Sevco’s consideration of various names is quite impressive, especially as only a handful of manager’s have actually publicly thrown their hats into the ring. Whenever a job in football comes up you get all manner of desperados announcing their intent …
Sevco’s are more desperate than most.
Thankfully our favourite Sevco website, Ibrox Noise, has been keeping a running count on who out there has said they want the job … none of these guys have been approached but their overall standard is, to use the Glasgow vernacular, boufin.
Here they are, so far, along with their respective records.
It is, as the headline suggests, comedy gold.
Leading the pack is Henning Berg. He’s had five managerial jobs since his career began, and although he had one wildly successful spell in Poland where he won a league and a cup (that’s how the Scottish press will describe it anyway) it has been dismal overall. He was “mutually consented” by his first club, which is as good as it got for him. In all four other cases he was fired; that’s the word the club’s used and the one I use. His most memorable failure came the last time he was the manager of a team based on this island, at Blackburn Rovers, which ended in spectacular ignominy and shame when he was sacked after just ten matches.
His career win percentage is 45%. In 319 games he has lost 97.
The guy a lot of their fans seem to want is Frank De Boer; his own managerial career thus far has been less than sterling. He appears woefully underequipped for the task, but has the virtue of a famous name, one the fans think could probably attract decent players if only they could afford those. Indeed, he will command quite a salary, which alone suggests it’s a non starter. His record at Ajax was very good, but then he had an outstanding squad to work with and was able to spend money. He got a move to Inter on the back of it and his managerial career should have been set up to take off like a rocket, but without all the structural advantages he enjoyed at home it was an unmitigated disaster; he lasted 14 games, losing seven and drawing two. Yet that was sweet comfort and blazing success next to his spell at Crystal Palace; managed five and lost four for one of the shortest managerial stays in the history of the sport. Wow.
It’s fair to say that his managerial career is in shreds and no club with a serious reputation will touch him in the near future. Which is why he’s interested in a basket case Scottish team where the fans at least still think he has the magic.
Next up is Tim Sherwood, a hilariously low-key figure who’s had two managerial jobs and been sacked in both before his first season was out. Although not as spectacular a failure in England as De Boer was, he doesn’t have four Dutch titles to boast about either. His time at Spurs was abysmal; the swashbuckling, attack minded team that have now was a far cry from the turgid, awful stuff the fans had to put up with when this guy was in charge and he fared no better at Aston Villa where a place in the FA Cup Final didn’t come close to excusing a managerial dip which included a mind-boggling ten games without a win. And Sevco thought they had it bad with Pedro. His team were relegation certs when the Villa board finally pulled the plug.
He applies everywhere; this isn’t a “big job” for him. If they were hiring for milkmen he’d stick in an application form, as evidenced by his comments; “Yeah I would consider any job at the moment. I will talk to anyone and see if their ambitions meet mine, so yeah certainly.”
Much the same can be said for Gus Poyet, who said “yeah it’s one of a number of jobs I’m interested in” whilst adding, as others have, that no-one has picked up the phone. The other jobs he’s interested in presumably include Secretary General of the United Nations – if it came up – being head of Goldman Sachs and a shot at running the country. He could not do worse than the Brexiteers teetering on the brink right now. All are about as likely as us seeing him in the dugout at Ibrox; even they are not so desperate as to hire someone who’s most recent job was in China, and who’s been sacked by Brighton, Sunderland, AEK Athens and Real Betis … fired in four countries; that’s his managerial record summed up nicely.
He too is applying everywhere. No-one’s breaking his door down.
Which brings us to Steve McClaren, another guy who would take work anywhere and who can’t find a gig in England, even in a league which recycles more tired rubbish than UK Gold. He, too, had a spell of success in Holland; like De Boer it has haunted him ever since as clubs hire him hoping to re-find the spark and find out only that he got lucky once. His list of failures is long and extraordinary, including a spell as England boss and two at Derby. His most disastrous tenure has got to be the one at Notts Forest, which came to a crashing ending after just 13 games, although Newcastle fans would beg to differ after the tailspin he put their club in; a 22% win ratio over 31 Hellish games in 2015-16; he doomed them and even the genius of Rafa Benitez couldn’t turn their campaign around.
McClaren would want big money, both for himself and for his signings. That is unlikely to materialise; he seems to be interested merely as a means of advertising his availability to anyone who might be daft enough to consider it. In England a lot of clubs are, but he’s been out of work there since Derby took a punt on him and then lived to regret it last season … he’s been without a club since March. Even the crazy English sides who usually hire guys like him are keeping well clear. He’s about as popular with club chairman as dandruff is with catalogue models.
And finally there’s Graeme Murty, who’s got five wins in eight games as stand-in boss, two of them in the last two matches. If he can make it six wins for nine he’ll have as good a chance as any of the jokers featured above, but a dark horse candidate has emerged tonight who’s name and face and record will be hilariously familiar to us all …..
Alex McLeish has moved into pole position as the bookies favourite, for reasons passing all understanding. He “knows the club” and so many of the fans would accept him, but his past history should give them reason for concern. Not only did his term end in abject failure but the successes he did have he, himself, personally, and with no equivocation, freely admits were mostly a result of cheating. He is quite up front about how without EBT’s the club could not have maintained even a challenge to Celtic during his time in charge.
I wonder how he thinks they could afford to sign big name players today?
He would certainly take the job – his career since leaving Scotland has been a white-knuckle ride of catastrophe; his seven matches in charge of Notts Forest is one of the shortest in managerial history; 40 days long and not a good point to be had.
These are the names who will (not) be keeping Brendan Rodgers and Peter Lawwell up at night … and the other, of course, is Derek McInnes, still, if you believe The Daily Record, sitting there desperately waiting for the phone to ring.