hartless portsmouth fc.

Well Paul Hart might as well look a bit glum because the poor bugger was sacked by Portsmouth FC  yesterday to be replaced today by the grim reaper himself; old Avram ‘the undertaker’ Grant. Who’da thunk it? I did a posting recently forecasting who might be the first manager of the season to be sacked in the Premiership. It wasn’t hard to pick Hart as the likeliest given PFC’s position at the bottom of the league. But I suggested that Hull City’s manager, Tango man Phil Brown, might actually beat him to the sack and indeed 3 or 4 weeks ago he seemed on the verge of being handed his P45. But his team have rallied a bit and are edging away from the relegation zone. So the orange one survives whilst Hart is gone.

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managerial swap shop; a never-ending story

So Man City finally sack Sven GE as their manager yesterday. Sven, of course, once accepted the job of managing Blackburn Rovers before giving back word. Now Man City are chasing Mark Hughes the current Blackburn manager, who once played for Chelsea. Chelsea once interviewed Sven GE for their manager’s job before giving it to Jose Mourinho, who surfaced yesterday as the new manager of Inter Milan, having sacked Roberto Mancini the other day. Mancini is one of the candidates for the Chelsea job which became vacant following the departure of Avram Grant, who is one of the candidates for the Man City job. So too is Big Phil Scolari, the current manager of the Portuguese national side, but Phil is also being chased by Chelsea. If he cannot be prised away then Chelsea may well plump for the afore-mentioned Hughes. Sven GE is unlikley to return to Blackburn and will probably take up a role with the Mexican national side. Blackburn may therefore go for Sam Allardyce who used to manage rivals Bolton before he moved to a bigger job at Newcastle from whence he got sacked earlier this season. The Newcastle job was probably the one that ought to have been offered to Sven GE but they’ve now appointed Kevin Keegan, who’s done the job previously. That was before he went to Man City who finally sacked Sven GE as their manager yesterday…..

pp

news on the new newc utd boss

Well it’s just a pot-pourri of names being thrown around at the moment to replace Sam Allardyce at Newcastle. Reports today suggested that Sam was sad but quite phlegmatic about his situation. I suppose a £6m pay-off for failing to deliver, creates a feeling of quiet mellowness. So who’s going to be next to sup from the poisoned chalice?

wham bam goodbye sam

Well we’ve been forecasting it for weeks and tonight Newcastle U have sacked Sam Allardyce. I take no pleasure seeing anyone lose his job but Sam’s appointment always looked a mis-match and he’s been dead man walking since the new guy took over ownership. I note they allowed Sam one poke at the transfer market to see how he fared and he made a bid for Wes Brown but Man U weren’t interested. Nor too was Wes by the look of it and I’m sure the owners must have thought that if Sam can’t attract a Man U squad player, what chance would they have attracting top players all the way up to Geordieland? None is the answer so they’ve withheld the money and got rid of Sam instead. It makes sense not to throw more money at a problem that wouldn’t go away – Allardyce couldn’t handle that particular job.

big sam joining little sam?

Clutching their P45’s that is perhaps? What do you think? Allardyce wasn’t the managerial choice of new owner Mike Ashley, he spent quite a bit of money in the transfer window and after a decent start they’ve now gone 5 games picking up just one point in the process. It’s not exactly the biggest slump of all time but the toon are starting to get badly beaten; the fans are, in the words of that great observer of human nature Joey Barton, turning ‘vicious’ in their criticism of the manager and the standard of play, and yesterday it came out that a delegation of senior players led by captain Geremi are making representations to the manager about his tactics and methods. It all sounds very recent Bolton-like.

billy no mates

Well the final one of my pre-season forecasts for the Premiership managerial chop, Billy Davies, lost his job at Derby today. No big surprise; Derby are adrift at the bottom of the league and Davies has been talking himself out of a job (and into a pay-off) for weeks. He’s been ranting in the media about the lack of quality at the club and the need for at least 6 new players ie blaming the board for a lack of investment. Bye Bye Billy.

chris hutchings and november

Well another of my pre-season managerial casualties came true when Chris Hutchings lost his job at Wigan yesterday. I don’t think anybody was too surprised at his departure. I was more surprised at his appointment to be honest. Yet another decent no 2 fails to make the grade as No 1. What did surprise me about Hutchings’ sacking was that he has twice succeeded Paul Jewell at Bradford and Wigan and he was sacked on both occasions after 12 games in charge on November 6 2000 and Nov 3 this time around. Spooky eh? He must look forward to bonfire night as much as the noise abatement society. Poor sod. It makes Sir Alex Ferguson’s 21st anniversary today as manager of Man U all the more remarkable.

managerial sack race

Well I may not be 100% accurate with forecasting the outcome of major sporting events but in terms of managerial casualties I’m on a roll. Following Mourinho and Lee’s departure, this week also saw the departures of Jol and Staunton. Jol’s has been coming for a while of course. I did say pre-season that unless he’d got off to a flyer, he’d be under instant pressure having spent £40m in the summer.