Gareth’s Blog

Britain’s Got Talent – But will it ever be top of the bill?

So it happens again.  Wealthy owners with limitless sums of money take over a club, the world’s finest players are bought at largely inflated prices and it’s hoped that a talented manager can gel this seemingly mercenary bunch of indiviuals into a team capable of challenging on four fronts.  But of course there are problems, and in the end the big loser in these cases is always the manager.  The sacking of Mark Hughes as Manchester City boss today was seemingly expected in media circles, and when you analysis the statement made by the Manchester City owners this evening there’s logic to it.  If the club has aspirations if breaking into the top four then a return of two wins in eleven league matches is, put mildly a disappointing return for a club whose summer investment topped £130 million.  Couple that with the teething troubles Hughes experienced last season and one could argue that the Abu Dubai group had no other option but to give Sparky the Bullet.  From a personal perspective I’ve always argued that the rules have changed for the modern day manager.  It’s apt that this story breaks during the month that celebrated the 50th anniversary of Bill Shankly becoming Liverpool boss.  There’s still a feeling amongst British football fans that the manager should, “Be given more time to things around”, if results are going against him.  However the days of one man been given 5 or 10 years to build a club are gone, although Rafael Benitez continues to buck that trend.  As everyone knows agents, player power, more powerful chairmen and most importantly the amount of money now pumped into modern sport demands results, and major ones at that to be delivered immediately.  As a player Hughes experienced this, his time at Barcelona was deemed an unhappy failure because he failed to hit the ground running and adapt to the step up in quality.  The same seems to have happened in his managerial career.

However the broader point has to be addressed.  In becoming Manchester City boss in the summer of 2008, Mark Hughes was a beacon of hope.  Here was a British manager who after almost 10 years experience at the sharp end, and in truth great success with Wales and Blackburn Rovers, was being given a chance with a team intent on cracking the top four.  Yes it’s true he wasn’t the current owners man, but the ambitions laid in 2007 with Thaksin Sinawatra and Sven Goran Eriksson proved that he would have an opportunity to spend money and take on the big guns.  Now his career has reached a cross roads, and so to has the future of British managers.  The big question has now got to be asked.  Will a British manger ever get his chance with the big spenders again? In replaceing Hughes with Roberto Mancini Manchester City have clearly shown they don’t trust the contenders that could come from the Premiership, surely a job of this size would in normal circumstances be tailor made for David Moyes?

Instead we have an Italian manager who has an impressive but over inflated C.V. (Largely down to Calcio gate scandals which rocked Italian football in 2006).  Who knows what Mancini can do but he comes from a culture of football which is far used to seeing managers being chopped and changed with ruthless regularity.  In my younger days I watched the fantastic Football Italia with James Richardson and used to be shocked at how little time mangers got in Italy.  It seemed the average number of coaches for one team a season was 3 or 4.  He will be well aware of what’ll happen if he can’t get things moving quickly.