The arrival of the New Year – filled as it is with fresh hope and resolve that at some point in the next 12 months the speculation about Michael Owen's future will at last come to an end – hardly seems to be the time to alert the public to the menace currently stalking the Premier League with the grim intensity of a newspaper columnist seeking an amusing simile after a heavy night.
I refer, as the better informed among you will have guessed, to Sir Alex's Successor Syndrome (Sass), a condition that is currently chewing through top-level English coaching like a peckish Ricky Hatton at an eat-all-you-want buffet. Even the redoubtable cerise-cheeked Scot cannot go on forever (though whenever I consider this proposition I am reminded of the old joke about General Franco: "The Caudillo is dead." "Yes, but who is going to tell him?").
Yet whenever another coach's name features in the same paragraph as the above sentiment you can more or less guarantee that it will presage a disastrous run of form for their club, rumours of dressing-room unrest and the investment of £16m in a knock-kneed striker, "whose goalscoring record in Holland speaks for itself".
Already this season Paul Ince and Roy Keane have succumbed to Sass; Mark Hughes dangles by a thread as fine as Fernando Torres's hamstrings and the more successful Wigan Athletic become the more fear mounts for the future safety of Steve Bruce's career. Whether Sass is psychological, viral or genetic has not yet been established. But nobody who has played or worked under the current Manchester United manager is immune. Many believe that it is only the fact that Sass has not yet crossed the border into Scotland that has prevented Celtic sliding down the SPL table amid rumours that Gordon Strachan will use the January transfer window to buy El Hadji Diouf.
In Portugal, meanwhile, officials are carefully monitoring Carlos Queiroz for the telltale rash of "Obviously it's not for me to say, but it's very flattering and – who knows – in the future, maybe" quotes that generally herald the full onset of the debilitating condition.
For the Football Association the emergence of Sass is a bitter blow. The men from Soho Square had recently broken out a packet of Tesco basics ginger nuts and a jug of weak lemon squash in celebration of their successful campaign to stop the spread of Future England Manager Syndrome (Fems). Fems is a pestilence that over the past decade had destroyed the careers of dozens of our nation's most promising managers, and also that of David Platt.
The FA's answer to Fems was drastic. Some believe too drastic. They feel the FA could have acted differently, pointing out that you can immunise managers against Fems using the controversial Panorama investigation for alleged corruption treatment that has worked so successfully for Harry Redknapp. Whatever. Under direction from Brian Barwick the wholesale culling of any managerial career believed to be infected was ordered.
Even those who had only displayed signs of an early and generally non-career-threatening strain of the condition, One Of The Emerging Generation Of Bright Young British Coaches Virus (Micky Adams Disease, as it is colloquially known), found themselves driven into the so-called "safe havens" of the lower-division "protection zone". Symptoms of OEGBYBCV include an outbreak of FA coaching badges, appearing on Football Focus saying, "It's very much a reality check that will hopefully act as a wake-up call on their learning curve, Manish," and having Steve Claridge on Radio 5 Live say, "And you can't help feeling that if a chairman at a Premier League club just showed a bit of courage and vision and gave him a chance, he'd really make a go of it." Though if any chairman did just that Fems would almost certainly ensure that the whole thing ended amid acrimonious talk of amateurish training methods and an inability to gain the respect of players at this level.
As a result of the FA's action, Aidy Boothroyd, Kevin Blackwell and Steve Cotterill have all been successfully quarantined, while Stuart Pearce is safely firewalled within the England U21s set-up after an unpleasant brush with Fems during his spell in charge of Manchester City, and Alan Shearer sits smirking on the MotD sofa awaiting the discovery of a vaccine against Fems.
The Fems outbreak has ensured European countries no longer import English managers for fear of spreading the disease, something many in Lisbon blame for Portugal's failure ever to win anything under Felipe Scolari. The exception to the ban is FC Twente boss Steve McClaren, who has been certified by experts as being totally free of Future England Manager Syndrome. This is a great relief to everybody. The only fear for the bequiffed Yorkshireman now must be that his rehabilitation in the Netherlands may leave him open to the onset of Sir Alex's Successor Syndrome. The effects of having Fems and Sass simultaneously can be horrifying, as fans of any club that has been managed by Bryan Robson will tell you.
