|
And so Martin Jol survives the first managerial crisis of the
season. After two defeats in two games, the lunatic fringe out there
in radio talk show land, the kind with nothing to say but the loudest
possible voice with which to say it, had decreed that Jol wasn’t
up to the job and needed to be shown the door.
That’s the Martin Jol who has taken Spurs into Europe the last
two years and, by common consent, made Tottenham the team most likely
to break the monopoly of the top four.
When you’re down on your luck and desperate for a result, there
is no greater stroke of luck than seeing Derby County coming over
the hill - it’s the footballing equivalent to getting Nigella
Lawson hammering your door down when you’re starving. Admittedly,
without wishing to pander to the barmy brigade who would sack a
manager after three games, losing to Derby this season is pretty
much a sackable offence in itself, but how incredibly dumb has football
become when managers are being lined up for the chop inside a week
of the first ball being kicked?
Even so, the week has rumbled on with talk of Ramos or Klinsmann
coming in to succeed Jol. There seems to be plenty of in fighting
going on at White Hart Lane and, once the momentum for change builds
up this kind of a head of steam, it’s hard to stop it.
Of course, Jol could be in a worse position. Ask Sammy Lee at Bolton.
Lee is trying to play real football at the Reebok as opposed to
the rugby that Allardyce has favoured in recent times, but the players
don’t seem to know how to do it. Add to the usual unrest around
Diouf and Anelka, and Bolton are deeply troubled. With Paul Jewell
suggesting he’s ready to get back into football, Little Sam
might soon be surplus to requirements.
Weirdly, the first big test of patience of the season looks set
for Old Trafford and the Glazers. Without a win in three games even
after spending all that money, Rooney sidelined by injury, Ronaldo
by stupidity, Tevez has turned up but, as yet, need not have bothered.
The title win of last season is already receding into the background
and we wait for the first siren voice to sound out “Fergie
must go!” Ordinarily, this would be brushed away with the contempt
it deserves, but in the new era, how twitchy is the Glazer trigger
finger?
This year’s title race could already be disappearing over the
hill. Chelsea will be ever more determined to hunt it down and to
capitalise on United’s current weakness. Liverpool and Arsenal
have been waiting or this crack in the armour of one of the big
two, however small and however short-term, and will do all in their
power to exploit it. Are we living in a season of changed reality,
or will the old certainties reassert themselves?
Almost certainly, they will. But by the time Manchester United have
got themselves back in gear, it could be too late to be fighting
for anything but third place. How have the mighty fallen so fast?
The simple truth is that United are, to a degree in transition.
The side of kids that conquered all in the second half of the 1990s
is starting to get a little long in the tooth.
It’s still far too early to rush to any kind of judgement at
this stage of the season, but Giggs and Scholes, so influential
last term, have yet to have that kind of impact this. Was the surge
to the title the last hurrah for them? Will Gary Neville ever return
to be the same kind of guiding force he’s been in the past?
Or will United need to find new heroes, and fast?
Of course, we might not be asking these questions had Rooney not
limped out of the Reading game, because what United are lacking
above all at present is a goal threat. But Rooney is out for a couple
of months, Tevez is short on match fitness after his own bizarre
summer, Ronaldo is suspended, and you can’t see where United
can find a goal.
Tevez, Nani, Anderson, Hargreaves, they will all settle in before
long, and when they do, United are the kind of team that can roll
off eight or nine straight wins. But they’re going to have
to if they spend much more time misfiring.
It’s already looking like a campaign where the European Cup
is going to assume ever more significance, not least in the season
that marks the 50th anniversary of the Munich disaster. This time,
they’re going to have to blow their qualifying group away -
or Glazer might do the same to Fergie. Feeling lucky punk?
Defeat against Manchester City certainly hasn’t helped, the
Reds looking like they couldn’t score in Times Square at the
moment. Meanwhile, Svengali Sven suddenly looks like the wily tactician
that we wanted when he was appointed England manager. Never mind
about a lost weekend, what happened to him in that lost six years?
And then you’ve got the mysterious affair of Styles, Rob Styles.
The pompous Pompey supporting official finally got his comeuppance
after a dismal display in the Liverpool Chelsea game, when he failed
to send off Essien for his second yellow card and gave Chelsea the
softest penalty of the season to ensure the game ended in a 1-1
draw. Maybe he’s not a Pompey fan after all. The only man smiling
after that result, and Lehmann’s clanger at Blackburn is Fergie,
still within sight of the big three. Go on, make his day.
|
