Here in Scotland, frustration and anger over VAR continues to grow the closer we get to the split. The business end of the season is when the craziness tends to happen and when things that would barely have drawn a whimper are suddenly momentously important. In England, where things are even crazier, it is the Silly Season. The Sacking Season.
This year feels like an outlier though. I have never known so many managers in the top flight to fall in such a short space of time and every one who does sees a new round of speculation linking Ange Postecoglou to a move. The writers of this stuff don’t even need facts to write these pieces and some of it actually contradicts what the top sports journalists in England know from having spoken to people at the centre of the clubs.
Ange would do well to pay attention to the nature of what’s happening down there. Clubs have no patience for the “project”. Chelsea hired Potter on the explicit understanding that he would get time to put his ideas into place. Their patience lasted 7 months, and that was longer than many in the media thought that he was going to get.
This is the second Chelsea manager to go this season. Southampton have also sacked two. This is incredible. But it’s a symptom of the wider issue.
Everton fired their boss. Leeds manager has gone. Wolves’. Palace’s. Rodgers is gone at Leicester. Conte at Spurs. Manchester United fired their boss. Aston Villa got rid of Gerrard. Scott Parker was sacked by Bournemouth. In fact, no fewer than a dozen EPL managers have been sacked in this campaign so far, which is a new record.
And we’re not finished yet. Forest’s manager is on the brink. We might yet see West Ham dispense with the services of David Moyes. That would take the sacking count to 14, and that’s extraordinary but sums up the level of panic which sweeps through that league.
No other top flight in Europe goes through convulsions quite like it. Ange has spent years building his managerial reputation. Right now it’s as high as it’s ever been and he is finally at a European club with a huge pedigree. A move to some middling English side will give him a bigger platform than he probably ever thought possible – but at what cost?
He can certainly make money there, more than he’s ever made in his life, but I’m guessing Ange is already pretty well off. Here at Celtic he’s in total control. He can write his own ticket. He can build this club into anything he wants it to be.
In England, in their top flight, the pressure for success is instantaneous. If he had started at an EPL club the way he started at Celtic he would have instantly been a candidate for dismissal. It has happened down there already this season. Nathan Jones at Southampton got eight games. Eight. He lost seven of them, but with that squad, in that league, what do you expect?
There are a handful of teams in that league capable of winning a title. But every club under them is massively outgunned and those sides below the top six don’t stand a chance. Theirs is a constant struggle for relevance when it’s not a struggle for survival.
And more and more, it is exactly that; a brutal, Darwinian brawl. So why would he want anything to do with it? At most of these clubs you are merely waiting for the moment you dip below a certain level and then you’re just waiting for the inevitable firing.
Ange should be taking note … and steering clear of it all.
Ange has integrity I’m sure and I hope he shows his side of a two way loyalty package; to the fans, the club, the players he brought from the other side of the world, to the task he started and needs to see through. That requires more time. The fans back him, the club backs him, the players back him so he should carry on here with the project he started, with the task at hand as he stated and ignore the noise.
With achievement should come reward. The man has made and saved this club a pretty penny so far, more to come no doubt. The board are well able to up his contract length and wages and in the same manner entice the players he needs to remain by increasing their contracts and wages too. I have no doubt he’ll be here next season. HH
The EPL has always been a pure money pit, yet until this season hasn’t really been addressed to the amount of money wasted within it and ultimately the manager pays the price with panic of failure with the finical costs to a club massive.
The majority of the players involved have hit the highlight of there career with landing a huge contact just to play within but a manager is left with trying to get a player to preform when to easily a stinking attitude can set in very quickly within a changing room.
Would Ange want to be part of such a shite merry go round?
I just don’t see him been interested in it and wouldn’t suit his own character either imo.
Let’s not forget that Ange hasn’t had much experience with working with so many over paided arseholes either, and couldn’t actually see him getting any enjoyment from dealing with the likes either.
Ange sets a very strong moral code within a squad of his players that doesn’t seem to be on offer within the EPL and many of the teams where money takes preference still.
Would be shocked to see Ange ever wanting to enter such a cattle market that exists where job satisfaction is never going to matched on the level he experiences with ourselves and won’t be questioned for the foreseeable either.
Far more to life than having a huge bank balance and believe that means far more to Ange and his teams upon anything else imo.
i think ange would have to do better in europe, then 1 of the top six epl clubs might take notice…i expect him to be here for at least 1 more season….but couldn’t blame him if he leaves this summer….
for elite, ambitious players and coaches…the spl – at celtic – must become boring and run of the mill….only so much they can take i’m sure…tho having said that, i absolutely love mcgregor for his loyalty and broonie before him….
ange WILL leave, sooner or later…..i just hope, those in charge at parkhead, will have a contingency plan to deal with that when it happens….unlike on previous occasions…
but, the arrogant bastard lawwell is back….and lennon is out of a job(again)……..
We see what money in the e.p.l. creates, panic, even Abada wants to be part of the money pit. What’s the best he could hope for, bottom table, if he’s lucky mid table, agents have got a lot to answer to, how many carriers have they ruined for a quick buck?
Ange, I’m sure, is well aware of the pitfalls of managing in the EPL with one of the less fashionable sides. if he ever does decide to go it will be with one of the top sides and it will be a move that suits him. His own ambitions will decide that eventuality and, if and when the time comes, I’m sure he will do it in a classy way, and not disappear like a thief in the night, Let’s hope that time is not for a long time as he still has trophies to win and records to break at Celtic Park first.
Potter walked away with a reported £60m after 6-8 months. The world said wrong fit for both, but Potter was thinking of Potter.
Ange not like that he has principles. As someone stated above Ange will want at least one or two cracks at europe.
This is an excellent analysis of the zany English Premier League. This column ought to be circulated all over the media down south. Maybe the writers who deal in speculation and the constant click-baiting of readers with ridiculous headlines and vapid reporting could learn something by reading this. Good work mate.