TalkSPORT broadcaster Ian ‘The Moose’ Abrahams has claimed “it would be bad for English football” if Leeds United and Norwich City were promoted this season.
The two teams currently sit top of the Championship after impressive starts to the season, but Abrahams does not want to see either of them back in the Premier League.
“My argument today is that it would be bad for English football if Norwich get promoted, and indeed Leeds,” he told talkSPORT.
“It will be bad for English football if Norwich and Leeds get promoted to the Premier League”#NCFC and #LUFC fans will want to hear this from @BroadcastMoose… ?
Would you be happy to see Farke and Bielsa in the top flight? ? pic.twitter.com/uqotfeRS2j
— talkSPORT (@talkSPORT) December 10, 2018
“Lining up behind Daniel Farke’s Norwich and obviously [Marcelo] Bielsa at Leeds are Chris Wilder, English coach at Sheffield United; Darren Moore, English coach at West Brom; Frank Lampard, English coach at Derby; Dean Smith, English coach at Aston Villa, and also Tony Pulis, English coach at Middlesbrough.
“The only way we’re going to get English coaches into the Premier League, I believe, is for them to get their team’s promoted. So therefore I think it’s bad for English football that Norwich and Leeds are the top two in the Championship.”
OPINION
There has been some consternation over the past week after Mark Hughes’s sacking at Southampton left the top flight with just four British coaches, so in some ways you can see where Abrahams is coming from, here. Despite him getting Pulis’s nationality wrong – he’s actually Welsh not English – he does have a point about promotion being the natural way for British managers to end up in the Premier League. Of the four current top flight British coaches, three of them earned their way into the top division by way of promotion. However, it’s just not true that Norwich and Leeds being promoted would be bad for English football. Those two teams will deserve to go up if they secure promotion at the end of the year, and their ascension would have very little to do with the state of English football. What’s bad for English football is Premier League sides continually ignoring British managers excelling in the Football League, you can’t lay the blame on Norwich and Leeds.