TOP 100 SOCCER SITES
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| Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger says current squad can be his best ever Arsene Wenger tells young Arsenal players they can be his finest ever and can win the Premier and Champions League. telegraph.co.uk |
Bullying fan power prevails as Bolton and Megson part ways | Barney Ronay Gary Megson's dismissal was harsh but unsurprising considering how unloved he was by Trotters fans who never gave him a chanceSo, farewell then, Gary Megson: sacked by Bolton Wanderers this morning to bring to an end the most joyless, deathly and generally spirit-crushing enforced marriage in Premier League history. This is a divorce that was a long time coming and is, let's face it, probably best for everyone. No relegation or players' revolt here, just irreconcilable differences that made a five-day low-level bickering contest with your wife over Christmas that ends with an entire three-hour motorway journey passed with barely a word beyond a terse request for a glove compartment fruit lozenge look like the height of winsome uxoriousness. Sometimes you just have to move on and Megson's sacking, the fifth of his managerial career, comes as no great surprise.Not surprising: but still undeniably harsh – and depressing too. Nobody likes to see a hounding out and this ended up being first place in an unpopularity contest which seemed to bear little relation to things like results and reasonable expectations, and instead had quite a lot to do with personal animosity and a rather grisly, bullying version of "fan power".On the face of it Megson deserved to stay. Two seasons of defying relegation surely deserves a little loyalty around Christmas with the team showing some signs of a rally away from the bottom three. There were good signings: Gary Cahill, Matthew Taylor and Ivan Klasnic. And a single terrible one: £10m for Johan Elmander who, to be fair to Megson, is highly rated elsewhere and has been poor beyond all expectation. The home favourites, Kevin Davies and Jussi Jaaskelainen, have been retained. But still Megson has been relentlessly booed by his own fans – a level of unpopularity few managers, even the really unsuccessful ones, ever attain – and his removal demanded almost constantly. What exactly is the problem here?Mainly the problem seems to be Gary Megson and his own incredible anti-chemistry with, not just Bolton fans but, pretty much any fans. This was an unwelcome appointment from the start. Megson finished last in a Bolton Evening News online poll of candidates (he got 1.7% of the vote behind AN Other) before being unveiled as Bolton manager. Since then he hasn't helped himself by rising to the bait. Weekly rejoinders towards the stand from the press room – prickly in defeat, patronising in victory – have become increasingly wearying. This is a man who just couldn't let things lie, who disregarded the adage that you never wrestle with a chimney sweep and instead rose to the jeers. And who, as a result, ended up ever more besmirched and grime-smeared as his ill-tempered final months ebbed away.Lack of charm, in an age when managers are expected to seduce and perform and act as a mugging, twinkly TV face, had something to do with it then. Megson just seems to generate a great deal of unhappiness. At Nottingham Forest he consistently enraged a large section of the home support. At Leicester he was the subject of one of those season-ticket-chucking dugout incidents. It was his third game in charge. In many ways you have to admire his persistence, his Gigantosaurus-denier hide, and his simple refusal to buckle.Other than this an innate tactical fustiness hasn't helped. Some Bolton fans were tired of his cautious tactics: a 4-5-1 formation in some home games, with Davies usually shunted to the left wing away from home. Even neutrals felt aggrieved by the reserve XI fielded in the defeat by Sporting Lisbon in the last 16 of the Uefa Cup in March 2008, for some Bolton's biggest game in 50 years. The idea was to keep the first-choice players fit for Wigan the following weekend. They lost that one too.Still you feel the real problem is an unwavering personal unpopularity, a response based in something other than how Megson's team has fared on the pitch. And there is a meanness in the way he has been treated, not to mention a sense of lingering overinflated ambitions. When Sam Allardyce left the club Bolton might easily have gone the way of Charlton after Alan Curbishley. The end of an era of budget-defying success is always a tricky time. Megson retained a reduced level of Premier League buoyancy, but that wasn't enough. Many Bolton fans expected a fresh push from the Allardyce bridgehead, and perhaps even a little fun. They got something other than fun; they got an unsmiling, unapologetic man who refuses to try to make football fans – or, it has to be said, football journalists – try to like him.And in the end it's funny how you can start to feel a certain fondness towards anyone when they've already