Gary Megson's Dad. Has a lot to answer for

Then there’s Gary Megson, currently spreading his very own brand of one-dimensional hoof-ball misery amongst the followers of Sheffield Wednesday. Owls fans were optimistic ahead of the new season, having somehow escaped from the relegation zone that Megson placed them in last time round. After two dismal away performances in succession, that feeling has gone, replaced by one of despair.

The scene of last night’s disaster was Gigg Lane, home of Bury FC, where crowd numbers reached a previously unknown 5,209 due to visiting fans, who’d trundled down the M62 unaware of the horrors they were destined to endure.

Bury manager, Richie Barker was in no doubt about the ease of the task which faced him. “With all due respect to the players now, we’re not playing against Chris Waddle or Des Walker,” he laughed.

So it proved. By half-time Wednesday were two down, having had no shots on target and with a 39% share of possession. How familiar that looks.

At this point, Owlstalk.co.uk, online home of the Yorkshire club’s supporters, went into meltdown. The posts below are reproduced as written, apart from the addition of a few dozen asterisks.

‘What the f**k was that I’ve just seen. Long Long season ahead at this rate, played off the field by Bury, DISGRACE. Milan and Megson f*****g part with some cash and get it f*****g sorted ,We are a joke FACT.’

‘So glad i worked late so i couldnt make it to Bury.’

‘Not much better than the s***e I witnessed at Bournemouth by the sound of it…..’

‘this is the pits.’

‘Make that the worst 90’

That was one thread. Others were titled, ‘Gary “It’s not my fault” Megson’ , ‘Megson can’t motivate the players’ ,‘Shambolic, Disgusting, Abysmal, Clueless’ and ‘Just got back….garbage!’. It doesn’t take great deductive powers to guess at the contents.

There’s something about the Ginger One’s football that provokes rage amongst those doomed to watch it. The fury continues, long after he’s been given the boot, as fans of all the clubs he’s managed, apart from West Brom will testify.

Wednesday supporters were warned of this in good faith by their Bolton counterparts when he pitched up at Hillsborough, but a desire to defend their own, coupled with indoctrination from Megson’s friends in the media led to the advice being rejected.

But as said, we’re nice people. A quantity of pitchforks, and ‘Megson Out’ placards, were placed into storage at the Reebok, in the confident expectation that they’d be required when someone else was daft enough to give him a job. Those items are on their way to South Yorkshire, with our compliments.

- Richard McCormick

TweetFollow @RMc2407

That said, while I don’t for one second think that Coyle would turn  down Liverpool, they are after all a massive club with huge tradition  and a great history, that doesn’t mean that I don’t think he wouldn’t  regret it six months down the line.
I’m sure we wouldn’t stand in Coyle’s way if Liverpool does make an approach. It would be a fruitless endeavour anyway. Once a player / manager / assistant manager / coach / groundsmen / tea lady etc have made up their mind that they wish to leave, the best thing the club can do is try to get the maximum amount for them.

king Kenny in high spirites on his return to Anfield, with a ermmm his assistants

That is why, if Liverpool do come calling, we’ll be powerless to keep Owen. I’m not naive; Coyle is an ambitious manager and his career aims will mean that he’ll outgrow Bolton, just as he outgrew Burnley.
I don’t expect him to stay at Bolton for his entire career and I’ve  always been prepared for the fact that, if a big club  came in for  him, he would leave. The consolation in that logic was that, in order for a big club to come calling, Coyle had to be a success at Bolton.

He has; 7th in the league going into the new year, despite a little, and probably understandable considering the squad, wobble in form and results of late.
I have just been informed by my Dad that Roy Hodgson has been sacked by Liverpool and Kenny Dalglish has been appointed until the  end of the season

Cheers Liverpool. Kinda stepped on my point there. Ah well, I haven’t written a Manny Road article for so long… I’ll continue.
I don’t think there has been a worse time than this to manage Liverpool. Of course they are a massive club but they have an average team, little money to spend (although obviously more than we
have) yet they still have the same expectations. True, they should be doing better than what they are doing now, but their squad falls way short of the current top 5.
The Liverpool fans wanted Dalglish. They now have Dalglish. The masses now have their ‘messiah’. Where have we heard that before? If King Kenny does not provide the results expected at Liverpool, as Hodgson clearly didn’t, then they want a big name manager – Hiddink, Rijkard  etc.

To be fair, they have a point. Liverpool are a big club and have big ambitions. Some may say unrealistic expectations, but there’s no way a club like Liverpool shouldn’t be challenging for a Europa League  place, especially when the likes of Sunderland, Bolton and Stoke are  above them.

Sadly for Roy, success at a lower level doesn’t always translate into success at a bigger club. His managerial history is evidence of that.  He has had his managerial successes at ‘underdog’ sides such as Fulham and Switzerland, while his stays at Inter Milan and Blackburn were less impressive.

