Three and in – not just another football blog

As the news of Bébé slipping back out of the Old Trafford door with as little fuss as when he quietly slipped in, it begs the question; How has his transfer to Manchester United been so easily forgotten about? This was a player who was homeless a year or so before the signing, which is novel enough as a multi-million pound industry story. But on top of that, and here we may find the root of the answer we seek, his transfer to Manchester United had a distinctly ‘dodgy’ aroma to it.

The player was signed by Guimaraes for just half a packet of Rolos, then five weeks later, after a couple of pre-season games, they sold him to Manchester United for over £7m! Without Ferguson having ever seen him play! During the midst of a difficult financial period for Manchester United in which £7m wasn’t far off being their record transfer fee!

But why didn’t Manchester United, with their Portuguese scouting system and former assistant manager in charge of the Portuguese national team, just sign him for free a month earlier? Did he really make his mark during those pre-season friendlies?

But what’s this? Just before he completed this big-money transfer, he was suddenly poached from his existing agent by Portuguese ‘super agent’ Jorge Mendes, also responsible for the sales of Anderson, Ronaldo and Nani to Manchester United? A man who knows Alex Ferguson well? And he owned £30% of Bébé’s ‘economic rights’, so made about £3m out of the transfer for himself?

That sounds a bit suspicious. Has he ever been involved in Alex Ferguson paying over-the-odds for a Portuguese player before now then? What’s that? He handled negotiations directly with Alex Ferguson and Peter Kenyon for the sale of Ronaldo to Manchester United for £12.24m when Sporting had already accepted a bid from Arsenal for just £5.5m? An extra near-£7m? It sounds almost as if someone or other may have made the transfer happen purely for potential underhand personal financial gain.

As does this Bébé one.

Just like another Ferguson family member was once accused of doing on a BBC documentary. Which led to Ferguson blackmailing the BBC. Which he’s still doing. And coincidentally, no press agency is asking any questions about the potential for dodgy dealings behind this recent transfer.

Interesting…

Somebody did something naughty last year. But we shouldn’t be allowed to tell you what it is because they have a lot of money and have bought one of those things you’ve only heard of recently. But you can know who the other person involved was, sure, she’s not that rich anyway. The slag. And anyway, she probably tried to blackmail our poor hero and then sell her story to some grotty tabloid that insists on calling the police ‘cops’. Oh yes, we can say that about her – besmirch her character, and why not? She’s clearly the ‘bad guy’ here. And she’s not allowed to deny it! Or tell her side of the story at all, in fact, because she doesn’t have as much money. Result!

In the first instance, this may sound unfair to you, but really you just need to stop and think about it. What if the naughty boy was a premiership footballer? The poor soul has to go and run around in front of a crowd of partially-unsympathetic football fans. They might chant nasty things about him! How would he ever get over such a thing? It could well still be on his mind as he drove his Ferrari home to his multi-million pound mansion. What if he was still thinking about it that night when he was eating steak in a gourmet restaurant? Or, god forbid, weeks later, when he’s lying on a beach in Hawaii trying to recover from months of a health & safety-defying workload of running around in the fresh air for several hours a day? Not so sure now, are you?

And all this, before you even consider possibly the most important thing. His family. What if his wife and children were to find out about him betraying them with another woman? It would destroy them! Won’t somebody please think of the children! Surely the provision of a secure and supportive family unit is the responsibility of the press, the courts and most of all, the unrelated single woman who has callously slept with a married man. How can she ever look his wife and kids in the face again?

Obviously there are no totally innocent parties here, apart from our unnamed hero, but surely we can at least all learn a lesson from this…

They seem suspiciously happy to expose themselves to abuse and blame for results they can have little control over (compared to the players, at least). Even if they’re successful one season, that only gives their future-detractors ammunition with which to accuse them of having ‘lost it’ in following seasons when they inevitably struggle to achieve quite the same level of success. Ferguson and Wenger, two of the Premiership’s most successful managers, have certainly had their fair share of such accusations during less successful periods. It seems the only way to maintain a reputation as a good manager is to ditch your team as soon as you win anything with them and get out of the country.

But before we all start wearing ribbons for them, let’s not forget that, by regular standards, they do have a really, really, easy job. They never even have to run!  The ‘pressure’ they suffer surrounds their long-term decisions,  that can be made over hours, with advice from colleagues and underlings, in the pub, in the bath, in bed. Not like the players’ instant-result/consequence pressure on the pitch, which could more conceivably get to you ‘in the moment’ and cause some ill-advised (not-at-all-advised, to be fair to them) decisions like poor passing choices, over-zealous tackles or yellow cards for dissent.

