Mourinho; Moyes; Allardyce

I have an embarrassing image in my mind of Jeremy Nicholas innocently cueing a rapturous round of applause for Sam Allardyce’s new contract this afternoon and instead being met with a disgruntled mixture of jeers, boos and of course, a number of justified cheers.

As Allardyce’s second term in charge reaches a climax, it is fair to say he still hasn’t won the support of everyone. That is despite an immediate return to the Premier League, a trip to Wembley and a mid-table finish in the top flight.

Much like you are probably bewilderedly wondering why Manchester City have dismissed Roberto Mancini just one season after he snatched the league title from the red half of Manchester, plenty of football fans will be scratching their heads for as to why any Hammer could legitimately oppose Allardyce’s reign.

Whilst I am not arguing Allardyce is an inflated, northern reincarnation of Pep Guardiola, I do think that to suggest his style of football is far different from plenty of other successful coaches is a myth.

Last Saturday we were beaten comprehensively. Allardyce himself admitted that the players looked distracted and has also stressed the need to improve away from home next year. Thus we should hold back on whining about away form and give Sam a chance to rectify it over the Summer. After all it was our home form which was criticised last year and our away form celebrated. Some people have short memories.

Apparently Saturday’s game was one of Everton’s best performances of the season, undoubtedly sparked by the emotional exit of David Moyes who will succeed Sir Alex Ferguson at Old Trafford.

Moyes’ eleven years at Everton are considered successful because they were stable. He has managed to operate on a tight budget and still wedge the club firmly in amongst the top seven. If Allardyce has already broke into the top ten in one year (assuming we hold on to that place today) then what makes you think he cannot replicate Moyes’ success?

It is also important to remember that Moyes has been criticised in the past for similar to reasons to why Allardyce has been. Brendan Rodgers, Steven Gerrard and even Ferguson himself, the man who recommended Moyes as his heir, have labelled Everton long-ball merchants.

With reference to Marouane Fellaini in Manchester United’s game against Everton this very season, Ferguson argued “it was just difficult to handle him when they were knocking these balls up to him. He is a handful, a big, tall, gangly lad, and they just lumped the ball forward to him, that's all they did”. Sound familiar?

Fortunately for Moyes, these jibes have been brushed off whereas for Allardyce, the label has stuck like fluff to Velcro. This is probably because Moyes has become somewhat of a media darling for the longevity of his time at Everton whereas Allardyce will always be 

Moyes' new 'image' at Man U

associated with an unfashionable Bolton Wanderers team.

When questioned about these criticisms back in November, Moyes was unfazed. He argued that “we are beginning to compete better against most of the top clubs now so that’s perhaps why these things are being said. I’d sooner get that, them having a dig, than people being nice about us because we’ve lost”.

Moyes makes a valid point. West Ham went through a stage of being continually praised under Gianfranco Zola, and whilst it was flattering, we were a far weaker and unstable outfit back then. You must first become hard to beat in the Premiership to earn the right to attack with fluidity.

Anyone who saw Everton against us last Saturday, or at their best during the season, must admit that they play an attractive style of football, and most importantly a successful brand of football. However they set up for games very similarly to us.

They have a solid back four, two deep-lying central midfielders, two wingers, one striker and a goal scorer sitting just behind him in the form of Fellaini (our Kevin Nolan). The only difference between us and Everton is that Moyes has had the time to acquire quality players and to have them play with each other regularly.

Allardyce is in a fantastic position to do the same. In Andy Carroll we already have a superior target-man to Victor Anichebe; if we can hold on to him we can work on improving our squad to a similar standard.

As useful as Joey O’Brien has been this season, Leighton Baines is obviously a better attacking force. Similarly a goal-scoring winger in the form of Kevin Mirallas was the difference between the sides on Saturday, he is far better than Ricardo Vaz Te.

Allardyce has admitted “we need better players” despite the fact that the squad is already strong. If we support him and give him time to upgrade the team in a similar manner to how Moyes has, we could be rewarded with a team regularly competing in the top-half of the league.

Allardyce is perhaps in a better situation than Moyes was as he has greater funding, the prospect of a large new stadium and the attraction of London which is likely to appeal to some transfer targets.