If the Liverpool fans didn’t think Hodgson has the right credentials  to manage Liverpool (he didn’t and I said that from the very
beginning), I fail to see how Coyle does. He has all of 18 months PL  experience. Coyle is destined for big things, I have no doubt about  that, but he’s still a relative novice at this level. He’s still  learning his trade and, looking round the Liverpool forums, their fans  know this.

The red half of Liverpool have never got over the fact they just arn't as pleasing on the eye as the blue half these days !

If you don’t have the majority of the fans (let’s face it, you can’t please all of the people all of the time) behind your appointment,  you’re always going to face an uphill struggle as those against your  appointment will continue to be negative to save face. ‘We won 4-1 but we were negative’ ring any bells?

In essence, you have to do twice as well in order to win over the sceptics. With Liverpool’s squad the way it is, and the expectation  level as high as it is, I consider that to be almost impossible for any  manager other than Dalglish who will get additional time due to his  legendary status at the club.

Sadly, you only get one shot at managing a ‘big’ club (ask Allardyce  and Rioch etc). Allardyce’s stock couldn’t have been higher when he left The Reebok for the final time in April 2007. In eight years, he had turned Bolton Wanderers from Championship strugglers into European contenders. He even managed a domestic cup final and an impressive interview for the England job for good measure. It took less than eight months at Newcastle to destroy that legacy.

Get the boot from a ‘big’ club, even if it is considered a harsh dismissal, and you could ruin all the good work you have done in your career up to that point. You’re forever finished at that level. True, Coyle has got time on his side, but once you are pigeon holed into a ‘level’, it is very difficult to get out.

Coyle has already been linked with the Arsenal job (it’s amazing what a strong media perception can do for a career). He has had continued success at every club he has been at. His star is definitely on the  rise, but if he were to take the Liverpool job at this stage in his  career, and failed (and with the aforementioned expectancy levels and  squad that was more than likely), he’ll be forever remembered as the  man who was sacked by Liverpool.

His success before Liverpool will forever be overlooked, or dismissed with the attitude that ‘it’s easy  to achieve success with Bolton, Burnley and St. Johnstone, but this is  [insert big club name here]‘.

Mark Hughes in another example; whilst at Blackburn, he was talked as being a candidate to replace Ferguson when he eventually retires from Manchester United.

Following ‘failure’ at Manchester City and he’s now at Fulham. Not to worry, it’s ‘his level’. At least he’ll have so much compensationI think the moral of the story is, if you’re offered a job at a ‘big’ club, be sure you’re ready for it. I’m not sure Coyle is.

If the Liverpool job had been offered to Coyle, I’m sure he’d have taken it. He’s an ambitious man and the possibility of managing a club like Liverpool would surely be too much to turn down.
However, I imagine a club in a better position on the field will come in for Coyle at some point if he stays here. We have the media perception now that we play like Brazil. That will attract potential suitors.

Personally, I think the media perception of Allardyce and his style of football always went against him. He achieved far more with us than Coyle has thus far (although I’m sure that will change if Coyle stays here) yet his name was never linked with Liverpool, much to his obvious (and understandable) irritation.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Spurs are interested in him if ‘Arry gets the England job. That wouldn’t have happened had he got the Liverpool job and, despite their respective histories, I know which job I’d prefer upon leaving Bolton.

Liverpool are a big club in decline. The allure of managing Liverpool is obvious, but the reality is not so great, as Hodgson will no doubt tell you. This is the worst Liverpool team in years. They have no chance of cracking the top 5 for the foreseeable future.

If it were any other circumstances, I’d say Coyle would be mad not to manage them, but with the current team and consistent expectation  levels, I think he’d have been in a no win situation.

Thankfully, for us anyway, Coyle was not put in that position. Liverpool’s owners have gone for Dalglish. To be perfectly honest,  it’s just delaying the inevitable. Other clubs will come in for Coyle if he continues his impressive work with us. He is far too good a manager to stay with us long term. We just need to enjoy his time here and, hopefully when he does move on, he’ll leave us in a good position in the league and perhaps a trophy in the cabinet. He is destined for big things that’s for sure and, at the moment, those things are bigger and better than Liverpool.

-Dave Hallsworth-

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• Megson – Bolton still in the mix
• The Best Eleven: Premiership Players Born 10 Miles or Less from Their Current Club’s Stadium (featuring Nicky Hunt)
• Megson demands final push
• Bolton No Longer Interested In Bodde
• Is the Old Firm Premier League move sunk?
• Phil Gartside, The Old Firm & The Premier League
• Prem: Makukula to return to Benfica
• Phil Gartside Scores the Own Goal, Again
• Bolton Wanderers Push For Two Tier Premiership
• Megson warns against complacency
• Liverpool Reserves 3 Bolton Wanderers Reserves 4
• Bolton Wanderers wary of relegation threat
• Arsenal And Chelsea Chase Joao Moutinho & Miguel Veloso
• Bolton display worries Megson

Have your say on Bolton Wanderers in the comment box below…

How Alex Ferguson almost changed my mind about the Bolton manager

I’m keen for my view that Gary Megson should be sacked at the end of the season, even if we do stay up, to be proven wrong. Mainly because I want to see my team win and get behind them.

