Well, they say a week in football is a long time and so it has proved for the six men involved in losing or gaining a better job this week.
First to go was Peter Reid.
Probably a casualty of being at the same club for too long he has paid the price for another poor start to the season up in the North East.
Having done wonders in the early years and getting Sunderland promoted twice it seems that he could no longer motivate the players he had or attract the sort of quality players required for the higher placings in the Premiership.
However, this has opened the door of opportunity to Steve Cotterill in what must be considered a rapid and meteoric rise from Cheltenham to Sunderland in a quarter of a season via Stoke.
I can’t imagine that the Stoke directors or fans will be too pleased with the lack of loyalty shown by their new man. He’d only just warmed the seat before he jumped ship – interesting to see that the managers are no better than their players when it comes to a bigger fish to fry.
Couple this with the joint appointment of dour Yorkshireman Howard Wilkinson and Sunderland fans must be wondering if they should have stuck with Reid a while longer.
First thing this morning we see the end of Jan Molby.
Hull City reckon they are bigger and better than where they are but they’ve been down in the 3rd division for some time now and they aren’t going to make progress with a manager every 18 months. Molby must be kicking himself for ditching Kidderminster for Hull although 17 games in charge is a scandalously short period of time in which to be assessed by your peers. It makes you wonder why the board bothered if they weren’t going to give Molby their full support for at least one season.
Peter Taylor, another manager with a ‘chequered’ career is the man to take over the hot seat. Mixed success in stints at Southend, Gillingham, Leicester and Brighton have seen the former-Spurs be tipped as the future England manager and then be on the scrap heap!
Finally this morning sees the end of George Burley’s tenure at Portman Road.
Ipswich’s defeat at Grimsby on Tuesday seems to have been the last straw for the popular Scotsman but personally I think the board has made a mistake in being so hasty. Ipswich were always going to struggle in the Premiership but in the first season perhaps they got ahead of themselves.
I think that Ipswich surpassed themselves in the last few years and they haven’t re-adjusted to life in Division 1 as yet but they have players like Matt Holland whose loyalty to the club kept him there when Villa wanted him.
However, perhaps when the better players realise that the board aren’t that loyal either they will move on to better clubs.
All this is quite interesting at a time when Wolves fans are starting to show signs of unrest with the managerial approach of Dave Jones.
Would we swap our manager for the likes of those that are being touted as would-be succesors to the clubs who have acted this week?
For me I’d rather give Jones some extra time to come through rather than rush into a decision that we might regret.
E-mail me with any comments/feedback to: dave@wolves-mad.co.uk