Sunday, April 19, 2009

Ups and Downs.


Andy Keogh is mobbed by Wolves fans at Molineux yesterday.

Many relegation battles and promotion fights will go to the wire this year but yesterday a few were decided. Lets have a look.

Wolves gained promotion to the Premier League after an excellent season and a 1-0 victory over Q.P.R yesterday. There were a few rocky moments for McCarthy's men but they have been at the top all season and not even a bad spell at Christmas stopped them from winning the Colaship. They could have been caught on several occasions but Birmingham and Reading hit the skids and failed to take advantage of Wolves slips ups.

Charlton were relegated after a 2-2 draw with Blackpool. The Addicks go down to the third tier of English football for the first time since 81. Charlton's problems started after long time boss Alan Curbishley left in 2006. Since then, Charlton have had 4 managers. Ian Dowie, Les Reed, Alan Pardew and Phil Parkinson all failed to return Charlton to the form that saw them established as a Premier league side under Curbishley.

Leicester City are back in the Colaship as League One Champions after a dominant League One campaign. They secured promotion away at Southend. Former Portsmouth owner Milam Mandaric has vowed to bring the good times back to Leicester and I wouldn't be surprised if they spent big next season. In Matty Fryatt they have a forward who has scored 31 goals this season. Can he do it in the Colaship? He couldn't last time he was there, but he is another year more experienced and certainly confident.

Elsewhere in League One, Hereford were relegated after losing to Colchsester.

-Bigus

5 comments:

Mosher said...

Anyone reckon that the reason Charlton are crap is that they *have* had four managers in three years? Why don't any of the boards seem to realise that the one thing you can give a manager (other than wodges of cash) which will let him do a job is... TIME?

I support Newcastle and since Bobby got sacked, we've just drifted further and further down the table. We've had four managers *this season* (admittedly through unusual situations), but how long has anyone post-Robson lasted?

As ever, the definitive example is Ferguson. A pretentious, arrogant git he may be. But he was hired by ManU when they were just some mid-table team. Back in the days when management was a long-term commitment, not a job where you had to win something within 4 months or get sacked. Over time, he managed to develop tactics, get an awareness of the opponents around them and build a team through the youth system and wise purchasing.

Nobody else these days seems to be getting that chance.

Unknown said...

Good point but sometimes they have to go. In Norwich's case, Roeder lost the players and we would have been down already.

Mosher said...

There comes a point where it gets ridiculous, though. And the question ha to be asked - who is at fault?

The manager for not being up to scratch? Or the people who hired him in the first place and then let him go after 3 months at vast cost to the club? Then the next guy after 6 month? And the one after that after 10?

A shame that sacking boards isn't an option any more now that they own the clubs instead of just being employed by them.

jjf3 said...

C'mon City!

(the security word - derbi)

30f said...

@Mosher -

I agree that teams get in that cycle of firing the manager and then the team ends up with shorter and shorter intervals between the DIVOCs (dreaded ironic votes of confidence - I am pushing for this to get adopted as a phrase like DOGSO). Like an addict scoring his dope more and more often - and that tends to not end well, either.

The club owners/boards don't know what they are doing, so why not do it again? But harder and louder this time! Plus a new manager holding up a scarf sure distracts from what a crap job everyone else is doing.