As well as asking my readers for reasons why I’m wrong, I’ve also been actively searching for excuses to change my mind. Here’s the nearest I came last week…

The Daily Mail reported that an incredible 923 managers have been and gone from clubs in the English league since Alex Ferguson took charge at Manchester United in 1986.

Just analysing the clubs in the Premier League, it’s certainly possible to see correlation between the number of managers and the level of success enjoyed during that period, i.e. that the fewer managers you’ve had, the more successful you’re likely to be.

Ferguson himself is the most obvious example. Elsewhere, only two managers have left Arsenal during Ferguson’s reign, and just four have departed Anfield.

In contrast, teams who it’s fair to say have underachieved over the last 20 years – Spurs, Newcastle, Man City – average 12 managers waving goodbye.

The anomalies in this theory, i.e. club’s who’ve enjoyed relative success in spite of a large turnover of managers – Chelsea (11), Fulham (12), Wigan (12) – have in common the presence of chairmen/owners who have been especially generous with the cheque book in recent years.

So where do Bolton sit in all this? Six managers have left Burnden/the Reebok in the last 23 years, which means only United, Liverpool, Arsenal and Middlesbrough have had fewer managers (West Ham and Aston Villa have had the same).

The conclusion would seem to be that calling in the hangman as quickly as Chelsea and Portsmouth did last week, and Blackburn did earlier in the season, is not necessarily in the best long-term interests of the club.

Having said that, if that logic had always been applied at Bolton, then Roy McFarland and Sammy Lee would both have lasted longer than they did. After all, what’s worse, not backing a manager for long enough or giving the wrong manager too much time?

What these figures actually suggest to me is not that we should blindly back Megson in the hope that loyalty will stand us in good stead, but that having made two bad appointments, Phil Gartside had better get the next one right.

What do you think? Have your say below…

1. Gary Megson has lost every games he’s ever managed against Liverpool, conceding 20 goals in six games and scoring just one (in fact, this stat fest contains a gold mine of depressing Liverpool-based stats for Wanderers fans).

2. Bolton have lost their last four games to Liverpool and conceded 12 goals in the process.

3. For a less depressing statistical outlook, visit bwfc.co.uk, who provided ths week’s most pointless stat: today’s referee Alan Wiley has produced 49 yellow cards and two red cards in 17 games this season (if that doesn’t whet your appetitie for a trip to Anfield I don’t know what will).

4. Oh wait a minute, what about this one… the game will kick-off at 5pm Bulgarian time (no, really, someone actually wrote a preview to tell the world that).

5. Looks like Sammy Lee won’t be in charge of Liverpool today as Rafa Benitez looks to return to the touchline following kidney stones.

6. Matthew Taylor and Kevin Nolan both want maximum points for Christmas (presumably they want that all year round, though, right?).

7. Fernando Torres probably won’t be fit to play OR… he could be fit to play… OR he will be on the bench (take your pick).

8. Liverpool are top of the league at Christmas for the first time since 1996, a year when they went on to win… absolutely nothing. And Bolton went on… to get relegated (I can do useless and irrelevant historical information too).

9. Bolton’s recent form under Megson is ‘quietly impressive’ (surely it’s only quiet if you’re not listening?).

10. One thing that’s never quiet is Megson’s ego-stroking of the opposition before every game, this week featuring Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher.

11. Liverpool fans are hoping we won’t ‘park the bus in front of the goal’.

12. But they still expect to win 2-1.

Think the pundits talk a load of rubbish? You can leave your own preview or prediction in the comment box below.

- This lengthy interview with Sam Allardyce in The Times in which he talks in great detail about some of the pivotal games in the early part of his Bolton career, particularly the Play-Off semi-final against West Brom from 2001. He doesn’t hold back in his assessment of Barry Knight’s performance a year earlier either.

- This Bolton Wanderers version of I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here.

- Gary Megson making his bid for some of Phil Gartside’s cash in the January transfer window with a bit of emotional blackmail.

- Danny Shittu allegedly demanding show down talks (one of my favourite football cliches) with Megson because he’s not in the team (I know what I’d say: begins with f and ends with off… actually, on second thoughts, I probably wouldn’t say that to his face!). Mind you, plenty of other clubs seem to want him.

- Jussi Jaaskelainen uttering the the words that virtually guarantee an ensuing relegation battle… ‘we’re too good to go down.’