Another coach likely to be plying his trade amongst the Premiership’s elite next year is managerial superstar Jose Mourinho. Unlike Allardyce, when you think of Mourinho, you do not think of the long-ball, you think of trophies, a fashionable foreigner and ‘the special one’.

When compared to English coaches, Mourinho’s career has been rather fortunate. It was Mourinho’s short success at União de Leiria, a side now in the Portuguese third division, along with his charisma, which convinced Porto to appoint him.



The English equivalent of Porto would have undoubtedly looked abroad for their manager whereas Portugese coaches have a greater chance of managing the major clubs in their home nation. With just one year’s managerial experience Mourinho got the Porto job; Allardyce had four smaller jobs before his eight-year spell at Bolton but he was still inevitably leapfrogged by foreign coaches for the top jobs.

In reality it is the image of Mourinho which makes him so attractive to employers. He is charismatic, lovingly arrogant and above all a winner. In just two years at Porto, Mourinho was fortunate enough to inherit a good group of players and dominate the Champions League in a particularly weak year. Porto eventually overcame a distinctly average Monaco in the final and the rest is history.

I am not trying to criticise Mourinho. I am just pointing out the opportunities he has had in his career are because of his image and his nationality. If he was a somewhat overweight, Worcestershire-born bloke named Sam I suspect his career would’ve panned out extremely differently.

Mourinho is actually extremely similar to Allardyce in terms of tactics. He is a pragmatist and his teams are predominantly reactive rather than proactive, even when they do include the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo as opposed to Kevin Nolan.

His favoured 4-2-3-1 is similar to the way Allardyce lines up as it can smoothly transform into a 4-4-1-1, a 4-5-1 or a 4-2-1-3. These rapid transitions are the reason that 4-4-2 is rarer in modern football; it is simply too rigid to adjust quickly when a team wish to change the emphasis and speed of the game.

If Allardyce hadn’t been alienated from so many other coaches via his reputation, perhaps he would be better appreciated like Moyes. The fact is that Allardyce has become an iconic image within the game, but he represents everything which has become unfashionable.

Allardyce represents the antithesis of the stylish manager, but in reality he may not be so different. We should appreciate finishing the season in tenth position in the capable hands of Allardyce and I hope next season is another one of many stable, successful campaigns under his guidance.

 

Follow me on Twitter @RichMaher93

Why the 'Rooney Rule' should not be introduced in England

Of course in our country, the name Rooney only triggers the thought of one man, that being Wayne; arguably our best footballer for many years. However, in America the name Rooney is most prominently associated with Dan Rooney, the chairman of the NFL’s diversity committee and owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers whose rule (‘The Rooney Rule’) forces football teams to interview an ethnic minority as a candidate for senior roles within their club. The name ‘Rooney’ could soon have similar connotations in the English game.

American lawyer Cyrus Mehri, a key figure in the implementation of the Rooney Rule in the USA, arrived in London recently to discuss a possible system of a similar nature being enforced in English football. The PFA’s chief executive, Gordon Taylor, of course backed the idea in the politically correct fashion in which you would expect; but is this really a good idea? I don’t think so.

The issue with regards to this rule is; is it really necessary? People can speak of inherent racism remaining within our country as much as they like but as far as I’m concerned it is obvious that football does not suffer from it. The amount of black players in the Premier League for example, shows that there is categorically no discrimination as 24% of the Premiership’s players are black whilst only 3% of the country is.

However, of course this issue is about management where, admittedly, the figures are rather disproportionate. The only black managers currently in professional work in England are Chris Powell, the boss of Charlton, and Chris Hughton, of Birmingham City (who is actually mixed race). This is odd but is it really through a lack of opportunity which the advocates of this rule try to convince us of?

Other former black managers who spring to mind are Paul Ince and John Barnes. Paul Ince was handed the Macclesfield Town job and, after impressing, was quickly promoted to MK Dons. Here he had a successful spell with a 60% win record and led the Dons to the Football League Trophy and to becoming League 2 Champions. As an exciting, young manager, it wasn’t long until the Premiership clubs began sniffing around him, despite the fact he’s black would you believe!

