Mails: Fair bloody play to Jordan Henderson

Mails: Fair bloody play to Jordan Henderson

Actually a damn good Mailbox, with mercifully few mentions of Wayne Rooney. Keep them coming in to theeditor@football365.com

Fair bloody play to Jordan Henderson
Some time back during the Dalglish years, I remember a reader writing into this hallowed mailbox likened Hendo’s expression after screwing a shot high towards the corner flag, to his dog who just awakened himself by his own fart – one of genuine shock and of no effing clue what just happened.

Fast forward to today, when he’s about to put on the England armband in Rooney’s (overdue) absence from the starting line-up, I find myself truly gobsmacked at not just his rise, but at his resilience in coming back time and time again after being written off.

Props to him, and I’m really rooting for him to keep this up.
Gabriel

And fair play to Gareth Southgate too
Is it maybe Southgate’s brilliant master plan? Can’t drop the captain for his first game, but playing him against Malta gives him a good excuse to drop him before a much tougher game. Field Rooney against “minnows” to keep sponsors happy, drop him for games that matter.
Martin (love Sarah’s piece, he has become a pylon) Jackson

A long but detailed one on Football League management
After a week or so of hearing all about Ryan Giggs’ fervent and burning desire to manage a football club, so long as it doesn’t mean dropping out of the Premier League or consenting to an interview and so long as the weather’s nice and I can’t do Tuesdays because that’s when I fill in behind the bar at the hotel and I don’t like the look of that ballboy can you get rid of him please oh sod it never mind, I started thinking about the usual line about young British managers not getting a chance. There are seven British managers in the Premier League right now, and of them only Mark Hughes and Mike Phelan (who’s a bit of an unusual case) didn’t start their managerial careers in the lower leagues. Likewise, Gary Rowett, according to the PFM-types the archetypal ‘Young British manager who won’t get a chance’, started off in League Two.

After kicking this around, I decided to do some quick investigation. Of the 92 managers currently in the top four divisions of English football, 68 of them are from the UK or Ireland. There’s a great deal of variety in terms of their careers both as managers and as players, but they were all at one point in the same boat that Ryan Giggs is now – looking to take their first steps into management. Discounting three caretaker managers (Phelan, Danny Coyne at Shrewsbury Town and Mark Venus at Coventry City) who’ve never had a permanent role, I looked at where they took their first roles and at what level of the game, and their prior relationship to the club that employed them.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the majority of them started at a club with whom they had previously spent time: 46 out of 65 (just under 71%), with 38 of those already being employed as either a coach or player at the club in question upon their appointment. 23 of those 38 served time as caretaker manager before being offered the job on a permanent basis. Most of the time, if a club is going to give an unproven manager a chance, it will be because they know them and feel confident in their abilities from first-hand experience rather than tutting by their mates in the media.

Of the eight managers who were returning to an old club to take over as a first-time manager, all but one dropped down a division or more in order to do so. The only manager to make a sideways move was Graham Westley, now of Newport County but, in 1996, the newly-unveiled manager of Kingstonian F.C. in the Isthmian League.

If 46 of these managers were starting out at an old club, that does still leave 19 managers who were able to impress a total stranger enough to be handed the reins to a football club. Of those, ten started in non-league. The other nine, who managed to persuade a Football League club to take a chance on them based on nothing more than a winning smile and a good set of references? Presumably they gave a really good interview.

Pertinently, considering the likes of Robbie Savage and Chris Sutton seem determined that Giggs be plopped straight into a Premier League job and that anything less would be an insult not just to him but to them too for some inexplicable reason, only 4 out of the 65 managers started their managerial careers in the top flight or higher. That’s including Alex Neil, who started off in the SPL with Hamilton Academical having initially been appointed caretaker as one of their senior players, and Mark Hughes, who had a similar experience with the Welsh national team. That leaves only two managers from the British Isles who have done as Giggs apparently wishes to do and walked straight into a job in the Premier League at the first time of asking: Garry Monk, who turned ten years as a player plus a spell as caretaker manager at Swansea into a permanent role, and Steve Clarke, who had no prior relationship with West Brom before taking over there, but who did have about ten years or so as a highly-rated assistant with a variety of clubs. In short, neither was a legendary ex-pro being given a job because they were dead good back in the day.