- Former Wanderer Mikel Alonso failing to hold down a place in the Spanish Second Division (proving that Sammy Lee really didn’t know what he was doing in the transfer market).

- And finally… this completely pointless, but amusing nevertheless, demonstration of what can be achieved with pictures of Gary Megson, Phil Gartside and Eddie Davies and a few spare minutes on the internet…

Gary Megson, Eddie Davies and Phil Gartside get jiggy

- An England squad that included Wolves (yes, that’s Wolves of the Championship) defender Michael Mancienne, who is on loan from Chelsea because he can’t get a game there (what does Gary Cahill have to do to get a call-up, other than playing consistently well in the Premier League every week?).

- This prediction that, like his predecessors Sam Allardyce and Sammy Lee, Gary Megson’s last game in charge of Bolton could come against Chelsea (roll on December 6th!).

- This addition to the list of Megsonisms from The Bolton News, in which the Wanderers manager claims we ‘gave everything we got’ against Liverpool (if anyone can explain what that means please do so in the comments section below… still, didn’t stop The Bolton News using it as their headline). And yet another ill-judged Megson quote, this time from The People.

- Evidence that the stewading at the Reebok Stadium is just as bad as it was when I was at Upton Park earlier this season.

- Nicky Hunt enjoying himself at Birmingham City.

- More reports linking us with Swansea’s Ferrie Bodde, who scored again at the weekend. We’re also being linked with Deportivo La Coruna midfielder Julian de Guzman.

- And finally… this article suggesting Rob Styles is available for after-dinner speaking (although I can’t actually find the site they’re talking about… incidentally, the Styles out of the Premier League petition still needs your signature).

- This interview with Kevin Nolan in which he follows in Gary Megson’s footsteps by lavishing praise on former Wanderers manager Sammy Lee (shame he wasn’t more supportive when Lee was his boss).

- Megson justifying rejecting loan moves from QPR and Derby for Heidar Helguson and Danny Shittu by saying: ‘We need more bodies and that has got to be done in January’ (why didn’t he apply the same logic when he got shut of Blerim Dzemaili on transfer deadline day?).

- One man who has gone out on loan is youngster Nathan Woolfe, although this Wrexham website doesn’t seem to know how to spell his name (nice pun though).

- Megson telling everyone who’ll listen how good he thinks Liverpool are (let’s hope he has something different to say in the dressing room to the players).

- Big Sam Allardyce declaring: ‘I just want a football club that has a great ambition to be successful’ (a spanner in the works for those Wanderers fans singing his name at the Everton game a couple of weeks ago).

- And finally… ahead of this afternoon’s Liverpool game a reminder of a great victory at Anfield with goals from three great Wanderers: Jay-Jay Okocha, Youri Djorkaeff and, er… Mario Jardel (remember him?)…

[youtube=http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=7jVZFxUGHsE]

- The incredible news that the referee for this weekend’s clash against Liverpool will be… Rob Styles! (I’m sure he’ll be made very welcome).

- This interesting piece which argues that supporting Bolton Wanderers is more rewarding than supporting Manchester United (I’ve always said that supporting a crap football team makes you a better, more likeable person… how many Man United fans have you met and though ‘he’s a nice bloke’?).

- Rumours that Heidar Helguson could be on his way to QPR.

- Gary Megson paying tribute to the work that Sammy Lee did at Bolton (that’s not what he was saying earlier this season).

- Megson praising his players. Their achievement? They managed to play in a 4-4-2 against Hull (what geniuses they are!). There’s a sly little dig at Phil Brown in there too.

- Owen Coyle reviving the spirit of the White Hot years by leading his Burnley team to victory over Chelsea in the Carling Cup.

And finally… here’s a reminder of what Charlie Nicholas on Sky Sports thought about Styles’ performance the last time he refereed a Bolton Wanderers match…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZiTxhTC_EE&feature=related]

- Wondering why the headline wasn’t ‘No shit Sherlock’ for this story in which Kevin Nolan says the Wanderers will not be challenging for Europe this season. Nolan also says:

We’re trying to change it slowly from the Sam Allardyce and Sammy Lee era. But the wheels are in still in motion trying to do that. The fans are starting to come round to the fact that it’s changing.

Really? Which message boards is he reading?

- Reading this brilliant dossier on the many cock-ups of Rob Styles after the hapless ref made another blunder during the Newcastle v Manchester City game on Monday night. The starting XI of Styles’ victims of course includes Jlloyd Samuel.

- And finally… after reading yet another interesting and engaging interview with the increasingly impressive Phil Brown (he came across brilliantly on the BBC’s Inside Sport programme the other night too), wondering why the answer to this equation (best young manager in the Premier League + long history with Bolton Wanderers + still lives in Bolton) isn’t Gary Megson sacked, Phil Brown coming home.

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