gone – particularly when they start to look, in a certain light, like perhaps the last in a truly curmudgeonly line, an anomaly in an era when buddying up to the media and pirouetting for the fan base is now entrenched as a vital part of the job.Bolton WanderersPremier LeagueBarney Ronayguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Talk of Europe is nonsense, says McLeish • Manager stays grounded despite club record unbeaten run• 'There are seven clubs no one else will get near' There can be no better barometer of Birmingham City's progress this season than the disappointment etched on the faces of Alex McLeish's players after the final whistle on Saturday. Not so long ago holding Manchester United would have been a reason to celebrate but times have changed at St Andrew's. This may have been a club-record 12th top-flight match without defeat but there was a nagging sense of regret that the landmark was not reached with a win.United dominated an opening 45 minutes in which Birmingham, in the words of James McFadden, "were as bad as we have played all season", yet the goal that Cameron Jerome pilfered before the interval might easily have been added to during a much-improved second-half performance which saw Tomas Kuszcak produce three excellent saves and culminated in Sir Alex Ferguson admitting he was "grateful for the point"."We feel quite disappointed not to have won it," said Sebastian Larsson. "We went in at half-time and, even though we were winning, we were fuming because we were shocking to be honest. We kept giving the ball away. We were nervous. That was the biggest disappointment. But we kept a clean sheet and nicked the goal so we were in the game. Then they've scored, but I think we had better chances than them in the second half so we're a little disappointed."Desperate to manage expectation levels, McLeish will see things a little differently. The Birmingham manager's biggest fear at the moment is becoming a victim of his own success. Birmingham, he keeps trying to remind people, are still targeting Premier League survival. Yet glance at the table and last season's Championship runners-up sit in eighth place, behind Liverpool only on goal difference and just four points adrift of fourth-placed Spurs.Forget survival. A few Birmingham supporters are daring to dream and wondering if they might need to take their passports to a couple of matches next season. "I'm hearing all this talk about Europe but it's absolute nonsense if people talk that way," said McLeish. "There is nothing wrong with having ambition — I'm as ambitious as they come. We're taking steps along the road but I think we've got to take them at a certain rate rather than reach for the stars too soon."I think there are seven clubs that there's no way anyone else will get near by the end of the season," continued McLeish, alluding to the established big four, plus Manchester City, Aston Villa and Spurs. "And there are probably five or six that we've no right to be above as well. And that's why it's important to keep the expectation levels at a level where everyone cannot get carried away. I think the top four will be threatened by others but not by us."In truth, few would back Birmingham to finish in a Champions League spot but, by the same token, there is not a Premier League manager who will look forward to coming up against McLeish's side between now and the end of the season. "We're entitled not to fear anybody because of our performances," said the Birmingham manager. "The evidence is there and the players have now got that in their mentality."That unwavering belief was apparent following United's equaliser, when the natural assumption was that Birmingham would spend the final 25 minutes hanging on for a point. Instead the Birmingham players responded as if affronted. "We have to do all we can to ensure we always finish a game the way we did against United," added McLeish. "It's about making the opposition feel that they've been in a hell of a game and we did that again against the champions."With his former Aberdeen manager in the opposition dug-out, the outcome was particularly enjoyable for McLeish, who was late for his post-match press conference after sharing a glass or three of red wine with Ferguson. The two remain close and it was tempting to wonder whether Ferguson might put McLeish's name forward as a potential successor to him one day. "I think we'll stop that there," said McLeish before exiting with a smile.Birmingham CityPremier LeagueStuart Jamesguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Maradona Back From Suspension, Off to SAfrica BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) -- Diego Maradona is back as Argentina's soccer coach, ending a two-month suspension imposed by FIFA following a profanity-filled rant after his team qualified for the World Cup against Uruguay. feeds.nytimes.com |
Celtic manager Tony Mowbray is preparing to wheel and deal to strengthen his squad Tony Mowbray is willing to part with Danny Fox and Stephen McManus. telegraph.co.uk |