FROM HERE TO OBSCURITY

By Andy Ritchie

THE gurus/gorillas at No Grey Areas have asked me to comment on the madness of the traditional managerial shuffle in both England and Scotland.

Well, this particular shuffle threatens to turn into a stampede. It began some weeks ago with the ousting of Malky Mackay at Cardiff and Davie Moyes at Manchester United, and has since gathered momentum.

And just think, we’re only just going into the close season, the traditional time for reassessing positions.

We’ll return to Malky (and his unreserved apology to Cardiff owner Vincent Tan) in a minute. I’m gonna start with one directly out of left field: my forecast is that Guy Poyet will leave Sunderland and go to West Ham.

For that to happen, of course, Sam Allardyce, would have to leave Upton Park. He’s the man, remember, whose name is inevitably on the lips of every chairman who sees his club disappearing down the nearest plughole.

But, since he’s managed to haul West Ham away from that plughole, I suppose he’s sort of expendable. So, enter the impressive Uruguayan, the wizard of Wearside. Well, that’s my reading of the situation - I trust myopia is not overtaking me!

I think that Poyet may have made the decision eight to ten weeks ago, even when he thought that Sunderland had no chance of wiping its feet on the welcome mat of the Premier Division next season. Alongside that, he maybe discovered that this wasn’t the club that he thought it was.

Let’s be circumspect and say he would have suspected that West Ham were looking to make changes, and it went on from there. Anyway, it wouldn’t be the world’s greatest surprise to see him installed in East London next season.

I’ll return to the Stadium of Light soon. First, let’s take a trip down White Hart Lane. It seems Mauricio Pochettino will shake the hand of Tottenham’s executioner-in-chief, Daniel Levy, any day soon - provided he starts speaking in English, of course.

Hey, my information is that the Argentinian’s English is very good. Why he refuses to do it on television is anyone’s guess. Even people who are close to his situation at Southampton don’t understand it.

Maybe it’s to keep a shield between himself and the public; maybe it’s to avoid being, er, misquoted. The laugh is that he’s responding to an English question in his own language before the interpreter has finished translating.

Anyway, should Pochettino take the Levy shilling and start speaking the Queen’s, there will be a vacancy at Southampton, a club due to lose players like Luke Shaw and Adam Lallana. The rumour is that Harry Redknapp might fancy a return to the south coast.

It didn’t go too well for old ’Arry last time, when I believe he entered conflict with a certain Sir Clive Woodward. The rugby guru, evidently, had a hotline to the chairman’s ear at the time and that was never going to be the ideal situation.

Why would Harry want to leave QPR? Might I suggest that the aroma of a ten-pound note might have something to do with it? Hey, if Harry was getting more money to return to Bournemouth, he’d be right up there with the ice cream sellers on the prom.

The Championship play-offs will determine all, I’d imagine. If Rangers don’t make it, hauling your arse up and down the road to faraway places with strange names like Huddersfield doesn’t quite hold the same allure.

Still, I don’t think it’s tablets of stone stuff yet. Southampton may very well have gone beyond the stage of Harry Redknapp. They would maybe like to bring in someone of the same ilk as Pochettino.

Many jobs could be up for grabs, It seems to be the way of the Premier world. A run of good results makes a man the flavour of Belgian chocolate, a run of bad ones puts him under pressure and there’s no safety net.

Davie Moyes (alias Billy McMoyes) knows that better than anyone. I suspect that, having sampled the white sands of Mauritius, or wherever, he’ll be ready to return and he’ll get a job again, no danger.

He won’t penetrate the top six again at the moment, so it’ll be Newcastle or Aston Villa. It’s suffice to say that I don’t think Paul Lambert will start next season as manager of Villa. The new people won’t want a regime that was less than successful.

The majority of these changes are the product of poor results, but the fall-out between Malky Mackay and Vincent Tan ran a lot deeper. Cardiff were in a position of safety when Mackay left them. So now a settlement (did he get any money?) has been made and a fulsome apology thrown into the mix.

As far as we know, there was nothing for which to apologise, so why would you do so? I don’t suppose we’ll ever really know the real story: it’s just one of the many unexplained tales that surround this game. Anyway, Mackay is now clear to take another job, and I expect him to go to West Brom very shortly.

Meanwhile, up here in Scotland but not, maybe, for very much longer lingers the Neil Lennon situation. There will be positions open to him down south - Norwich in the Championship and Sunderland in the Premier Division.

