Brentford have sacked Marinus Dijkhuizen as head coach after only nine games and promoted the former Blackburn and Everton midfielder Lee Carsley, who has been in charge of the club’s development squad, as his replacement until the end of the season.
The decision was taken after the 2-1 defeat by Sheffield Wednesday which left Brentford lying 19th in the Championship table and with only two wins all season.
“Brentford Football Club can confirm that the head coach Marinus Dijkhuizen and his assistant, Roy Hendriksen, have parted company,” read a club statement. “The club would like to put on record its thanks to Marinus and Roy for all their efforts during their time at Griffin Park. Lee Carsley has been promoted to head coach until the end of the season.”
The Brentford chairman, Cliff Crown, described Carsley as the perfect man to steer the club in the right direction. “Lee has shown with the under-21s he is an outstanding leader,” said Crown. “His work at the training ground has been hugely impressive whilst coaching the development squad and has demonstrated he understands the club’s philosophy and the ambitions of Brentford FC.
“We believe these qualities will help Lee settle into his new role effectively and quickly.”
Completely shocked by our resignation already! Too short but I enjoyed working at Brentford. Escpecially the fans and atmosphere at GP.
— Marinus Dijkhuizen (@MDijkhuizen9) September 28, 2015
The 43-year-old Dijkhuizen, who joined from Dutch club Excelsior in June, reacted to the news of his dismissal with disbelief. “Completely shocked by our resignation already,” he said on Twitter. “[The time was] too short but I enjoyed working at Brentford. Especially the fans and atmosphere at GP.”
Dijkhuizen had endured a torrid start to the season, which involved a 4-0 home defeat by Oxford in the Capital One Cup, the record-signing Andreas Bjelland being ruled out for the whole campaign and a poor run of results in the league. He also described Brentford’s pitch as “a disaster, awful and unbelievable” after the installation of undersoil heating in the summer caused the surface to break up and led to the postponement of the match against Birmingham and an emergency relaying of turf.
But despite this Dijkhuizen said recently that he felt “no pressure from the board” and did not expect to lose his job.
Carsley assumes the position with very little experience of management apart from a caretaker spell at Coventry City in 2013, when he insisted he was still keen to learn the craft as a coach at youth level before taking on a managerial job full-time. Carsley will work with co-directors of football, the chairman of the Danish club Midtjylland, Rasmus Ankersen, and head of quantitative sports research at Smartodds, Phil Giles, who were appointed in May as part of the ambitious owner Matthew Benham’s controversial restructuring of the club that involved the departure of Mark Warburton as manager.
Warburton left at the end of the season despite guiding the club to their best league finish since 1947 after making the decision that he could not stay on and work within the new model that involved an analytical approach to coaching and transfer policy. The 3-0 defeat in the Championship play-off semi-final second leg by Middlesbrough was his last game as manager.
Benham is keen to follow the success of Midtjylland, the Danish Superliga leaders in whom he invested £6.2m in 2014. The club won the Danish title for the first time in their history last season.
Warburton has since been appointed as manager at Rangers, who are runaway leaders of the Scottish Championship after winning their first eight games this season.
Carsley’s first challenge will be to prepare the squad for the re-arranged fixture with Birmingham at Griffin Park on Tuesday evening .
Birmingham’s manager, Gary Rowett, said he believes managers who have full control over playing matters are a dying breed as he prepares to face a former team-mate at Derby County, Carsley.
“There are going to be less and less Championship managers who can solely pick the team. I think it’s creeping down a European route where there’s a head coach and more influence from other people within the club,” said Rowett.
“I spoke to Nigel Clough [lately of Sheffield United] about it the other day and I said we’re becoming a little unique. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing but it’s becoming quite unique to be a manager with no outside influence.”
Despite playing with Carsley, Rowett admitted he will not know what his friend will do at Griffin Park. He added: “Not really, I know he didn’t like peas in his omelette, he used to have it every Saturday – chicken omelette. That’s all I know about Lee’s philosophy because there’s so many other variables.”