He couldn’t resist the lure of the top tier of English football and so decided to ditch his lower league club and was appointed by Blackburn Rovers in the summer of 2008 to become the first black manager in the league. However, his story goes rather downhill from here as a miserable run of 11 defeats saw him sacked by the end of the year. Did this have anything to do with the colour of his skin? Of course not, it was a just a run of poor form in an infamously results-based industry. Ince was even given the chance to return to MK Dons the following summer however he eventually decided to leave again and was consequently signed by Notts County. Here he lost a record 9 games in a row and left the club by mutual consent. Again this was because he failed in his job, not because of the colour of his skin.

John Barnes is perhaps an even more obvious example of a manager who was given an opportunity but failed and is now out of the game. Despite the statistics with regards to black managers, Barnes was handed a shot at one of the biggest jobs in Britain; Celtic. His team were ridiculed for how badly they performed under him and suffered a shock Scottish Cup defeat to the hands of Iverness Caledonian Thistle leading to him being duly fired. After a short-spell as boss of Jamaica, Barnes indicated he wished to return to club management and despite his previous failures, he was appointed by Tranmere Rovers. His time there was disastrous and he was sacked after just two wins from eleven games.

This is not in any way suggesting that all black managers will be failures, it simply shows those who have been given opportunities that, if what supporters of the ‘Rooney Rule’ suggest was true, they never would have. There have been other black managers in England including Viv Anderson (also the first black man to be capped by England), Luther Blissett, Leroy Rosenior and Keith Alexander. Suggestions of a ‘glass ceiling’ in place for black managers did arise when the latter two began to become more successful in the lower leagues, but of course Ince’s appointment by Blackburn smashes these accusations.

Chris Hughton and Chris Powell were both appointed as managers this year. Had the Rooney Rule been in place everyone would’ve been praising it for its progress whereas, infact, neither has needed the Rooney Rule to earn their positions. Instead they can receive the credit for working hard and ignoring the manufactured idea of managerial discrimination.

Powell’s namesake, Hope Powell, who is also black, is the manager of England women, and has held the position since 1998. Again this shows football has not hesitated to include, and maintain, a black manager when he, or she in this case, is of the right calibre. Why should clubs have to interview ethnic minorities if they are not of the right calibre? It is a waste of everyone’s time and could be depriving a more deserving manager the time of a club’s chairman, regardless of his skin colour.

With the amount of money being thrown around in football at the moment, I can guarantee that no chairman would hesitate to appoint a black, or Asian manager if he thought that it meant bringing success to his club. Chairmen look for potential and success; not skin colour.

Mehri has eccentrically claimed that the lack of black football managers in the Premier League is “like putting poison right through society”. However the only matter of racism is coming from Mehri himself as he is making an issue out of something which is essentially not a problem and infecting the media with it in an attempt to broker another deal for himself and add another big achievement to his CV. If the rule is enforced it will be he who gets the credit for black managers breaking into the game, not the likes of Hughton, Ince and Powell.

In a ‘Martin Luther King’ fashion speech, Mehri has described himself as a “catalyst for change”. However no comparisons, however minimal, can be drawn with this situation and the time when King was campaigning for his dream. At that time federal action was required, but we must hope that no senior official in football considers himself a potential John F Kennedy as the ‘Rooney Rule’ would only cause more damage than progress.

At a time when we have reached the stage where most see skin colour as irrelevant, why would you separate the minorities from the majority all over again? This act of positive discrimination is insulting to white people in the sense that it suggests they believe they are a ‘superior race’ and also embarrassing for black people and other minorities, who wouldn’t like the idea of receiving special treatment and being separated from the rest of society again.

Do I hope that there are successful black managers in English football in the future? I don’t really care. As much as I don’t care that there are currently more managers from Glasgow than those from England; I’m surprised someone hasn’t made a conspiracy theory about that. Whether the Premier League has 20 white managers, 20 black managers or half and half, as long as our league is the best in the world I will be content that each and every person is doing his job.