Take your pick. My message to sports journalists is see that you don’t run out of ink. There’s a lot more to come.

There are questions marks over the futures of Terry Butcher, John Hughes and also Jackie McNamara. Blackpool has gone, but will the lure of the Championship prove too strong for him?

Finally, I come to my old club, Morton. Who will be the next manager? I’m stumped with this one at the moment: give me 64,000 dollars and I still couldn’t tell you. All I’ll say is this: after Allan Moore and Kenny Shields, who will be the next one that the chairman plucks out of notoriety and plunges into obscurity?

Billy McMoyes must look for the hero inside himself

BY ANDY RITCHIE

IT doesn’t take a forensic inspection of his teenage years to reveal that Davie Moyes the footballer used to idolise Billy McNeill the manager.

There was, of course, much to idolise. McNeill was the dream role model at Celtic: the first British captain to hoist the European Cup. He was tall, authoritative, closing in on imperious, with a back that was fashioned out of a ramrod.

You are not allowed such idolatry in a football dressing room, however, without there being a payback from the less charitable elements of this crazy place. Moyes was promptly rechristened Billy McMoyes.

I’m trying to find some charity in me and therefore won’t criticise him for hero worship of Big Billy. It’s quite natural to have heroes. Listen, when I do my wee, if infrequent, spots of karaoke in a certain tavern, I imagine myself as Glasgow’s answer to Michael Buble. In my mind, if no-one else’s, I am Michael Buble. I’m not so sure the Canadian would give me a similar endorsement.

Getting back to the point of this blog, however, you imagine that Davie (or his alter ego Billy McMoyes), in his new situation at Manchester United, would want to replicate the bearing of his one-time hero. Instead, he looks very alone, even isolated, at the moment.

As United head towards a Premier League appointment at Chelsea this Sunday, some recent memories of him are less than flattering. When they played and lost to Swansea in the FA Cup, the TV cameras were panning in on him and he looked more facially distraught than I’ve ever seen him.

It didn’t seem to me as if there was anyone to help him in that dug-out. And that, to me, was his first big mistake. To bring someone in with you to Old Trafford is one thing, but to turn over most of the backroom staff must have caused some upheaval, because these people had been there for some time and had developed relationships with the players.

You know what the Dutch are like. They love each other. Well, most of them do. The talk flying about the business is that Robin Van Persie is not happy that Rene Meulensteen (now manager of Fulham) was bagged - if in fact this was the case. I see Moyes claimed recently that it was the Dutchman’s own decision to leave. Indict me as a cynic if you choose, but I can’t say I’m altogether convinced of that.

And what about Mike Phelan, Fergie’s assistant? He has made noises that he would like to have moved out on his own, but he hasn’t got a job yet. Shouldn’t there have been a place for him in that Theatre of Dreams, even if it wasn‘t plum centre of the orchestra stalls? So I imagine there might every well be a bit of disquiet in the dressing room over their twin departures.

Whatever, Moyes had people in there who’d been over the course and knew what was required. They were very good at their jobs: Fergie wouldn’t have kept them if they had been dummies. He was a damned good manager, and liked to keep damned good people around him. Yet roughly a week after Moyes was appointed, they were out.

In came people like Phil Neville, who hadn’t even been on the Everton coaching staff for very long, Steve Round and Jimmy Lumsden. Coaching-wise, they’re about as anonymous as David Cameron’s PR assistants.

Now, people have suggested that the team which won last season’s Premier League was the worst in the history of that Premier League. Well, if that were true, it must have had a good backroom staff to get them across the line. The help that they could have supplied to the newcomer would have been very beneficial at this moment. But that’s gone and Moyes finds himself behind the eight ball. Whether he is good enough to escape from this tricky situation is another matter.

Do I feel sorry for him? No. I can’t say I’d extend empathy to any managers. They’re paid plenty and are old enough to understand the rules. Davie, for me, is not my kind of guy: he’s a bit of a cold fish, but I must admit I was quite impressed by him before he secured the biggest job in English football. He had an extended time at Everton and probably was in line for a long-service medal from the dear old chairman, Bill Kenwright. Yeah, he did very well, although, significantly, he didn’t fill up the mantle-piece full of silverware. But Everton is an entirely different animal from United.

