Paul Ince is not a victim of a vendetta against former Manchester United
players, no more than he is under threat because he is black. One glance at
the Barclays Premier League table will indicate why Ince and Blackburn
Rovers may soon part company.
Any manager who reduced the club to that position would be in danger right
now. Ray Harford went ten league matches without a win at Ewood Park, was
knocked out of the League Cup by Stockport County and resigned in 1997. Roy
Hodgson set the club on course for relegation in 1998-99 and was gone by
Christmas. His successor, Brian Kidd, was fired less than a year later with
the club nineteenth in the second tier.
This is a familiar story. Those managers did not have to be black, or red, to
be fired; like Ince, they just had to be in trouble.
Football clubs are simple organisms. If Blackburn were top of the league, Ince
could make Eric Cantona his assistant and end each victory by recreating
Tommie Smith’s black-power salute from the 1968 Olympic Games and nobody
would care. There is a bottom line in football, beneath it lie three teams
and each has a manager with good reason to be nervous. If Tony Mowbray, at
West Bromwich Albion, is not feeling the heat like Ince at the moment, it is
only because his club are pretty much where they expected to be. The
unexpected success of Phil Brown at Hull City is making life a little
awkward, but nobody had West Brom down as anything more than relegation
candidates from the start.
For Ince, it is different. In mitigation, he has frequently lost Roque Santa
Cruz, a key player, through injury and the sale of David Bentley to
Tottenham Hotspur was a blow, but, despite this, Blackburn seemed destined
for mid-table mediocrity rather than a fight to the death. They were
certainly not a team expected to go more than two months without a league
win, not least because of the traditional difficulty for teams visiting
Ewood Park in winter. Ince needs time, but that is a very comfortable stance
to take when it is not your business that risks losing £30 million.
Blackburn are in an awkward position. No club wants to be the first to appoint
a black English manager in the Premier League only to sack him five months
later. Yet, logically, no club want to appoint any manager and dismiss him
five months later. It is a sign of failure.
So, in an ideal world, Ince turns it around and makes a success of Blackburn,
just as he did Macclesfield Town and Milton Keynes Dons. Yet, if not, it is
patronising in the extreme to treat him as some special project or to argue
that he should not be subject to the same scrutiny as his contemporaries. If
he is not given enough time, it is not due to the colour of his skin; few
managers get enough time these days.
Race is clouding the issue. Already it is being said that Ince has not had the
same chance as young white managers, such as Tony Adams at Portsmouth. But
if Adams were the manager of Blackburn and his team were in the bottom two
approaching Christmas, he would be under the same pressure now.
There is no equality in demeaning Ince by adding invisible points for
ethnicity. If he is to be appointed like a white guy, he has to be free to
be sacked like one, too.
And another thing...
Mawhinney’s madcap plan
Lord Mawhinney, chairman of the Football League, is beginning to rival Michel
Platini at Uefa in his devotion to bad ideas. This week: a salary cap.
Already operational in Coca-Cola League Two, Mawhinney wishes it introduced
throughout the lower leagues, including the Championship, and linked to a
percentage of turnover. In other words, a club arriving from the Premier
League, with parachute payments, would have the best part of £12.5 million
to spend on wages, while Doncaster Rovers would have roughly £3.5 million.
So the three relegated clubs would quite possibly be returned to the Premier
League each season, not because they are good, but because the rest are
handicapped. It would mirror the French system that has maintained Lyons as
champions for the past seven seasons. Rupert Lowe, chairman of Southampton,
is for it, which is all you need to know.
Anonymity on the line
A big thank you to the Premier League for standing down the linesman, John
Stokes, after his mistake in failing to flag Robbie van Persie, the Arsenal
striker, offside at Stamford Bridge. At least we now know who made the
mistake because, on the day, it was extremely difficult to find a name,
owing to the secrecy that surrounds officials.
Linesmen are no longer identified as individuals, while the practice of
listing where the referee is from, in the most general terms - remember the
“Thing from Tring” nickname for Graham Poll – has now been abandoned.
Meanwhile, among officials, the predilection for the latest accessory, a car
numberplate including the letters REF, continues to grow. Very low-key. Even
the bloke in charge of the match between Histon and Leeds United had one.
Neil Swarbrick. From Preston, as if we care.
Blast from the past
Joe Kinnear has stopped Newcastle United’s slide becoming a plummet and is in
credit as a manager, but every time he reacts to a setback with a tirade at
an official, he looks more like a relic of the past than a man for the
future.