Now obviously, Giggs is different to most of these managers. He was a one-club man who spent his entire career with one of the handful of clubs who, due to all that is at stake for them, would never dare to give a job to a totally unknown quantity as a manager. The route that 71% of the currently-employed British or Irish managers took is closed off to him – at least for the time being. As I said earlier, that 71% is composed of managers who had previously been employed by the club as a player or coach. To me, this seems to be the blindingly obvious path for Giggs to take – just because Manchester United no longer want him as a coach, why can’t he go to another club, get to know the place, work on his coaching and get his feet under the table? Presuming he didn’t make too many enemies at Manchester United there’s lots of options. Mark Hughes at Stoke, Mike Phelan if he gets the permanent job at Hull, Jaap Stam at Reading? Steve Bruce probably won’t be out of work for long, why doesn’t he put in a phone call and tell him he wouldn’t mind helping out? If he really wants to get his hands dirty, Darren Ferguson and Michael Appleton both would have spent time with him at Man Utd.

Failing that, if the romance of him managing a Welsh club is so enticing that Swansea have committed a sin against football by not hiring him, what about Cardiff? Neil Warnock said over the summer he doesn’t imagine he can give a club more than a season or two, so if he went there he’d have a pretty good chance before long.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe all these managers think he’s an utter git, or vice versa. Maybe he will turn out to be a managerial genius who’d be wasted taking the warm-up at Oxford, waiting to step up as caretaker if necessary. But when the majority of the British & Irish managers currently in employment, whether good or bad, young or old, Premier League star or non-league journeyman, has gotten to where they are by putting in the hours in coaching, working their way up from the bottom, and/or using the opportunity of a job interview to convince a chairman somewhere that they’d be a better choice than whoever was on the managerial merry-go-round that week, there doesn’t seem to be any reason to expect Giggs to do any differently.
JM, DCFC (God knows what Phil Brown did to persuade us to give him his first job, mind)

Cut Giggsy *some* slack at least
I love you to death, but I do take umbrage with some of the treatment that Giggsy, one of my footballing idols, has received over the past few days.

What really pissed me off was this snide remark on the F365 home page for the ‘story’ about Giggs saying he would “never manager” Liverpool. The remark from F365 went “Is it because you’re not actually a football manager, Ryan Giggs? Want him, Liverpool fans?”

Like many of the ‘stories’ in the red-tops that Mediawatch regularly dissects, this ‘story’ on F365 makes no mention of context. The man was just answering some informal questions at an awards ceremony for grassroots football in Wales. The whole bloody Q&A was a chance for Welsh football supporters to talk to one of the greatest ever Welsh footballers. So somebody asked him, probably in jest, whether he would ever manage Liverpool, and he gave that response. I think he probably found that answer funny in his mind. (MC – it probably should be said that this was a joke).

Interestingly, the Welsh Football Trust website makes no reference to this comment on Liverpool, but does mention Giggsy telling the story of how he was spotted as a child by a sunday league coach who was a milkman. That is a powerful anecdote on the impact grassroots coaches can have in football – the most decorated footballer in the country’s history was spotted by a milkman. But I guess it’s not as SEO-friendly a story as mentioning ‘Liverpool’, ‘manager’ ‘Giggs’ and ‘Manchester United’ in the opening sentence. Is it F365?

You are right though, Giggsy is not a football manager…right now. He wants to be, and he’s been training to be one for some seven to eight years – he’s done his UEFA coaching badges, been a coach at Man Utd and spent three years as the assistant manager. Contrast that with the experience that folks like Luis Enrique, Zinedine Zidane, Ronald Koeman, Frank De Boer, Mauricio Pochettino had before they got their first managerial gigs. Hint: it’s not that different.
(MC – De Boer did manage the Ajax youth team for four years, Pochettino took over at Espanyol towards the bottom of the league, Zidane (like Guardiola) did manage the Real Madrid ‘B’ team, Koeman’s first job was at Vitesse after two spells as an assistant and Enrique managed Barcelona ‘B’ after Guardiola for three years. It is a *bit* different).