So isn’t the role of manager, even with no transfer budget, stars sold, replacements touted, actually a pretty cushty job? Why should we feel sorry for them? ‘Aw, they’ve been treated badly’, ‘Made fools of in the public eye’, ‘Terrible pressure, terrible pressure’. These people (the ones we tend to hear about at least) are averaging £1m a year in wages. That’s almost £20,000 a week – not far off what a lot of the premier-league players (that we’ll never feel sorry for because ‘Look-how-much-money-they-make-it’s-a-joke’) earn.

But they have to work 80-odd hours a week! Including weekends! Poor darlings. The average football fan probably thinks about what their team needs to do/sign/sell/set-up/drop/promote for about half of that anyway. For free.

Which this week brings us to West Ham. Whatever could have enticed Avram Grant to the position that he ‘was advised by several people not to take’? Can anyone think what could possibly have possessed him? Despite the ‘terrible situation’ he knew he would find himself in at the currently-so-turbulent club? And why would any other sane person want to take over as manager of the club?

Admittedly, the way West Ham’s owners had touted Grant’s recently-vacated position to other managers behind their current employee’s back can’t have been much fun for him, and has already blown the club’s chances of getting Martin O’Neill on board. And did they think that sacking Grant minutes after the game that confirmed their relegation would do anything to help repair their image as Employers From Hell amongst the football-management community?

But the reality is that there will always be plenty of managers who are willing to take the position, however ‘difficult’ the circumstances, because it beats working for a living. Or punditry – which it turns out must be a lot harder than it looks, considering the ever-declining quality of ‘insight’ we’re fed these days from the BBC, Sky, or (god help us) ITV.

Maybe Grant’s instant-sacking was a move engineered to help the club’s long-suffering fans to release some of their considerable frustration in these disappointing times. We’d all like to be able to sack someone for not delivering our team to the Premiership title, Champions League & FA Cup treble, and the manager’s the only one you can’t sell, so why not? He gets his money, you get your fall guy. Everyone’s a winner.

But right after the game?

Maybe they just wanted to be able to get into the changing room before other Premiership suitors came calling for Scott Parker and offer him the job. Apparently he’s been taking the half-time team talks this year anyway, and I can’t see too many West Ham fans arguing with that appointment after the dogged performances he’s consistently turned in over the season. He’s a man that doesn’t crack under pressure, that much seems clear.

And coaching badges? We don’t need no stinkin’ badges!*

* Just ask Gareth Southgate.

Never a year goes by without the future of the current England manager and speculation over his potential replacements dominating at least one slow-sports-news week. It’s a go-to topic, like ‘Fabregas Wanted by Barcelona’, ‘Giggs is Really Quite Good, Have You Noticed?’ or ‘Terry Family Member Questioned by Police Over ——-‘

One of the recent speculators’ favourites, after getting Tottenham into the Champions League for the first time in their history, is the excitable Harry Redknapp.

On the one hand he seems to be a good man-manager, he’s tactically-competent, and has brought several teams from ‘lowly’ positions (as, in some cases, he’ll never tire of reminding us) to arguable over-achievement. And over-achievement is something the national side is yet to sample. You never know – they might like it – the media certainly would.

But for all his white-flag-waving at Manchester City, Harry also spends a lot of money to bring his teams success – not a luxury afforded to national managers – so would the quality at his disposal in the England set-up be enough to work his magic on? There’s certainly plenty there, with a decent crop of youth creeping in already, but would it be enough?

And would he be able to handle the ‘big personalities’? Harry’s got a bit of a history of falling out with players and though he’ll do his best to keep it internal, it’s pretty obvious when players like Bentley and Pavlyuchenko are only justifying big transfer fees by doing an extra-high-quality job of warming the bench. How would he react to being undermined by an ex-captain, or having a star-striker tell him to procreate off? And what if he, god forbid, froze-out a star player during a tournament? How would he handle the media-frenzy at every following draw or loss?

Perhaps the biggest loss he’d have to handle in moving to a high-profile team, would be his pressure-relieving tactic of telling everyone who’ll listen that his team don’t have a chance against their opponents but that they should just get credit for ‘having a go’. I’m not sure that kind of talk would be met with much sympathy when England lined-up against Denmark. Or Belgium. Or Liechtenstein.

It seems that Harry’s real talent really is, like many other lauded managers who suddenly lose all respect as soon as they fail to make the grade in a higher-expectation role (step forward Woy) getting the best out of average players. To take England to the next level we need someone who can get the best out of quality players. Someone the players ‘like’ purely out of fear of upsetting. And as far as I can see, there are only two working managers we’ve seen in the Premiership recently who fit that bill, and one’s far too Scottish to take the job.

I’m sorry to say it English-manager-demanders, it would be great if we had a home-grown manager capable of getting the results we’re all so desperate to finally achieve, but if we want to get anywhere with the current crop of Lamborghini-driving English talent, there’s only one man for the job. And he’s Portuguese.