In Defence of the Dinosaurs

I appreciate that Mark Hughes’ dismissal by Southampton is old news by now, but something has been bothering me about it over the last week or so that hasn’t got much to do with the Saints’ league position, or the relative merits of Sparky and Ralph Hassenhüttl.

What’s bothered me is the reaction - from some sections of the media but mainly by fans on Twitter - to Hughes, his career and his achievements.

If we took everything written on social media to be indisputable, verbatim fact (and many seem to do exactly this, for some reason), we would assume that Hughes was a hopeless old codger, being fed jobs by his old chums in some sort of Victorian Footballing Gentlemen’s Club, his total absence of qualifications ignored because he’s good company over a post-prandial sherry.

The same attitude prevails towards most British managers of a certain vintage - Allardyce, Pardew, Moyes. I fully expect that when Roy Hodgson takes up whatever his next post might be, we will hear endless complaints about jobs being donated to undeserving dinosaurs. Neil Warnock will get the same stick, too.

My issue is that it is, for the most part, utter rubbish. Somehow, Football Twitter as a whole has determined that each of these managers are prehistoric (old), out-of-touch (they don’t play tiki-taka) and have abysmal track records that fail to justify their continued employment (their most recent job ended badly).

Take Mark Hughes. He was superb in his first posting as Wales manager, outstanding for several years at Blackburn, passable (if no better) at Manchester City, finished eighth with Fulham and for the first couple of years at Stoke he took them to their best league position in modern history and generally overachieved fairly dramatically. Yet somehow, because there have also been failures - including very recent ones - he is recast as a hopeless duffer and his struggles at Southampton as inevitable and flagrantly foreseeable.

Of course, Hughes’ record is not unblemished. QPR fans, in particular, would be keen to point that out. I’d argue, however, that over the course of his career the good times outweigh the bad by a fairly decent margin. Even if you contest that point, he’s surely built up more credit than he gets.

Allardyce, too, gets far more stick for his career than is remotely justifiable. His only definite failure (from a purely managerial perspective) was at St. James’ Park. He worked minor miracles at Crystal Palace and Sunderland. Somehow we easily forget the swashbuckling Bolton of Okocha and Djorkaeff so that we can portray him as an antediluvian relic, unaware of any tactical developments since Charles Reep first started preaching the holy cant of the long ball.

We’ve forgotten that Big Sam, the wine-chinning, gravy-guzzling brontosaurus that we know and mock now, was once viewed as one of English management’s most progressive forces. He was miles ahead of the curve in the use of statistical analysis in coaching, possibly the first to watch games from the stands to get a better strategic view, and at Bolton became the first manager to introduce sports psychologists to a Premier League club. Remarkably, when he brought a psychologist on to the staff at Everton in 2017, it was the first they’d ever had.

Big Sam, Dinosaur-in-chief

Sure, Allardyce has overseen some pretty turgid football during his tenure in the top flight. Nobody is crying out for DVD highlights of his Blackburn side. He’s a pragmatist first and foremost and has, not unreasonably, decided against instructing relegation-threatened teams to attempt slick, one-touch passing football. Time and time again, he has taken over struggling sides and had them bully their way out of trouble. Time and time again, he has overachieved. Time and time again, we point and laugh at almost unarguably the most successful English club manager of the last twenty years.

Moyes was exceptional at Everton, but that was quickly forgotten when it became funnier to laugh at his failure at Old Trafford and his aggressively expansionist crow’s feet. Pardew has had more ups and downs than a trampolinist on a rollercoaster but there was a reason he got that daft eight-year contract at Newcastle, and his work at Palace shouldn’t be dismissed just because he was rubbish at West Brom. Is it really that funny that he seems to be in line for the vacancy at newly-minted MLS champions Atlanta United?

For all the sense of superiority that we have developed over our league and our footballing history, we distrust our own managers.

I suspect that there are two reasons why we like to pillory these guys. The first is that they are, largely, pretty tough to love.

Hughes may have a pretty solid track record by any rational standards, but he’s also the Premier League’s whinger-in-chief, scourge of third officials across the nation and prime grump of the post-match interview.

