After looking at footballing news today, its either Cisse spitting or chairmen leaving. Since I don’t know enough about Wigan and Whelan and I haven’t seen Match of the Day I was unsure what to talk about. Then I saw it...a story about Paul Scholes turning down the opportunity to manage Oldham.
Love this story just for the fact that I’d love to see Paul Scholes’ next career step. He has been one of the best yet quietest midfielders England have produced. No stories about shagging pensioners or punching DJ’s or biting another footballer. I wanna say what a guy but for me that’s just a list of things you shouldn’t be doing anyway.
I remember hearing 2 stories about Scholes. First one was when that film about the Class of 92 came out, he asked one of the Neville’s whether he had to go and that he more or less couldn’t be arsed. The second was a beauty I read on a Facebook page which was apparently a quote from Ryan Giggs’ autobiography ‘My Story My Life;
“I remember going camping with Paul (Scholes). I remember walking for hours in the cold looking for a good place to camp. After about 2 hours a bear suddenly came out and started to maul at me. I went down panicking. I looked up to see my best friend in the whole world Paul Scholes just looking down...then he ran. I couldn’t believe it, Scholesy was running away. I was sure I was going to die.
He ran about 70 yards away and then stopped, turned and pulled out his trusty Adidas Jabulani ball. He placed it on the ground from, like I said, 70 yards away and pinged this ball with immense power and accuracy.
It hit the bear on the head, killing it in a single blow…
Paul Scholes saved my life that day. I will never forget that…”
I don’t know how accurate that quote is...I’d love it if it was actually in Giggs’ book haha. Anyways even though I am a Wednesday fan and have no connections to Manchester United/Scholes in the slightest I think really highly of him as a person and that he is one of the best midfielders to play in the Premier League.
I liked him even more due to the fact that he knew he wasn’t ready to manage Oldham. He said “managing a club like Oldham has to be an all-absorbing, seven-days-a-week commitment. That is how Lee made such a success of it. One day I will be ready to do that.” This man can kill a bear with a football and also has some brains about him? Good man!
The thing is though I think Scholes knows that an affinity or some kind of sentiment with a club doesn’t bring success. Just look at Stuart Pearce who seems to have made a pigs ear of his time with Nottingham Forest. A legend of the club, a man who loves Forest but sadly just just isn’t good enough to manager a team just now.
Years of playing don’t automatically make you a good manager. It’s sad that a lot of Notts Forest fans thought he was going to take them back to the Premier League. This is a man who didn’t take Beckham to the Olympics because he was ‘nothing special.’
I’m more than certain that its not tarnished his reputation with Forest and I’m sure he will continue to get work in football but for me he needs to realise, as Scholes did, that he just isn’t good enough (yet).
In Wednesday’s case, there was some talk that if Nigel Pearson got sacked would he come to us? Now I like Pearson (for people who aren’t familiar with him, he captained the Owls to League Cup glory in 1991) but I don’t think he’d be the right person for the job here at Hillsborough. I like Gray and think he can bring stability to a team whereas Pearson would see us up comfortably but then have us struggle in the league above. It’d be a nice little journey with Pearson but at least we’d stay up there with Gray.
I seem to remember Alan Shearer managing Newcastle for a few games the season they got relegated, I was desperately hoping that he could keep them up that year too. Admittedly it wasn’t Shearer’s fault they went down as the damage had been done prior to him, but I bet most Newcastle fans didn’t think he had it in him to lead them back to the Premier League.
~ If he had kept them up though I’d have loved to see him manage them the season after. I wonder what team Shearer would have built ~
Another example sadly is Arsene Wenger who has had a tough time of it as late. I was talking with a few colleagues from work and we all agreed that Wenger is the best manager the Premier League has ever had and its awful the criticism he’s been receiving. Even after building Arsenal to being one of the best teams in England and Europe it might be time to call it a day with them. I would honestly hate to see it but its becoming more and more of a battle for him season after season.
A lot of people keep saying that once the financial fair play rule comes in then Wenger will take Arsenal back to where they belong but until then he’s going to have to make do with being seen as a bad manager compared to big spenders Mourinho, Pellegrini, Van Gaal, Fergie and the like.
~ We also all agreed that Fergie was the luckiest manager in football and how he is praised as the best manager the Premier League has ever seen is shocking ~
My last example has to be the hardest job of all...the England job. Roy Hodgson for me was the perfect manager for the job, at the time I have to admit I did want Redknapp but the that was just based on how well he was doing at the time with Tottenham. Hodgson brought stability to Fulham and West Brom (admittedly Fulham went down but that wasn’t Roy’s fault), he has previous international experience, has managed/played all over the world and is fluent in four languages. Then again ‘Arry is a bit of a geeza..
Roy on reflection seemed like the better choice and is doing well in my opinion, doing what he does best and is bringing stability to English football. Would Harry have done that? I doubt it, he’d probably have stuck Crouch and Defoe up front, Lennon on the wing, surely by now Ledley King would have a coaching role...can Niko Kranjcar play for England?...
But anyways for what its worth my opinion on this subject is that a manager should not be brought in on sentiment, it should be based on his actual ability to manage a team...in my opinion that seems really obvious but it still happens every year.
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Cheers for reading.
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