Is There Too Much Sympathy For Football Managers?

 The international break gives me a chance to explore the more non Liverpool related aspects of football and today's piece is inspired by a couple of newspaper headlines I saw on the same day. On Thursday the front page of the Metro carried a story about £40 million of bonuses being paid to ten bank chiefs, the general tone of the article was pretty scathing about these people receiving such large pay outs. The same evening I was driving past a newsagents with a board outside advertising their local paper which contained a story about Henning Berg attempting to get a £2 million pay out from Blackburn Rovers. 

 When I got home I did a little research about Berg's record in charge at Blackburn - played 10, won 1, drawn 3, lost 6. That's six points from ten games, an average that over a season would bring you less than thirty points, an incredibly poor return. I should make clear right now that I'm not suggesting for a second that Venkys are running Blackburn in an acceptable way, the quick turnover of managers has never worked anywhere and I doubt it ever will and I have massive sympathy for Blackburn Rovers fans and what they're going through at the moment. My point here is that if I started a new job and my record was as poor as Berg's for the first few months I'd be going in every day with a fear that I'd be let go at any moment. And there's no way I'd be going with a couple of years salary as a pay out and a mass of public sympathy.

 If I'm honest I doubt any Blackburn fan who has seen their team regularly, home and away, would have managed fewer points than Berg and he's a professional football manager with experience and a big salary, there are people who would have happily done his job for free and not had worse results.

 I know there's much more to a manager's reign than his first ten results, Brendan Rodgers at Liverpool being a great example, he had a difficult start but is improving his side because he has been given time without the threat of the axe falling on his neck. The majority of the time a manager will need a decent period in charge to get his ideas across and improve how his team plays, it rarely happens overnight, but again, that's not what this is about, I'm simply saying that if the owners feel it's not working and they have solid facts to back this up (6 points from a possible 30) should a departing manager get sympathy as well as a large amount of cash?

 The general consensus was that Roberto Di Matteo was very harshly sacked at Chelsea only a matter of months after winning the FA Cup and Champions League, and from a sporting perspective it's easy to find reasons he should've been kept on. But let's get something straight, his results immediately before his sacking weren't good, he'd got them knocked out of the Champions League at the group stage and out of contention for the league title at a very early time in the season. And he will not have been told 'you're simply not good enough, you're out of a job' and have no payslip the following week, I'd be stunned if he didn't receive at least a few million to not come into work anymore. I know people who have really enjoyed their job and still happily taken a severance payment of a year or two's salary when it was offered, the opportunity to earn without actually having to go to work is something that us 'normal' people would jump at.

 Loving your club and wanting what's best for it isn't just part of being a football fan, it's the whole reason to exist as a football fan. Wanting a manager to be given time to build a successful team is one thing, genuinely feeling sorry for somebody who is now financially set for life without ever having to work just seems very strange to me. Over the last twenty years or more the gap between players and the supporters who pay to watch them has got bigger, these footballers may have come from the same streets as us but the world they now inhabit is a million miles away from where we are.

 Some people have become disillusioned with modern football and chosen to stop going to watch the 'overpaid prima-donnas' and who can blame them? But somehow managers seem to get much more sympathy when they are 'moved on' than players do. Maybe that's because we, as fans, have not yet lost respect for those who choose to manage the teams we follow in the sport we love, and in my opinion that can only be a good thing.