Xabi Alonso has been sacked, Arne Slott has left Liverpool and Jose Mourinho is taking a third shot at Chelsea. It’s managerial gestation and here are our predictions.
We’ve been telling anyone who will listen for months now that this summer would be a summer of managergeddon, that the merry-go-round would barely move and it would be an unusually quiet season for manager-axing. We had to bottleneck nonsense to be unleashed in the summer. It was the only way.
But we can’t in good faith claim that we expected things to get so crazy so quickly. There seems to be no reason to expect things to slow down. So let’s ride the managerial merry-go-round and make some predictions about events that will play out over the remainder of the summer.
Feel free to ridicule these things, but imagine going back a week. Kompany was first informed that he was moving to Bayern MunichThat’s right. Half of these will come true this week. Mark our words.
Xabi Alonso sacked by Bayer Leverkusen after delayed cheating allegations
Imagine coming so close to a truly invincible season (not a fake one like Arsenal had back then) only to be completely outplayed and soundly defeated in the Europa League final against Atalanta by Ademola Lookman, who had finally shaken off his Everton element and reached his final form.
If Bayer Leverkusen wants to be taken seriously as a big club they have to be tough on this. Thank you Xavi for the good times and the memories but it’s time to say goodbye. You don’t work in big games. Even Erik ten Hag wins in finals, Xavi you are a wickedly handsome but hopelessly fraudulent clown.
It was a lucky escape for Liverpool too.
Surprise appointment as Alonso’s successor
Managers who have barely put up a meaningful fight against relegation from the Premier League have become all the rage in the Bundesliga recently – let’s hope Chris Wilder likes Germany.
The government has announced that every 18-year-old will be required to take charge of Manchester United for two weeks.
It may be unworkable, but it seems to have popular support among a confused and angry public. But let’s not pretend that the Prime Minister is a soulless shell of a person incapable of compassion or empathy, desperately seeking a new batch of citizens to punish. Anyone who doesn’t want to go through the stress and trauma of trying to assemble a functioning defence from current walking United personnel should serve 12 months in the army instead.
Wolves have sacked Gary O’Neill and been told to be careful what they wish for.
On this rare occasion, warnings of caution were rightly sounded, but the simple fact is that O’Neill has the chance to be the ultimate firefighter – a manager who has never had a pre-season throughout his career, who turns up only where he is needed, a nomad who never stays for more than a season, spending his rare downtime organising rescue missions with “Speaking Well, I Thought” broadcasts on Monday Night Football and railing against VAR.
Thus, the Wolves’ apparent folly is simply acting in accordance with prophecy and is something to be respected and admired.
Manchester United’s managerial decision
God Bless That absolute joke from the FA Cup finalIn an absurd run to the final, United won an utterly meaningless game against Liverpool, won in the most undignified and humiliating way imaginable against Newport and Coventry, but finished with a truly impressive performance and a deserved result against Manchester City, who perhaps celebrated every league win as if they had won it too much.
United now must choose between keeping a manager who is clearly unsuited to the club and its lofty vision, or sacking one who has just beaten the most dominant team in English football history to win a second consecutive trophy.
Honestly, I can’t decide which is more fun. I’d definitely keep him. As long as I don’t fire him. Kieran McKenna will replace him.. perhaps.
Eddie Howe appointed England manager, Newcastle in panic
England have had some success with sensible, well-spoken, centrist daddies as managers, so it makes sense they’d try a right-wing version next. Newcastle panicked at this almost predictable turn of events and, given the recent fashion for managers getting promoted to and relegated from the Premier League, appointed Rob Edwards as manager almost by chance.
Arne Slott leaves Liverpool before a ball is kicked
Clever maneuvering and rationalization by all involved The metaphor: “Continuing a legend is an impossible task” And it allows Liverpool to skip the inevitable 18 months of discomfort and go straight to “the man following the man following the legend”, because there is at least the hope that that man will be more Arteta-like than anyone Manchester United have appointed since Moyes.
Thomas Frank gets big job
Maybe Liverpool. Who knows. But the point is that his debut at a club that matters has caused the entire PFM pundit corps to collectively freak out that he is, in fact, a foreigner, after spending the last five years living in a happy collective delusion that he is some smug old guy from Watford.
Chelsea were searching for a young manager who was flexible and adaptable enough to coach their talented young players and they came to Jose Mourinho.
Let’s be honest, the last thing we want this summer is for Mourinho, at the end of his career and leaving a destroyed team, to turn up at Clear Lake FC and, rather than speaking out the truth about the owner, shout down the loudest of his lungs at him, shattering the confidence of every player who comes within a 100-yard radius of him.
Expect record levels of “Heartbreaking Story: The Worst Person You Know Just Said An Amazing Thing” memes to be followed by hilarity, excitement, and “Him? Really?” Chelsea’s search for a new manager Around November. Mauricio Pochettino is named third choice.
See more Chelsea coverage on F365
👉 Todd Boley’s biggest mistakes at Chelsea: Pochettino’s sacking sees him jump to 17th
👉 10 Chelsea mistakes this summer: McKenna, Jackson, ‘the next Enzo’ and…
👉 From the sacked Kieran McKenna to John Terry, Emma Hayes predicts six candidates to be Chelsea’s next manager
Russell Martin has been promoted for a second time, joining other promoted managers.
With Ipswich’s Kieran McKenna in the running for Manchester United and Leicester’s Enzo Maresca high on the wish list of Chelsea’s vaguely mad managers, slightly less so than Pochettino, it’s no surprise that Russell Martin would get his due if Southampton were promoted, especially after the play-offs are the best way to get promoted as we all know them. Surely anyone who had forgotten or doubted this truism needed only to watch 12 seconds of Sky’s live coverage of the play-off final to be cleared of any gaps in their knowledge.
Anyway, Martin. He gets the job with, uh, the Spurs. No list of follies would be complete without the Spurs.
Vincent Kompany takes over as manager of Bayern Munich
No, that’s just too ridiculous.