In many ways, I was surprised at his appointment. Should I have been surprised? Perhaps not. Let’s be honest: there wasn’t a queue the length of Sauchiehall Street of managers with the right credentials who were pushing themselves forward. People in the game thought it was like trying to follow Frank Sinatra at a karaoke (there I go again). Who would want that kind of responsibility?

They would be following the most successful manager in the game. Ever. God in a tracksuit. The percentages state that you’ll never live up to such high expectations. No, the managers who should have been in the frame - JoseMourinho, Carlo Ancelotti, Jurgen Klopp, Pep Guardiola, Fabio Capello - would have been thinking to themselves: “No, after you - I’ll let someone else have it before I have it.”

Smart thinking from them. I don’t believe for a moment that Davie Moyes would have been No 1 on the list. There would have been others, but any approaches would have been all done on the quiet. How many more names were on his list? One thing is certain: Alex Ferguson wouldn’t have picked someone who would have refused him.

But ask yourself this question (it comes with a 50,000-dollar price tag): would Alex Ferguson have followed himself at Old Trafford? Oh, I very much doubt it.

When he was in situ, Fergie had the power and, being the kind of person I think he is, he would have enjoyed that power. He thrived on being all-seeing and all-conquering. Listen, you couldn’t change the toilet rolls in the Old Trafford dressing room without it being run by him..

Now we’re in a situation where someone else has come in and maybe he’s not having the same response. Fergie got an extra 50-60 per cent out of those players last season. Davie Moyes isn’t getting the same.

You would love to be a fly on the various walls of Old Trafford. What is the situation between Moyes and Ferguson right now, for instance? Well, I imagine they’ll be trying to avoid each other. Fergie can’t be seen to be chapping on the manager’s door and, if things aren’t all that good within the squad right now, certainly Billy McMoyes can’t be seen to be chapping on Ferguson’s door. That would be a sign of potential weakness.

So I’d imagine they would be avoiding one another rather than partaking of a glass of wine after every match. That’s the way they’d love it to be, with Man U rolling over the top of people every week. And the fact is that the team will have to return to those ways before Davie Moyes can be considered a success and any kind of worthy successor to Alex Ferguson.

So Davie Moyes is desperately looking for heroes to pull himself out of the soft stuff. But first, as the M People song indicates, he must search for the hero inside himself - if one, other than Billy McNeill, exists.

　

Might there be a Lazarus-style comeback at Man Utd?

BLOG By BRYAN COONEY

　

WHERE once there was calm and chutzpah at Old Trafford, there is now chaos and caterwauling. The beast of Manchester United appears to be grievously wounded, and it may be only a matter of time before someone reaches for his elephant gun.

Put aside for a moment the paradoxical nature of the team’s impressive performances in Europe (the tie against Shakhtar Donetsk aside): concentrate instead on their standing in the Barclays Premier League, where United find themselves so far removed from leaders Arsenal that 20-20 vision becomes a prerequisite in establishing their present location.

Some internet pundits, then, are inviting mob rule back into our society by seeking the summary dismissal of David Moyes. The Chosen One has evidently careered down a couple of divisions of their esteem and morphed into the Tainted One. Any delay in his departure would be catastrophic, they say.

The zealotry is by no means contained to the anti-Moyes lobby: others recommend that if any blood is spilled in the Theatre of Dreams, it should belong to the strolling players rather than the leading man. So the names of Rio Ferdinand, Patrice Evra, Nani (even though he recently signed a five-year contract), Tom Cleverley, Ashley Young, Antonio Valencia and Marouane Fellaini figure at the core of their indictment.

We’ll pause the bedlam button and return to Fellaini. Didn’t he cost £27.5 million only some months ago? Isn’t he the afro-haired monster who chastised, if not terrorised, the most able defenders when he wore Everton colours last season? Hasn’t he played 47 times for a Belgium team that promises to further Europe’s reputation in next year‘s World Cup? There again, does any footballer deserve unequivocal judgement after only six appearances for the club?

Returning to the bedlam, let‘s not forget the muck-throwing contest featuring Roy Keane and Sir Alex Ferguson - you’d be forgiven for feeling you’re at Knockhill on a wet, motocross day. There was a short suspension of hostilities followed the publication of Fergie’s book, but they’re at it again, with the former player claiming that his old boss, now a director and club ambassador, is currently on a power and ego trip. Hey, is the Irishman an implacable opponent, or what?

