was a waste of money and achieves very little. For Souness it was thanks for all the money and off to the beach. Keane is off to walk the dog and Sherwood is on his way in their wake
"I think football management must be the easiest way to make serious money in the world, perhaps apart from politicians." Very few politicians get "golden handshakes" from the private sector, akin to the value that PL football managers get as P45 payoffs.
It's not golden handshakes that politicians get agreed however many use their position to make millions by all sorts of means, including directorships, preferential shares, trusts, think tanks, and not least, consultancies.
The ones that get to me are the journeymen who get endless jobs, do nothing, get the sack and end up somewhere decent anyway. It's mindboggling at times. The same is true of those players that get relegated from the Premier League, get bought by a new club and then go down again the next season. Hermann Hreidarsson, Nathan Blake, Nigel Quashie, Marcus Bent and the like.
I've said it before- it's the only managerial job where you get sacked for failing and still manage to get re-employed time and again.
Ah, yes, AVB the manager who set multiple records in Portugal on his way to winning the treble, took Spurs to their highest ever points total, and is cruising to the Russian league title in his first full season in charge. Clueless? If he is then he's very lucky. What it may come down to is that he simply is best suited to achieving the very best when he has the very best footballers in the league. Or maybe his style simply didn't work in the Premier League. The guy has flaws, and he made a lot of mistakes in his time in England but he clearly must have something about him to have achieved what he has before he's even turned 40(an infant in football management terms). I think conditions play a much bigger part in football success than we like to admit. That goes for players and managers. Look at how Forlan and Kanoute did in Spain and then compare that to Fabregas. Would they always have had that change in form without the move? I guess we'll never know for sure but I think being in the right team and right league has a lot to do with it. We're also very fickle too, if a player moves from a smaller club to a bigger one and doesn't immediately replicate their form we assume they can't hack it at the top level, when they could just be a season away from being considered great again. Anyway, going back to managers, it was really interesting to hear Steve Cotteril talking on Soccer Saturday about what he'd done since he was sacked by Nottingham Forest. He went across Europe visiting clubs and coaches who were doing well(Remy Garde and Lille were amongst those) learned what their coaches were doing and applied it when he got back into management at Bristol City. He had the time and the money so, as he put it, he invested in himself and looked to improve. That's the kind of manager every fan should want at their club. Are they overpaid? Everyone in football is but if they use that to their advantage and "invest in themselves" it might well just pay dividends in the future. We're getting the same rewards from Kane's hardwork and willingness to improve himself right now, aren't we?
I could seriously fall out with you over your praise for Cotterill. Firstly, there are many who have spent their gardening leave travelling around to watch and learn. Secondly, please go to a game where Cotterill is managing and you will see a demented foul mouthed yob bringing the game into disrepute every time a referee gives a decision against his side. His manners are appalling, his ego is way inflated and he spends the entire 90 minutes trying to pick a fight with whoever crosses his path. I don't care how good he came across on Soccer Saturday, te guy is a disgrace.
Fair enough, he's not a manager that I've paid an awful lot of attention to in the past, I just thought he spoke well in his interview on Sky. Obviously if he's a twat, he's a twat but I think the points stand on their own even if you take him out of it.
Re Souness, I think he mostly knows what he's talking about - except when it's anything to do with The Mousers, where his obvious bias trips him up. I'm sure man management was his problem in the game. He comes across as a 'my way or the highway' kind of manager. You might have got away with that 30 years ago, but now!...no chance.
"It's not golden handshakes that politicians get agreed however many use their position to make millions by all sorts of means, including directorships, preferential shares, trusts, think tanks, and not least, consultancies." Again, very few seem to achieve that. A fair number seem to get cosy directorships etc, but not with the terms to make them multi-millionaires.
I know an ex prime minister can charge £200k for an after dinner speech. Blair is top of the league in this respect. I don't have a problem with sacked managers getting paid off. They cannot promise trophies when they sign their 3 years contracts. When they sign, they are expecting 3 year's worth of pay. They aren't really sacked. Their contracts are broken by the club.
"Always ready to support the establishment hmmmmmm!" Telling you they generally don't make the money you believe they do, is hardly "establishment" .
It is quite dangerous to consider MPs as 'part of the establishment' and thus somehow fair game for criticism. As far as I can tell, the vast majority of MPs are ordinary people who want to serve the country and many of them get paid a lot less over their whole career than they would have got in another job. As in any population of 650 people there are a few who are in it only for themselves and a very small number of criminals but they don't deserve their poor reputation. I've met quite a few MPs over my life - a couple being quite right wing conservatives who I share almost no beliefs with but even those seemed to be working hard for the common good as they saw it.
I'm trying to imagine someone saying that about American representatives. I can't. Mostly because so many walk through the revolving door to work for the companies they had been "regulating" and back again. Oh, and they do make millions. We have, as Will Rogers pointed out, the best politicians money can buy. Meanwhile, back on topic, an AVB-less Porto spanked the defending CL champions. The question remains what good managers do. It's unclear teams would do worse without one. Why not make one of your players your manager? That's worked, at times. Bill Russell won basketball titles. The secret of Bill Russell the coach's success, Bill Russelll said, was Bill Russell the player.
