JUST what exactly is a “big-name manager”?
Dec 17 2008 By Tom Ross
winning football team but couldn’t get the best out of his players.
Young coaches who have earned their stripes coaching reserves or first teams in Leagues One or Two are very often overlooked despite being excellent coaches.
Just look at the fantastic job Mark Cooper is doing at Kettering.
He has taken them to the third round of the FA Cup, something he also did at Tamworth.
Former Baggies midfielder Craig Shakespeare is another who has waited patiently for an opportunity to come along. Since moving to Leicester he has helped them become a real force in League One.
There are many coaches like them who are desperate for the opportunity to use their coaching talent at a higher level but are rarely considered because they are not big enough names and have no experience.
How do they ever get that experience if no chairman is prepared to invest in them and take a chance?
I know of many really good coaches who are out of work, not only because of a lack of opportunities but also because they are not part of a manager’s backroom team.
Very often managers take their assistants and coaches with them wherever they go.
In this selfish game I wonder how many managers only pick assistants and coaches they know will not be after their jobs and are therefore no threat.
■ FOR A long time I have thought the game is bordering on the ridiculous.
Well, sadly, we got confirmation that the lunatics are running the asylum when Juventus goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon (should that be Buffoon?) wanted £250,000 per week to sign for Manchester City.
Yes, a quarter-of-a-million pounds PER WEEK.
I hope for the sake of football that the UAE’s oil trillionaires who own City don’t agree to his crazy demands.
If they do it really will be a nail in the coffin of the game.
A consequence would be that every Premier League player would want more money than the obscene amounts they get at the moment.
What message would it send out to supporters who are in the middle of a worldwide financial recession?
It would be confirmation that “the game’s gone”!