Giggsy may not be as successful a manager as these guys (though the jury is still out on Zizou I would say), and will most likely not even come close to achieving the kind of success he had as a player. But he sure as heck deserves a chance at a club like Swansea. Ah Bob Bradley… the guy may have been coaching for nearly 30 years, but it would be difficult for him to get a job in the MLS now. He is the American version of Harry Redknapp, only not that good at this soccerball stuff. I don’t see how Bob is supposed to be an improvement on Guidolin, other than maybe he speaks English more clearly? Maybe.

Yours, in disgust this time,
Vik M – MUFC, Boston

…And cut Lampard some too
In the mailbox yesterday titled Frankly, that’s presumptuous, Tom describes that Frank Lampard’s attitude is “exactly the type of arrogance and narrow mindedness that we have come to associate with PFMs.”.

This claim is, ironically, a little presumptuous. but not surprising given the title F365 ascribed to the article.

Let’s have a closer look at what he’s reported to have actually said:
“I’m more back onto it but the problem is getting my badges now. And having time to do it when I’m still playing. As soon as I finish I would like to take it up and maybe be a manager. It’s hard as I only want the Chelsea job!”

Taking all that in context and reading the rest of his comments, he’s saying that he wants to be a manager, and that Chelsea is his dream job. But he is clearly aware that he can’t just waltz into the Chelsea job. He wants to be a manager, and realises he will have to start somewhere, but that is hard as he only wants the Chelsea job.

So more “Man want’s dream job but realises he might have to start with a crap job first” than “Man has delusions”.

I hope this is not a slippery slope where I end up defending JT next.
Collin (Am I the only one who thinks of him as Frank Lamppost?) Hack

Can’t get on board with the booing
I found myself torn by John Nicholson’s article on booing Rooney.

I don’t agree with standing up and booing as an effective means of protest. Boycott the game, organise a group to give your voice a better platform or cancel your subscriptions to Sky, but don’t just join the rest in mindless booing. It’s sounds like crap, it allows for misunderstanding and construing of the point, and it means that a press conference will be organised the very next day and those present will be labelled as ‘heroic’ for standing up to the bullies. There are better ways.

But I agree that booing highlights a divide the money earned create between us and the modern day footballer. At times I feel we have very little in common when we should have a lot, seeing as we’re both passionate about football. Sometimes something happens that reminds me there really shouldn’t be a divide at all. When Daniel Sturridge posts a picture on Instagram of himself curling a ball and titles it ‘whip tings’ I realise that he sounds just as idiotic as Daryl who always shoots when he should pass on Tuesday nights at Powerleague but justifies it passionately by reminding you of the one time his outside of the boot curl went into the top corner. At those times footballers seem like someone I might bump into at the local Tesco Express. But those times are rare, and mostly I soon remember that footballers have their own secret supermarket where the shopping trolleys are made of gold and the girls behind the counters are always hot.

I suppose it isn’t the footballers’ fault, they didn’t mastermind the rise of the Premier League as a brand. But they are certainly benefiting, and as they are the ones placed in front of us, they’ll get the criticism when things go wrong. I’m not sure how to feel about that. I wonder if this detachment works both ways, and footballers feel they have little in common with the man on the street?

Either way, I don’t like it. I don’t want money to ever enter the discussion of a player’s performance . I think footballers are in a high profile, high pressure job and should be remunerated adequately; they don’t need quarter of a million each week.

I’ll probably forget all about this when Liverpool play Man United next Monday, but while the passion is there, anyone else want to do something that feels like taking action rather than just letting it happen? I’m all ears.
Nick (was that a John Dunne reference in the piece John?) LFC

…I was once at and England game at the City of Manchester Stadium, (as it was known back then) a friendly before a tournament against Japan I think. Anyway Emile Heskey was booed by his own fans when his name was read out, he touched the ball and he was substituted. At the time I remember being really really angry at the morons doing it and would’ve felt just the same at the weekend I’m sure.

