It is only in the world of football where a man could leave a job in October, declaring himself ‘tired and worn-out’, to then return two-and-half-months later in a new role.
After Crystal Palace’s dispiriting 4-1 home thumping at the hands of Fulham on October 21st, Ian Holloway concluded that his club would be better served by turning to a more experienced managerial hand in their pursuit of Premier League survival.
The normally vivacious 50 year-old cut a forlorn figure when he announced his Selhurst Park departure and, regardless of his vow to ‘plunge back into the fray as soon as the next opportunity opens up for me’, there was some scepticism with respect to Holloway’s prospects of a quick appointment elsewhere.
Which chairman would be willing to place their club’s fortunes in the gift of a man who had confessed his former side, after their promotion into the Premier League, became ‘worse rather than better’? Moreover, a boss who believed his squad had lost much of the spirit that propelled them to victory against Watford in last May’s Championship’s play-off final.
Nevertheless, there was a hint in Holloway’s valedictory reflections upon leaving Palace to just why Millwall owner John Berylson has, this week, recruited the ideal man to revive the Lions.
Amid an unprecedented mea culpa the Bristolian stated, ‘the way I care is a tad unusual’, later suggesting that the prime reason for his being ‘mentally and physically drained’ was the relentless working approach he had adopted across the previous four years. That period consisted of leading both Blackpool and Palace into the Premier League as well as a season spent, ultimately vainly, fighting the odds attempting to keep the Tangerines in the top-flight.
It is perhaps his inability to switch off, a desire to take on responsibility for every aspect of his club’s operation, that has prevented the former QPR midfielder from translating his relative success away from the glare of the Premier League into relative prosperity at that level.
Holloway, in contrast to his outward persona, has an introspective, contemplative nature. It is, therefore, surprising that he fell into the same trap after securing Palace’s rise to the top-flight, as he had done three years earlier at Bloomfield Road.
During a turbulent summer 2010 transfer window at Blackpool, Holloway recruited twelve players. The Lancastrian side initially adjusted to the upheaval and took a number of notable scalps. They did that while playing a brand of football completely at odds with the rough and ready style for which promoted clubs were renowned.
Liverpool were beaten twice, Tottenham Hotspur and Newcastle United once each. Manchester United, Manchester City and Everton were all given a run for their money.
Unheralded performers such as Gary Taylor-Fletcher, Stephen Crainey and Craig Cathcart were moulded into comfortable, even accomplished, Premier League footballers. Charlie Adam’s game evolved to the extent whereby Liverpool paid £6.75m for his signature.
The Seasiders’ cruel last day relegation – suffered after a typically robust, free-flowing display in defeat at Old Trafford – was a blow that left Holloway reeling.
His persona during the opening months of the following term was habitually downbeat, although he recovered sufficiently to take his team to another play-off final. Losing that match to West Ham United, even if he remained in charge during the initial stages of the 2012/2013 campaign, marked the beginning of the end of Holloway’s entrancing Bloomfield Road tenure.
When, in November last year, he began his Palace reign with a 5-0 win against Ipswich that took the Eagles to the head of the Championship table, a personal return to the Premier League looked assured. A terrible late run however, when Holloway’s new team failed to record three points in any one of nine consecutive games, left them scrambling for a play-off place. Palace’s top-six berth was eventually secured by a timely return to winning ways; a 3-2 victory against relegated Peterborough United sealing 5th spot.
It is to those play-offs which one can turn to discover the extensive capability of Millwall’s new boss. Holloway was at his perspicacious best in outwitting first Gus Poyet’s Brighton & Hove Albion over two legs, and then a Watford team under the leadership of Gianfranco Zola.
Two foreign managers, popularly acclaimed as rising stars of the profession, were outsmarted in the most exacting of arenas, by a man widely portrayed as being big on heart and bluster, but short on tactical acumen.
Having been subject to a deal of terrace criticism when Palace’s season had appeared to be tailing away, Holloway was once again a man rejuvenated. It was in the wake of victory at Wembley, when he allowed himself only a five day break before embarking on a gruelling scouting schedule, that this most compelling of characters lost his way.
It has since transpired that Holloway allowed himself to be coerced by Palace’s co-chairman, Steve Parish, into an acquisition drive which mirrored his Blackpool purchasing frenzy. Sixteen players arrived, leading the manager to later admit that the club had ‘tried to change too quickly’. Damningly, he continued, ‘Some of the new lads, their attitude and where it is, I’m finding it slightly annoying and that ain’t right’.
Holloway’s successor Tony Pulis, has, nevertheless, coaxed a string of energetic, coherent displays, and consequently positive results from the same set of players. At the crux of the Eagles’ upturn have been Jason Puncheon, Barry Bannan, Marouane Chamakh, Adrian Mariappa, and Dwight Gayle – all among the 16 summer buys.
With more self-belief and a clearer head there is no reason to suspect that Holloway was incapable of guiding those men to victory, as Pulis has, against West Ham, Cardiff City, and Aston Villa.
Holloway has only once, since the outset of his managerial career at Bristol Rovers in 1996, betrayed his own instincts and morals. After a successful spell at the helm of then Championship outfit Plymouth Argyle – following predominantly rewarding times in charge at his hometown club and Queens Park Rangers – the increasingly coveted boss opted to decamp to Leicester City. There, he endured an awful seven months which culminated in the Foxes’ relegation to League One.
Looking back on his decision to cut-and-run from Argyle, Holloway considers it ‘the biggest mistake of my life’ and laments ignoring his cherished values of ‘honesty, trust, and loyalty’.
After his humbling Leicester experience, Holloway used a year’s unemployment to study the game and re-assess the methods on which he had hitherto relied. It was the revitalised manager’s desire, on his second-coming, to oversee a team playing exciting, adventurous football that gave birth to Blackpool’s astonishing ascent and, it must be said, their subsequent glorious descent.
Now with a club that remains unabashedly true to its roots, Holloway should do exactly the same. The New Den’s previous managerial incumbent, Steve Lomas, couldn’t shake off his West Ham connections during a short-lived stay. That, primarily, was due to the results under his command which see Millwall currently a point and a place outside the Championship’s relegation zone.
With a broad knowledge of this level, and an accumulated wisdom in his trade, it is impossible to envisage a Holloway governed Lions ending this campaign bound for League One.
From there, who knows? If he can channel his obsessive trait, retain his joie de vivre and crucially, have the conviction to trust his ability and intuition, Ian Holloway might be on the verge of fulfilling a unique talent.
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