Glenn Hoddle at Molineux, Wolverhampton. Photographer: David Jones/PA
He's back - and not necessarily at the kind of football club you would have expected him to turn up at. When Wolves announced that they had appointed Glenn Hoddle as manager, it was something of a surprise.
After all, the former England manager hadn't really been touted as a contender for the job of reviving the Midlands club, who have struggled for form since being relegated from the Premiership. He had been far more heavily linked with a return to Southampton (in some cases, as recently as today), the club he left acrimoniously to go and manage his alma mater, Tottenham, in 2001. Although football's curse on heroes rejoining their old clubs did its inevitable work, it appeared he didn't think of himself as the boss of anything other than a top division club.
A managerial career that began at Swindon and also encompassed Chelsea and England - a job Hoddle lost in the wake of his infamous remarks about disability - has all too often been characterised by allegations that he was arrogant and out of touch with his players, seeing some of them as possessing only pale shadows of his own (admittedly outlandish) talent. Rather like his playing career, it briefly threatened to be gloriously successful. So far, it has never really sparked into life.
Not that it seems to have dented his confidence: he's going for promotion, despite Wanderers' current lowly position in the Championship table.
There are those who argue that Wolves fans, hankering after past glories, have an over-inflated sense of their club's worth and where it should be. Whether Hoddle - the latest in a long line of Molineux managers over the last 10 years - is the man to meet those expectations is open to debate.
