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<p>So it’s official then, Owen Coyle will be the new manager of Bolton Wanderers and Burnley now have to find the right man to replace him as they look to continue the good work this season has produced. It is crucial that the chairman, Barry Kilby, makes the right decision in who to appoint as Coyle’s successor at Turf Moor.</p>
<p>Without wanting to state the obvious, it is paramount to Burnley’s continued success this season that the right man is given the job. That means the chairman has to avoid being star struck when the same old names come calling for the vacancy. Get it right and Burnley’s home form should see them stay up. Make the wrong decision and the club could spiral to the foot of the table in weeks.</p>
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<p>Whilst Kilby should be rightly lauded for appointing Coyle in the first place, I don’t think anyone could have predicted just how much of an effect he would have on the sleeping giant. Stabilising the club by keeping them in the Championship and slowly building, improving the side year on year would have been a wonderful achievement. He surpassed all that when they won the play off final with their highest finish to a season since 1976.</p>
<p>Yet, you only have to look back to the mid nineties to see the age old disease that afflicts certain chairman. They get star struck and with the tenures of Adrian Heath and Chris Waddle still in the minds of Burnley fans, the last thing the club needs is a ex-footballer who thinks he can manage in the Premiership. They need someone who knows the demands of Premiership football and what the club means to the fans. It is not an easy decision for the club to make but they have to keep their eye on the prize.</p>
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<p>It also means avoiding such arch self publicists as Graham Souness, Ruud Guillit, Bryan Robson and Gianluca Vialli. Men who’s reputations are fanned by the hero worship dished out to them as pundits on Sky Sports. Ignore their failings as managers, they’ve won countless trophies as players, men such as Tony Cottee who took over a Barnet side flying high only to completely destroy them in less than 5 months. Star struck chairman should be banned.</p>
<p>So I had a look on the<a href="http:\/\/www.leaguemanagers.com/index.html" target="_blank"> League Managers Association Website</a> earlier, to see who was available on their list. Oddly, Souness, Vialli and Guillit are still touting their wares, but a couple of oddities appeared. Burnley’s two previous managers before Coyle, the overrated Steve Cotterill and the universally detested Stan Ternent are still on there.&nbsp; In fact most of the list reads as a who not to give the job too, with John Barnes and Tony Adams still refusing to realise their limitations and the ever popular Gary Megson available if you want to alienate your entire fan base.</p>
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<p>Yet there are some stand out candidates, firstly Alan Curbishley is there, as is Mark Hughes and Steve Coppell. Former Scotland manager George Burley and&nbsp; Paul Jewell are still available. For me, those are the 5 top options of unemployed managers that the LMA are offering. Curbishley wouldn’t probably want to move so far North and probably Coppell is wrestling with the idea of returning to Reading no doubt.</p>
<p>It may be too soon for Mark Hughes to return to the game so quickly after his ignomious exit from Manchester City which leaves Burley and Jewell. Burley proved at Ipswich that he could work on a tight budget, play effective and attractive football and earn promotion whilst at Ipswich. What he has against him is his failure to deal with bigger name players and keep sides in the Premiership. Jewell also has proved an ability to make a purse out of a sows ear, as his spells at Bradford City and Wigan Athletic showed.</p>
<p>Jewell though is still tainted by his awful spell at Derby County and Burley proved in his third Premiership season with Ipswich and during his time as Scotland manager, he just can’t handle big name players. He was also tainted with a torrid spell at Pride Park, which begs the question, what happens to managers at Derby County?? So would going after a manager currently employed be the answer?</p>
<p>Looking outside the Premiership though only seems to point to one candidate who could cope with the job and the pressure of Premier League football. He’s managed an international side and took a team from non league to the cusp of promotion to the Championship. He then took over another sleeping giant and took them up before almost taking them to the Premiership in 2008. That man is Gary Johnson at Bristol City and I believe he’s the only man out there for the job at Burnley.</p>
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<p>Now, don’t laugh but I honestly feel he’d be perfect for the job and would keep Burnley up. The only downside is that potentially, Bristol City are a bigger club, with a larger fan base. This season, they’re averaging 14,553 fans a game, whilst Burnley are almost at capacity with 20,344. Promotion for Bristol City would be a massive boost for the area, and with plans to move the club to a 30,000 seater stadium by 2011, with option to increase it to 42,000, would Johnson give all that up for a crack at the Premiership? It’d be a tough ask, but if they could get him, then they should bite his hand off. Just don’t give it to one of the usual suspects, it’d be curtains for Burnley.</p>

