A Week of Changes

This week there is going to be a change to this blog. For a one-off edition I’m not going to discuss the match I went too this weekend as due to events earlier in the day I was not in the right headspace to be taking notes for this blog as I really needed a way to just relax, de-stress and switch off from events that had happened around me that day. This was Remembrance Sunday and whilst many people this year will remember that day for the terrorist attack on Liverpool Women’s Hospital it was events at the Remembrance service that I was attending at the time which had a far bigger impact on my need for an escape that day. I was not even aware of the attack till I received a phone call from my parents checking I was safe.

Due to this state of affairs for me the blog this week will instead give my view on all the changes of management that have been taking place across Premier League clubs in both England and Scotland over the international break. The three teams in England to make managerial chances were Newcastle United, Norwich City and Aston Villa. That is the order in which I will discuss my thoughts on the changes made. I may then also touch on Rangers north of the border.

First up are Newcastle United who have been looking for a new manager since their change of ownership at the beginning of October. It was the first thing Mike Ashley had done in years to please the Newcastle fans by finally fulfilling their wish for him to leave. The new owners have many drawbacks to them, but they do bring a lot of finances with them and with finance being king in modern football I think we will see them challenging for the title in seasons to come. They have bigger problems this season though as they have a huge fight on their hands just to avoid relegation.

The man they have bought in to keep them in the league is Eddie Howe, who recently got relegated with Bournemouth. I don’t think he will go down this season though as he now has a huge budget to bring in players in January and if he can get the fans on his side then they will gain the team points galore at home. For any of this to happen though they will first need to get a win on the board this season and they have the perfect opportunity coming up this weekend. The first game at home for their new manager is always an opportunity for any team to win and with the optimism that surrounds the club now the time has never been better for them to go on a run that might just save their season.

Next up are the only team below Newcastle in the league table. Norwich City fired Daniel Farke right after he got them their first win of the season. Whilst Norwich’s form this season has been dreadful and it has been clear for a while that change would be needed if they were to have any hope of staying in the league, but to make this change after you have achieved a morale boosting win and it appears that your luck is changing makes little sense to me. It also feels harsh on Farke as he had the team playing incredible football last season to get promoted and had finally managed to get the team turned around this season to get them winning again.

Norwich have bought in Dean Smith from Aston Villa to try an turn their season around but, even with the undoubted quality he possesses with a manager, I don’t believe that he will be able to keep them in the league. They don’t have the budget to go on a spending spree to bring in the quality needed to bridge the gap to the teams above them and with the time a new manager normally takes to bed-in I fear it may be a while before they start winning again and by then the points gap may have opened up enough as to have become insurmountable.

Dean Smith’s old club Aston Villa sacked him a week before he took the job at Norwich after a set of 5 losses in a row that saw them drop to 16th in the league. This was an aberration of form given the turn around that he had managed since he took over. I suppose that the financial repercussions of relegation were on the minds of the Villa owners when they made the call though and with their form as it was they felt they couldn’t take the risk of it continuing this way.

They have certainly made a great call with Smith’s replacement though, they have managed to tempt Steven Gerrard away from the excellent job he had been doing with Rangers in the Scottish capital. I must admit a huge bias and respect towards Mr. Gerrard both for his skills and achievements as a player as well as for the excellent job he has done in making Rangers relevant in Scottish football once more. The way he has transformed Rangers in his time as their manager has been nothing short of incredible. He transformed them from predictable also rans to a real force in their national league once more and even a team for others in Europe to be concerned about. Suffice to say that I believe Villa have made an excellent call with their new appointment and I reckon they will see their form turn around soon.

That change of management at Villa left Rangers without the man who had helped them break Celtic’s dominance of Scottish football. They have filled is huge hole in the club with former Rangers player Giovanni Van Bronckhorst, who may be better know to you as part of the Dutch team that reached the final of the 2010 World Cup. They lost that game to Spain and were one of the dirtiest teams in that World Cup, a far cry from the total football the Dutch used to be known for. I do hope his management at Rangers sees them playing football closer to the total football end of the scale as they have pulled in many new fans over the past few seasons and it would be awful for both them and Scottish football is they were to throw away that momentum now.

Those are my thoughts on the most prominent managerial changes that have taken place over the international break. The blog will be back to its usual form in my next post and the game in question takes me to as far north as the EPL goes to see Howe one of the new managers gets on in his first game. I’m off to St James’ Park to watch Newcastle United vs Brentford to see if Newcastle can make a winning start under their new manager and if Brentford can avoid making it a hat-trick of losses against teams who had yet to win so far this season. See you then.