Reading the bans
As predicted here, the FA decided it more likely that a player choosing to
warm down in an area of the pitch that was under repair would be called an
idiot, not an immigrant, by an irate groundsman and dismissed claims that
Sam Bethell, an employee of Chelsea, had racially abused Patrice Evra. The
FA disciplinary panel also heard that it was the Manchester United defender
who turned their confrontation from verbal to physical, came back for
seconds having been ushered away and was then involved in another
altercation. Manchester United are upset with his four-game ban but, in the
circumstances, it sounds about right.
Platini’s grave new world
Chelsea, one of the wealthiest clubs in the world, will play CFR Cluj
tomorrow, trying to enter the knockout stages of the Champions League. Cluj
are already out of the competition and have nothing on the game beyond pride
and the chance to shine in the shop window. Get used to it, for this is the
future.
Next year is the first for the reforms introduced by Michel Platini, the
president of Uefa. More teams from smaller countries, therefore more
mismatches and more group stages as dull and predictable as this one. The
elephant in the room is the potential for corruption, because if a rich team
with everything to play for meet an impoverished team with nothing to play
for, it creates the perfect environment for some exotic incentives. There is
absolutely no suggestion that Chelsea would be party to any nefarious
activities, but such behaviour is hardly unheard of in European competition.
It is surely the duty of the organisers to prevent this, not invent
circumstances that might facilitate it.
England’s forgotten man
On form, the best goalkeeper in the country is Robert Green, of West Ham
United. As Fabio Capello, the England manager, is no fool and works with two
goalkeeping coaches, one must presume he knows this. Yet Green was missing
from the last international squad, so remains sixth in line behind David
James, Paul Robinson, Scott Carson, Joe Hart and Chris Kirkland.
The story goes that, under a previous England regime, Green was called up and
performed so badly in training that he was discounted from selection almost
instantly. He has played one half for England, under Sven-Göran Eriksson, on
the same day that Zat Knight won a cap. Capello selected Green but dropped
him just as quickly. Might Green’s nerves have got the better of him again?
It seems the only explanation given his club performances.
The Debate: Who is your England No 1? Click
here to have your say
A walk on the wild side
And so Roy Keane steps down as Sunderland manager to spend more time with his
dog. It was always likely to happen. Remembering his autobiography, once
Keane stopped using alcohol as a safety valve, this was all he did in times
of crisis, pounding the footpaths with Triggs. There is barely a mention of
a release, a hobby, even a book or a film that he allowed to occupy his
mind. Just one man and his dog, which in reality means just one man, living
in his head, turning things over again and again, every step taking him
nearer to the day walkies becomes walkout.
Rights and wrongs
Luke Young, the Aston Villa defender, is moaning about being played as a left
back, not on his favoured right-hand side. “It is a different thing to get
my head around,” he said. “It is not my best position. I hope to be able to
get back to the right.” If unsure of his obligations, Young may care to look
at his passport, which, no doubt, states his occupation as footballer, not
right back. He may then care to get on with it.
Courage not in doubt
Against Manchester City last week, Cristiano Ronaldo jumped a fraction too
early, realised the ball was about to hit him in the face, so instinctively
put his arms up for protection. He then used a series of rotten excuses in a
doomed attempt to avoid a red card. The most ridiculous sermons that
followed were from those asking why he did not just use his head, as if the
man is a coward. Ronaldo scored nine headers among his 42 goals last season,
including one against Roma in which he risked getting his face rearranged
because he arrived at speed with such abandon. Had the defender led with an
elbow, it could have been a calamity, but Ronaldo did not give this a
thought. He may be many things, but afraid of getting hurt is not one of
them.
Hidden agenda
Some fell for it when the Premier League and Michel Platini, the president of
Uefa, ended up on the same side, opposing the French proposal for a
financial regulator for sport in Europe, but there was always going to be a
sting in the tail. In all likelihood, Platini knew the plan for a European
equivalent of La Direction Nationale du Contrôle de Gestion (DNCG) was
doomed to fail and feared association with it would scupper his plans, too.
Nothing has changed, really. In the December edition of Uefa Direct
magazine, Platini returns to the subject of debt and his intention to
introduce a licence for clubs competing in European competitions. It is a
DNCG by the back door. He was a wonderful footballer, but never be tricked
into assuming he is anything more than a politician now.
Last laugh for McClaren?
Steve McClaren remains a figure of fun here and one newspaper is still
parodying his bizarre accent in an interview given last August, long after
the gag has grown whiskers, but after Saturday’s 6-2 win over Sparta
Rotterdam, McClaren’s Twente side are third in the Dutch league as well as
through to the last 32 of the Uefa Cup.
McClaren was not a bad manager, just the wrong England manager. The Blackburn
Rovers fans who reacted so furiously to the mention of his name might wish
they had him now.
