The media really is dense at times, right? Wilfully or otherwise, what does it really matter when the end result is the same?
The Sunday Mail has an interview with Mark Allen, a soft-ball type thing, the usual for them.
But it is more revealing than they imagined and it is far more revealing than they have dared to publicise.
Their hack spoke of Allen’s “masterplan” but as the article makes abundantly clear, confirming what I wrote the other day about the dysfunctional structure at their club, it’s all well and good that he makes plans and puts together lists and ideas but those have to be signed off on by Stewart Robertson, who then takes those proposals to Paul Murray, who takes them to Dave King who then decides if they go to a discussion at the full board.
It is preposterous. It is a disorganised joke. It strips everyone of actual power and leaves the whole club in a permanent state of limbo. There is no football club anywhere in Britain which has such a chaotic organisational chart. No one person has actual authority. This is the Polish Parliament, with every person wielding the liberum veto.
And the message Allen was sending out loud and clear this morning – which the paper is determined to play down or ignore completely – is that he has no intention of being made the fall guy for the disastrous failure to bring in a manager nearly two months after the Portuguese dud Caixinha was sent on his way. Friday’s decision to appoint Murty was the high water mark of the farce. Allen is saying “don’t blame me for any of this.”
“I had a list (of new bosses) within two days,” he said. “In an ideal world, you would like it to be something that happens very quickly seamlessly. But when you are confronted with different obstacles it’s not as easy to do those things very quickly. My role was to present the potential solutions to the board to make that decision … It’s public knowledge that we pursued it. And we’re now in a position where we’ve just appointed Graeme … I play a part in it, of course, in terms of presenting to the board.”
I know for a fact that his “list” was shoved in a bin. I do not believe he was one of the people pushing for McInnes. That name was not on his list. He and Robertson tried to bounce the board into going for Chris Coleman originally, to try to move the two bitter boardroom factions warring over whether to go for McInnes or give the job to Murty; both are Murty fans by the way, but I’m told they were taken by surprise when Friday’s “decision” was made.
Allen’s claim that the board had his list of recommendations within two days is staggering. It flatly contradicts Dave King’s statement to the club AGM wherein he said the club was conducting an exhaustive search. Allen had started that search well in advance of them, and he presented his names to them within 48 hours of Pedro clearing his desk. The failure to act after that was not his fault; he is making that abundantly clear.
Neither he nor Robertson is willing to carry the water here. They are not going to have the Sevco fans or anyone else try to make them the scapegoats for the complete breakdown in the club’s high command. This was not an interview; it was a warning shot.
“As director of football I put a number of strategies forward. Ultimately it’s for the board to decide which direction they want to go down,” he said. “I went back to the board and asked which strategy we were going to go for. The board decided which direction they were going to go in and Graeme was the obvious candidate.”
I can only surmise that a conscious decision has been made at The Record/Sunday Mail to play down that aspect of it, because it’s a self-evident fact that a major split between the power brokers at a club, over their failure to appoint a new boss, is a major news story and well worth pursuing. Allen’s comments can be interpreted in no other way.
His interview also includes this wonderful tit-bit. “Who plays, the system, style, tactics, signings are all the manager’s decision.” Which at any club would be true, but it, too, flatly contradicts what Graeme Murty himself was telling the media only a week ago.
At no point in the interview is he asked why the stand-in boss was under the impression that it was otherwise. Another case of someone saying one thing and someone else at Ibrox saying another, and I don’t mean Murty; I mean whoever Murty spoke to and told him that. One would expect that to have been quite a senior person at the club.
Allen was asked about the January window too, and whether the “manager” would be supported with the money to make signings; the paper might want his comments to mean more than they do, but take them at face value and tell me what you reckon;
“That is being quantified with the board right now but there is an indication that it will be supported.”
As clear as mud, isn’t it?
This is the club he joined from Manchester City.