Back to the real world, my beloved Coventry City are currently manager-less after Chris Coleman received the boot at the end of the season.
The last game of the season was at home to Watford and was to be Marcus Hall’s last game for the club after many years of service. Coleman came out in the preceding week to say that Hall would not be starting the game on the Sunday because he wanted to put out a strong team and win the game. Although there was nothing to play for, you could (just about) understand his decision, coming off a run of 10 games without a win he wanted to end the season with a victory. With the current poor form and with Liverpool Chelsea on live at the same time, we decided to stay in the pub and miss our first home game of the season. It appeared a good choice as 2 goals in 2 minutes meant we were 2-0 down inside 20 minutes, with the game ending 4-0.
Despite sitting pretty just outside the playoffs for a short while after Christmas, we wasn’t playing well, and we were scraping games 1-0 or 2-1, masking the fact of how poor we were. His decision making wasn’t the best either, putting our star striker out on the wing after scoring 5 goals in 4 games and continuing to select a very poor winger, a winger that he had signed for £500,000 at the start of the season. A winger that cannot beat a man nor whip in a good cross is a poor one if you ask me. But the main thing that annoyed me was when he came out with a statement saying that the team needed more pace and power. By this point he had been here for 2 and a half years and the squad he was complaining about was in the majority his own signings. On the Tuesday morning after the Watford defeat Coleman was relieved of his duties, with chairman Ray Ranson stating that the decision wasn’t a knee jerk reaction to Sunday’s result.
So what of a replacement? Well bookmakers have Paul Hart and Tony Mowbray in as the favourites, although neither have yet to declare an interest. A “source close to the Mowbray family” has came out and said that he would love the job, but a source close to the family could be anyone, a distant cousins milkman more than likely. Three people that have came out and registered their interest are former Hearts manager Csaba Laszlo, Dion Dublin - thankfully this morning was ruled out of the running - and Romanian coach Laszlo Boloni. The latter has by far the most impressive cv, winning the league, cup and super cup treble in 2002 with Sporting Lisbon before moving to Stade Rennais who he guided to their highest league position in their history. He also won the Belgian league in 2009 with Standard Liege, sandwiched between 2 Belgian super cup wins. Add to that Champions League experience and he is the most successful candidate by a country mile, although two questions remain. First of all could we afford him, but more importantly could he adapt to the physical approach of the English second tier. He has said he would relish the challenge but I’m not so sure he would be a good bet. Likewise with Hart, as I don’t feel he has enough experience. Others said to be in the frame who I wouldn’t like in charge for various reasons are Phil Brown, Dennis Wise, Gary McAllister and Steve Cotterill.
What we really need is someone who has been there before and done it, someone who has experience in this division and of getting teams out of it. My choice would be Ian Holloway. What he has done at Blackpool with not much money is excellent, although whether he takes them to the Premiership or not, I can’t see him leaving. So I suppose that just leaves Tony Mowbray, who I wouldn’t mind at the helm for the job he did at West Brom. The only thing that worries me is his performance at Celtic, where the only real challenge is to beat Rangers, one in which he spectacularly failed.
Make no mistake though, Ray Ranson will pick who he thinks is the best man that his money can afford, no cost cutting here. The main - more like only - objective for him and his company SISU is to turn Coventry City FC into an attractive club for someone to buy so he can make a healthy profit. To do that he either needs to buy the stadium - the Ricoh Arena is currently rented - or take the club to the promised land. Seen as there is no money for the stadium, operation Premiership is at large.
No comments:
Post a Comment