Booing your own players for playing football is not on, period. In recent years we’ve had Robert Enke’s suicide which there is a fascinating book about, we’ve had Gary Speed commit suicide and we’ve had countless footballer with drink, gambling and drugs problems. Now I suspect Wayne isn’t a sufferer of depression or anxiety but I can’t be sure because I’m not in his inner circle. There are pressures in all lives and occupations , no occupation can prevent mental health issues. I’m sure we all recognise footballers live a privileged life but if you want to boo someone, boo Theresa May, she’s in charge. Hammering a professional sportman going about his job cannot be healthy for the sportsman’s mind.

Frankly I think John Nich’s latest piece whilst making some very salient points about the injustices of our society (I myself had to move to China to earn a decent living) misses the point and is ultimately quite irresponsible. The target of his revolutionary attitudes should be the system not some poor bugger kicking a football.
Rob, Guangzhou

Why does the audience not get to vote to choose its pundits?
I think international weeks give rise to fever pitch over the quality of TV pundits as witnessed in a few recent mailboxes. As a fan who has decided not to renew his subscription this season as the provider I have offers limited sports packages for what I deem uneconomical and unreasonable prices, I must pose the question over what we are paying for other than the football itself. If part of our subscription fees subsidises presenters and pundits on Sky and BT Sport then why shouldn’t we have a say in who we see for our money and the style in which it is presented? The Guardian reported in 2012 that Jake Humphreys of BT Sport earns £250,000 a year to which subscription fees must contribute towards, just like they do pundit fees. Why should we subsidise this salary (and others) as well as production fees through increasingly higher subscription rates for what seems little added entertainment value?

I have always disliked Sky’s coverage due to the fact they take it too seriously. From the uptight suits to the deadly serious autocue deliveries, I have always thought it far too corporate. I can’t shake off a feeling that they have always thought that the ‘subscribers’ tune in for their coverage rather than the match itself when in reality, we’ve never really had a choice. Guest pundits often seem subdued and I can’t help feeling that the overbearing seriousness of it all, coupled with poor choices of presenters and pundits, particularly Souness who inexplicably continues to drain the studio of all sense of fun, wit, excitement and energy, just isn’t entertaining. Football is to be clinically and coldly watched and never enjoyed. BT Sport are still trying to prove they can compete, but whilst I prefer the graphics and studio of BT that contribute to a less ‘stuffy’ feel, my goodness they have let themselves down badly with their choices of supporting cast. Why should we put up with unaccountable producers continuing to employ the likes of Humphrey, Owen, Gerrard and Hargreaves for their uninspiring delivery, monotone droning and mundane thoughts whilst continuing to raise the price of TV packages?

As sport is an event, rather than regular programming, why shouldn’t producers be more democratic with us? I would like to see it put to us who we see on our TV screens and which presenters and pundits we wish to bring us analysis at the start of the season. Why shouldn’t we demand this for our money? With social media or TV package renewal, opinions before the season starts could be gathered as to whom we wish to see and how it is presented. Didn’t like Redknapp and Hoddle this year? They’re out. Quite liked Neville and Dixon? They’re in. Should we have a cameo from Gerrard (no) or Gullit (yes)? If you’d rather have Wright and Ferdinand than Owen and Savage, then vote them in and kick the other lot out. This would purge our screen of the tired old faces and tired old opinions. It might cause a few them to improve their on-camera performances. Or how about someone new? The same should be true of BBC and ITV although this contribution is more to do with the lack of content value of ever-rising high cost subscription packages than terrestrial offerings. After all, who could argue against keeping Keane, Dixon and Murphy whilst kicking out Savage, Hoddle and Sutton?
WB (subscription is dead; pay-per-view instead), Cambridge

The next challenge: Favourite bundled goals
Seeing as you are doing mailbox requests (surely the nadir of international week journalism!) can we have 10 best/worst 6 yard bundled goals please.

Personally there is something a little dirty about scoring from a goal box melee. Like a cheeky midnight burger.

Style points for more than 8 players in the 6 yard box preferably 3 behind the goal line, a keeper running round like a daft chuck and a referee trying to make some sense of it all. At least 2 miskicks with a failed header because the ball has ballooned off someone’s shin.

Someone save my sanity during the international break and link me up!
H, (Stead, only a heartless man would say bad things about Kuyt)