I hear this a lot from neutral fans, ‘you’ve gotta give him time’, but why? These are highly paid jobs, that come with high expectations and affect thousands of people both financially and emotionally.
We seem to have a revolving door policy towards the ownership of football clubs, as they are treated primarily as businesses these days, something which has as many negatives as it does positives.
But these boards, which may or may not have any affiliation with the game itself, make decisions about the direction of OUR clubs and order us, the paying fans, to accept these decisions.
I accept that they might have invested their own money in the club, although on many occasions they have in fact managed to access huge finance agreements with banks or financial institutions, but have they been watching the team play every week for 20 or more years? Of course they haven’t.
They must seek advice from third parties or people they trust but to achieve this level of financial success these owners are probably pretty ego driven, ultimately they believe they know best and some people interview well.
If you know football, you are passionate about your club and have been following them for decades, who knows best? You, or the American Tycoon or Indian Chicken Salesman?
Occasionally it is the very obtuse nature of the decisions they make that prove they don’t fully understand the game. ‘We can probably sign Ronaldhino.’ and ‘£35m for Andy Carroll, can’t see how that could backfire, go for it.’
Whilst I can’t condone the treatment Steve Keane has received from the terraces at Ewood, I still think fans are well within their right to question appointments before watching the so called ‘right man for the job’ destroy your hopes for the season by Christmas, because we gave him time.
I can’t believe the sheer hypocrisy of a board that sacks a manager after one season only to go on and make a risky appointment, telling fans to invest in a ‘three year project’.
This is a tricky one, because on one hand you want to get behind your team and give the likes of AVB and Brendan Rodgers an opportunity to try and develop a more expansive footballing philosophy at a ‘big club’, but on the other hand, for every year these owners fail to invest in the kind of personnel that can attract players capable of achieving Champions League football, it will only become more difficult for the likes of Tottenham and Liverpool to compete at this level, particularly with the implementation of the financial fair play rules. Look at the money Abramovich has been able to throw around this summer and the marquee signings Chelsea have made after winning the competition.
Time will tell with these young managers but how many of these owners will deliver the sustained success they all proclaim they will when they have their picture taken with a scarf. Franchising a British football club won’t work and selling the television rights to China will be a lot more difficult if your 40,000 seater stadium is empty.
I just hope for the fans sake their teams play the kind of football they can enjoy as well as achieving results, because that’s what football is really about, winning games.
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