Why football should employ a salary cap

As Premiership clubs are warned about their wage structures and recent statistics reveal that top flight clubs were spending around 1.3 billion on player wages even before Manchester City’s big-spending summer, we are yet again faced with the inevitable, yet predictable question; should football have a salary cap? The sport seems to have taken one step to far in recent times with irresponsible, uneducated footballers such as John Terry and Ashley Cole making publicly visible life errors and arguably, mediocre players such as Kieron Dyer and Michael Ballack remaining on astronomical wages. Unless you’re as deluded as the Chelsea left-back’s women judgement, the answer is a categorical yes.
Clubs such as West Ham, Crystal Palace and most notably Portsmouth have been placed in severe danger of ceasing to exist completely; an eventual state which would be a bloodcurdling disaster for staunch supporters. Fans will loose their love, which they have cherished throughout generations and the integrity of the sport will suffer a major dent if clubs with any form of history and heritage begin to disappear off of the face of the earth. The reason for this; astronomical wages which are financially crippling clubs with any kind of ambition. More and more foreign owners are breaking into the premiership toy shop, playing with a club, demanding instant success, handing out ridiculous contracts to playing staff; and if all goes wrong? They simply walk away, find something new to play with and leave the broken toy waiting for a saviour, reminiscent of David Gold and David Sullivan picking up the pieces at West Ham after the outlandish, unsustainable Icelandic era, fronted by Eggert Magnusson - and as debt increases, less of these heroic figures are going to be able to save the plight of doomed clubs.
The job of a footballer requires little responsibility - as doctors, nurses and soldiers struggle to stay out of the red, these uneducated fools are splashing out on Bentleys without a care in the world - how can this be logical? When these men and women fight for our country and save our lives, it seems staggering that a young man who kicks a ball around for 90 minutes on a weekend can get paid double in a week in comparison to what these high-profile professions earn in a whole year. A salary cap must be enforced.
As a casual fan of America’s NFL, it’s obvious this system has worked wonders in making their league one of the best domestic sport leagues in history to date. Every year holds an exciting race for the Superbowl title, with even games, competitive players and eventually an unpredictable champion. It’s a tried and tested method. It’s worked extremely effectively; so why not use it?
However; I must stress that I’m only in favour of the salary cap it it’s enforced on a global basis by FIFA. Players would simply request transfers abroad if nations such as Germany, Italy or Spain had no wage restrictions and this would degrade the quality of the league completely, turning the English premiership from what I believe is the greatest football league in the world to a mediocre campaign.
You may argue that if a club has money, why shouldn’t they be able to spend it? That’s why giving each club a unique salary cap based on their turnover is a rational option - this would mean large clubs such as Manchester United, who work hard on increasing their stature throughout the world and make colossal sums each year from selling their brand would have the ability to hand out bigger contracts than the likes of say, Wigan Athletic, who obviously don’t make anywhere near the same profit as United. As success breeds popularity, each club would strive to reach the top in order to make money and gain a lenient salary cap, meaning clubs would be unable the simply buy success and would have to gain stature naturally before being able to spend titanic sums of money in order to sustain their success.
Of course there is the argument that with foreign owners giving mammoth wages to English residents, the taxes are coming back into the country. But, with the economy in the dire state it is, these taxes obviously aren’t doing much good. The reality is, the government will always spend out of their means, no matter how much money is coming into the country. Footballers taxes appear relatively ineffectual at this current state, so why not change it? Football will provide it’s fair share of money for the country anyway if is able to win the 2018 world cup bid.
Yes; football gives an opportunity for the middle-class to earn big money and achieve a dream of being ‘rich’, but, in this respect, football is more of a distraction from education than a realistic, potential career. An extremely limited amount of hopefuls make it as a professional, so if gullible youngsters unrealistically believe they can be the next boy wonder, their education could suffer through lack of caring and a poor attitude under the belief they don’t need the qualifications. If wages were capped, perhaps these students would work harder on their studies rather than following the “£” signs provided by football. For the uneducated boys who actually do move into the game, role model status is instantly their, as idols to thousands, a huge number of kids aspire to be like these players because of the money they earn. If they didn’t receive such obscene amounts, perhaps more suitable role-models would be selected such as attainable jobs like doctors and lawyers.
Obviously I am in complete favour of a global salary cap for football, it will keep the clubs safe, the supporters happy and take the game back to what it originally was - a working man’s game and no longer a corporate monster which sucks all the fun out of a game which is, after all; entertainment.