'Thanks for the Holy Grail Roberto. A permanent position you say? Ah...'
by Mike Forrest
The football season just gone was delightful but the light of the season is refusing to burn out with transfers and managerial movement galore keeping us entertained – it’s the season that just keeps on giving.
My commiserations have to go to Swansea and Norwich. Both have wrapped themselves up and firmly embroided thesmelves in the cliché of being victims of their own success with both being plundered of their assets. Liverpool have plucked Brendan Rodgers whilst Villa are winning a dour tug of war for Paul Lambert.
How badly will Norwich and Swansea be effected? Off the pitch I feel sorry for the fans who must surely be disillusioned with the Premier League. One decent season in the top flight and everyone ups sticks and leaves. I fear most for Norwich, who will they be able to attract that can sustain Premier League status? Though I don’t hold too much optimism for Swansea either, who have for some reason immediately appointed Graeme Jones; the assistant manager to Roberto Martinez at Wigan.
It will be a steep learning curve for both clubs and hopefully they will learn that when you are at the bottom of the food chain, you should be aiming to go unnoticed and secure Premier Leauge survival with a 16th or 17th place finish and not to punch above your weight or you shall be rightfully punished. How dare small clubs upset the hierarchy, silly blighters.
Meanwhile at the top end of the Premier League, Chelsea and Roman Abramovich are spending money as if it is going out of fashion. In all seriousness one could have been forgiven for thinking that since Abramovich has satisfied his lust for obtaining the for-so-long unobtainable in the Champions League that his interest in Chelsea would gradually recede.
In fact the opposite has happened and the Champions League success has seemingly reinvigorated Abramovich’s love for Chelsea and I for one applaud him for it. It easy to forget that with Chelsea’s transfer activity they are still managerless but I have to ask is it really an attractive proposition for a top class manager?
Just look at what happened last season. They paid 15 million pounds for Villa Boas then sacked him just like they have sacked Ancelotti, Mourinho, Scolari etc for failing to deliver Champions League glory and put a man who got unceremoniously sacked by the irrelevant West Brom and yet somehow managed to win the Champions League. And now they are more than likely going to replace the manager who guided them to the Champions League, so you have to ask what is the point of managing Chelsea?
Speaking of West Brom their search for a manager has gone largely unnoticed, which to be fair isn’t really a surprise considering it is West Brom after all. However their prudent chairman Jeremy Pearce seems to be on a roll of appointing decent managers; from Champions League winning manager Roberto Di Matteo to England manager Roy Hodgson, Pearce certainly has been on form. It will be interesting – I use the word ‘interesting’ loosely – to see if he can keep his good form going and appoint a manager capable of sustaining West Broms aspirations of being a boring midtable team.
So there you have it, the football might have stopped for the time being but the entertainment certainty hasn’t. There’s just a small matter of England’s inevitably disappointing EURO 2012 exit to deal with and the summer season of sillyness and wackiness will really be in full swing; bring it on!