Who could have imagined Old Trafford to be surrounded by such hoopla and hysteria in this winter of 2013? I imagine even Nostradamus would have struggled with such prognostications.

But let’s briefly inspect the ground promising to subside underneath Moyes. These are still early days, but I remain confident that this son of Bearsden will find the bricks, the cement and the all-important plumb line to put the Old Trafford house back in the best of order. Surely, there is much work to do, starting with a major pruning of playing staff in next month‘s transfer window, but it is surely not beyond a man of his capabilities.

Now for the alternatives and hypotheses. This football life inevitably carries the napalm element of shock and awe: what if the man who was legitimised by Ferguson cannot find the apposite domestic recipe? What if it becomes apparent that his magic hasn’t travelled from Liverpool to Manchester, and that his former employers at Everton somehow confiscated his box of tricks during the removal? What if he’s just not the proper fit for a club with such immense expectations?

To whom would United turn? Oh, for that 20-20 vision of my youth. I can see no obvious candidates, without ripping the world’s managerial order apart and United spending mega millions in compensation.

There is, however, one solution that might please most, if not all, segments of the Manchester United society. The frugal Glazers could open a window of opportunity and ask Fergie to lay down his goblets of red wine, put his ambassadorial hat into storage and stop trotting around the globe (New York one day, McDiarmid Park the next) like some demented Ban-Ki Moon.

In shorter form, they could ask him to reconsider his retirement options and come back to the womb as a caretaker. There are, of course, a few powerful arguments against this happening, with Fergie perhaps leading some of them and his dear wife Cathy taking up the slack.

But would such protestations prevent a comeback for a man who, in a figurative sense has never left the building? Might the temptation of a Lazarus-style return not prove too great for someone who, according to Keane, is the supreme egoist?

TALKING of Keane, did you manage to catch the much-vaunted programme, The Best of Enemies, last night?

ITV 4 plundered archive history and presented the gladiatorial contest between the former Manchester United captain and his arch rival, PatrickVieira, down the Nineties and early Noughties, as United and Arsenal strove for supremacy.

The emphasis was concentrated as much on speech as on action. Keane was initially saturnine and slightly sinister, never more so when he refused to apologise for some of his more unforgivable excesses (think that brutal tackle on Alf-Inge Haaland).

But this was television and consequently the mood of oppression had to be captured. The film makers, mindful of the current appeal of the gangster genre, brought both parties to what looked like the (cold) vaults beneath one of London’s motorways.

In spite of his surroundings, Keane eventually managed to smile and bring warmth to a normally chilling persona. But as he demonstrated with Haaland, he appears to be a man motivated by revenge. None more so than when he left viewers with that short but highly revealing profile of Sir Alex in exile.

Martin Samuel, sports columnist of my old paper, the Daily Mail, seemed somehow offended by the disclosure. He felt Keane had diminished himself because of his insistence on reopening the wounds with Fergie. As if…

Has Martin, like myself a former tabloid Rottweiler, gone all poodle on us? Has he forgotten those red-top principles of impact? I mean, would he have actually stopped Keane in mid-rant to say: “Look, Roy, me old darlin’, we don’t want none of that controversy!” ?

I imagine not.

THERE are only a few people who might be deemed essential to society. Nelson Mandela was certainly one, leaving an indelible impression on all those he met.

Last weekend, after watching the myriad tributes to him dominate my television screen, I phoned two of my former Fleet Street colleagues who actually managed to get close to the great man. I wanted to know how he’d impacted on their lives.

Back in 1990, the first guy had been reporting England’s rebel tour in South Africa the day Mandela was released from his 27-year prison ordeal. The Daily Star asked him to suspend his cricket duties in order to report on something of far greater import.

This former news reporter, delighted to obliged, despatched his duties with aplomb. In fact, I still remember his intro in the front-page splash: “Nelson Mandela raised his right arm and shook his fist at history.”

So how did he feel all these years on? “I don’t often cry,” he told me, “but this was an occasion I couldn’t help myself. I broke down several times.”

My second acquaintance was alleged to have met Mandela in Atlanta. So, how did he remember him? “We were in the press room and suddenly these two South African girls, whom I knew, ran past, shouting that Mandela was in the building. I ran after them and suddenly found myself in a line-up.

“He was shaking people’s hands. When he reached me, I asked him, very properly, if he was enjoying himself. He looked right through me - and moved on. He totally blanked me!”