Pardew has had a string of falling-outs lengthy enough for his Wikipedia page to have a section entitled “Controversies”. He headbutted David Meyler and called Manuel Pellegrini a “f**king old c**t”. He dances like a sozzled uncle at a bar mitzvah. I’m essentially defending him in this article, but even I’ll admit that I don’t actually like him very much.

Allardyce is crooked and smug - his absurd pride at getting a thoroughly undeserved 1-1 draw at Anfield last season still sticks in the craw - while Moyes is just plain grumpy and made that ridiculous remark about slapping Vicki Sparks.

The second reason, however, is simply because they’re British. For all the sense of superiority that we have developed over our league and our footballing history, we distrust our own managers.

Years of grim Reepian philosophy has left us with a crippling complex regarding our grasp of tactics. It’s probably fair to suggest that if the internationalisation of the Premier League hadn’t happened, half of our teams would still be playing 4-4-2 and hoofing it long down the wings, but that doesn’t especially apply to any of the managers still getting work today.

We trust foreign managers far more because, for decades, they were almost definitely better at their job, more inventive in their tactics, and fielded teams more pleasing on the eye. I doubt that’s particularly true any more - managers like Gareth Southgate, Eddie Howe and Chris Hughton have demonstrated plenty of strategic savoir-faire over recent years - but if Marcelo Bielsa had been born in Bromsgrove then I strongly suspect he would have received short shrift from the Leeds faithful upon his appointment regardless of what he did with Chile or Atlético.

The underline on this point is that every time this season that I’ve seen Twitter threads discussing managers leaving big jobs - United, Spurs, whoever - there are invariably wags in the comments posting photos of Howe and laughing at the hilarious notion of Bournemouth’s baby-faced head coach in the dugout at Old Trafford or the New White Hart Lane.

Don’t be suckered into name-calling just because they’ve got a few worry-lines and lack an exotic accent or an exciting spell at Udinese.

It’s patently absurd, reductive and frankly thick. Howe has been superb at Bournemouth - most managers would have that squad in the Championship, not gunning for a Europa League spot. He deserves a shot with the big boys, but he’s English so we mock the idea because he must, inevitably, fail in a hailstorm of long downfield passes. Apparently.

That’s been part of the problem for the old guard of British management. With the exception of Moyes, not one of them has ever been given the chance to manage an established top-table club. In a previous era, Allardyce would certainly have managed a big team and I strongly suspect he’d have done pretty well. But his appointment would be less edifying to the sensibilities of modern fans than that of a storied foreign manager, and so time and again British coaches are refused often-deserved opportunities at the pinnacle of the Premier League - not that plenty of those overseas coaches haven't deserved the jobs too, of course.

Would Big Sam have got his reputation as a long-ball merchant if his next post after Bolton had been at an Arsenal, or a Chelsea? I doubt it, somehow. For years he was only trusted to take charge of limited, struggling squads, and now we believe that this is the only job which he is capable of doing. Perhaps, after so many years of coaching cloggers, it’s actually now the case. I can’t help but wonder about the alternative universe in which he got the chance to take charge of the crème-de-la-crème.

I suppose I’m not suggesting that you should necessarily be happy if you find one of these men linked with your club when the hotseat next needs filling. None of these managers represent staggeringly imaginative or progressive appointments and there may easily be a better fit who is younger or more glamorous.

I can't blame you for wanting a Sarri, not a Sam. I'd feel precisely the same. But if nothing else, don’t be suckered into name-calling just because they’ve got a few worry-lines and lack an exotic accent or an exciting spell at Udinese.

These guys don’t keep getting jobs because of some Masonic pact between them and their chairmen buddies. They get them because they’ve proven, over the years, that they can do the job, and often do it bloody well.

Let’s cut the dinosaurs some slack.

Author's note: I'm aware that Chris Hughton is, for FIFA purposes, Irish and not British. He was born in England and would be considered British (and Irish) by any legal, ethical or logical standards not used by Gianni Infantino.