‘FEELS LIKE WE ONLY GO BACKWARDS’
Last December, Wolves and Southampton were the Premier League’s bottom two clubs, seriously at risk of being cut adrift. Both then hit the panic button within 24 hours of each other, Wolves sacking Gary O’Neil after a testy late 2-1 home defeat by Ipswich, and Russell Martin getting the boot for an equally ominous 5-0 gubbing by Spurs. Both clubs rolled the dice on grizzled, combustible European coaches. In the short term, one appointment worked – Vítor Pereira led Wolves on a chaotic pub crawl to safety – and the other did not. Ivan Juric earned four points in 14 games and was sacked before achieving his ambitious goal of not leading ‘the worst team in Premier League history’. Southampton were relegated with seven games to play, while Juric vaulted back on to his feet by getting the gig at Atalanta.
What happened next? Well, the Lionesses’ Euro 2025 heroics meant Saints and Wolves were no longer vying for the title of best Hampton. Wolves struggled with a post-survival hangover, but offered Pereira a fresh three-year deal despite four defeats from their first four games. “Now is a time for stability,” cheered chief suit Jeff Shi. Forty-five days later and with two points on the board, Shi decided now was a time for upheaval, and Pereira was given the boot. Perhaps he was panicked by the sight of Southampton sitting 21st in the Championship, like the ghost of relegation still to come. In just 13 games, Saints had shredded the reputation of one of Europe’s most promising young coaches – and revived their strange parallel with Wolves by sending Will Still packing just a few hours after Pereira.
That connection has intensified further with both clubs seemingly considering a return to the managers they had sacked 11 months ago. Have they completely lost the plot? We understand successful managers going back to their old clubs is very much in vogue these days, but the key word there is successful. O’Neil appeared all set for a – what’s the opposite of triumphant? – return to Molineux but has walked away from what is surely the last Premier League job he’s likely to be offered. That said, Southampton appear to be actually willing to consider rehiring Martin, burned by a bin-fire stint at Rangers and with a career win percentage of 39% – exactly what’s required for a Championship relegation scrap.
If either club really wants to turn the clock back, they should imitate Everton’s move for David Moyes or Martin O’Neill’s romantic return to Celtic. Maybe Southampton could give Gordon Strachan a call. As for Wolves, if they’re going to go down, they may as well get big Mick McCarthy in for the meme potential. As for the bigger picture, it’s worth noting that since the start of last season, 46 of the 94 clubs to play league football have changed manager; Southampton have done it three times, with a fourth poor sap on the way. Like the owner Fosun at their twin crisis club up in the West Midlands, Saints majority owners Sports Republic have dragged a stable Premier League club into turmoil through bad recruitment and impulsive decisions. Perhaps it’s time the suits accepted they don’t know how to run a football club, and marched themselves through their well-used doors marked Do One. On the other hand, Brendan Rodgers is available.
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I love Leeds, I love the place, I love the club. If everything was OK, I would have stayed there. But I didn’t want to be playing second division football, and they couldn’t afford for me to stay” – a quarter of a century from his four-goal show against Liverpool, Mark Viduka reminisces on playing in Croatia during civil war and opening a flamin’ coffee shop after retirement.
FOOTBALL DAILY LETTERS
Your Memory Lane picture (yesterday’s Football Daily, full email edition) of Sunderland fans with their car in 1973 stirred some unpleasant memories of the vehicles of that era. I’m not convinced that they have painted stripes on their Morris 1100. More likely to be the duct tape required to hold it together” – David Branch.
May I be number myself among at least 1,057 others in being horrified at your suggestion that the Muppets in The Muppet Christmas Carol should be considered ‘muppets’ in the derogatory manner intended by the disgruntled West Ham fan you quoted (yesterday’s Football Daily). Michael Caine’s performance is of course a straight-faced delight, but to suggest that he was surrounded by a hapless cast is ludicrous. Perhaps Sam Eagle was a bit wooden (and got one of his lines wrong), and maybe the mawkish minor characters were a bit too close to the clichés of the source material, but the rest light up the screen and fill the audience with festive cheer. Perhaps, instead of Jarrod Bowen and his fellow Hammers, the ‘human actor plus Muppets’ comparison might thus be applied more accurately to Leo Messi and his Barcelona teammates in 2008-09?” – Luke Davydaitis (and no others).
Send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s prizeless letter o’ the day winner is … Luke Davydaitis. Terms and conditions for our competitions can be viewed here.
RECOMMENDED LOOKING
It’s David Squires on … Roy George of the Generic and the future of football.
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