Burnley Have To Make The Right Choice - World Soccer Talk

Burnley Have To Make The Right Choice

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<p>Well it certainly sounds like Owen Coyle will be moving the 25 or so miles to Bolton Wanderers to replace the sacked Gary Megson. After being given permission to talk to the Trotters, Coyle looks set to&nbsp; become the manager of a club he served so well for two years between 1993 and 1995. By all accounts, it’s a done deal and Burnley will begin to look at who they will need to replace the excellent work that Coyle has started at Turf Moor.</p>
<p>Phil Gartside, the Bolton chairman has certainly acted quickly to replace Megson, but their are two things about this potential appointment I can’t get my head around. Firstly, people are saying he has more of an emotional attachment to Bolton than Burnley and secondly, why on earth is Burnley’s chairman Barry Kilby allowing Coyle to talk to them?</p>
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<p>The second point perplexes far more than the first. Why has Kilby allowed Coyle to talk to Bolton so easily? For all the criticism of football players agitating for moves, football managers it seems can simply walk away from a contract for nominal fees. Coyle signed a contract extension in the summer after turning down Celtic that tied him down to Turf Moor until June 2013. Now an offer from Bolton Wanderers is more appealing than talking over Celtic?</p>
<p>Now no-one can tell me that the Bolton Wanderers job is anywhere near the level of being in charge of Celtic. It’s a non-starter without question especially right now. Burnley are two points ahead, although having played two games more than Bolton and Wanderers travel to the Emirates on Wednesday night for one of their games in hand.</p>
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<p>Burnley fans are rightly scratching their heads thinking what on earth is going on and I can understand their confusion. Why has Kilby not put his foot down and simply pointed out to Coyle the 3 years left on his contract. Or is Bolton’s offer simply too good for Kilby to turn down? Yet for all the money that may be on the table from Bolton to take Coyle, who on earth could replace him?</p>
<p>The first point that I mentioned, the much vaunted emotional attachment, doesn’t add up either. As a player, Coyle played 74 games for Bolton and as of Saturday, he has managed Burnley for 113 games. So how can he have such an attachment that makes Bolton a more attractive prospect than Celtic or staying at Burnley? It’s something that I just can’t understand, which seems to echo the feelings of the majority of Clarets fan.</p>
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<p>To be honest, a move to Bolton is more of a sideways move right now than a move up the managerial ladder. Bolton, since Allardyce left have drifted along in the lower echelons of the Premier League, whilst Burnley have been on an upward trajectory ever since Coyle landed. All the pre-season predictions, <a href="http:\/\/epltalk.com/premiership-promotion-preview-no-3-burnley/9738" target="_blank">except for one idiot</a>, pointed to Burnley being cannon fodder.</p>
<p>Yes, their away form has been abysmal, but it smacks of naivety more than a lack of ability. On Saturday, they were being tipped as a team that could be embarrassed by lower league opposition in the F.A. Cup, but in the end, the comfortably dealt with M.K. Dons. They’ve impressed many people this season and good luck to them. Ironically, it was Coyle’s behavior after that game that set tongues wagging.</p>
<p>By claiming he couldn’t go the the post match press conference as he needed to catch a flight to Scotland immediately after the game, people thought fair enough. Unfortunately, Coyle was then caught out by still being at Stadium M.K. an hour later. It was then that questions began to be asked and since then, no-one has become any the wiser as to what on earth is happening. Just a word of advice for Mr Kilby, whatever you do, don’t give Graeme Souness the job!</p>

Will Owen Coyle Take Over At Bolton Wanderers? - World Soccer Talk

Will Owen Coyle Take Over At Bolton Wanderers?

<div id="attachment_680" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><div><figure class="image"></figure></div><p id="caption-attachment-680" class="wp-caption-text">Ferguson: A Harsh Sacking?</p></div>
<p>Even though Peterborough are currently <a href="http:\/\/www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11764_5685514,00.html">remaining silent</a> on reports while I write this, the man who lead the Posh from the bottom division of the football league to the Championship has apparently been relieved of his duties. Chairman Darragh MacAnthony appears to have taken the decision after Peterborough’s poor start to the season; the Posh currently sit bottom of the table with only two wins to their name. But any football fan must ask, where is the justice in this for Ferguson? I personally find it a shame that McAnthony has taken this decision and i’m sure many fans of the club will feel the same.</p>
<p>Peterborough has been quite a colourful club in recent years. Whether it be inviting disgraced TV pundit Ron Atkinson and a bunch of sky TV cameras into their club to “sort things out” or engaging in a legal dispute with Victoria Beckham over the naming rights of the clubs nickname ‘the Posh’, many English fans will be well acquainted with the name. Sky Sports favourite and director of football Barry Fry will also be familiar face to football fans, being one of those larger than life characters within the game.</p>
<p>This latest bit of news from Eastern English side though confuses me some what. How can any chairman justify sacking a manager who has won back-to-back promotions for your team and also shown great commitment throughout, notably rejecting the chance to manage Reading this summer – instead preferring to sign a new four year contract with Peterborough. The club is bottom of the table and on poor form, but you should expect that if you’re going up into a new league; Ferguson hasn’t even been given the opportunity to turn things around in any manner.</p>
<p>As mentioned above, Barry Fry is a recognisable figure from the club. A former manager and chairman who has always had the clubs best interests at heart. A meeting on Monday 9th November was scheduled after the club suffered another defeat to top of the table Newcastle United; a team they were hardly expected to beat. I wonder what Fry himself makes of this decision and how much of a say he had in it; he’s a man who’s whole life has revolved around football and surely he would realise Peterborough have a brilliant thing in Ferguson.</p>
<p>Maybe I could be wrong here but that scheduled meeting for Monday maybe have started out as a review of the clubs form and possibly gone a bit far and ended up with the worst possible scenario. Even then, to let Ferguson go suggests that the board’s ambitions for the club are currently set too high. They have shown little faith in one of the brightest young British managers and once again we see another reason why clubs look to hire foreign coaches; the Brit’s just aren’t given a chance to develop.</p>
<p>There are still 30 games left to play this season! 30! With all due respect, the Posh are not one of the big hitters in this league – nor are they expected to be. Any team that gets promoted to a higher league needs to prepare for the battles of relegation and build from there. Although some considerable investment has been made into the club, they have a lot of players that still need to adapt to the Championship. I can’t imagine any of the players are too happy about the decision, it’s clear that if he won two promotions then he obviously had a good rapport with his players.</p>
<p>It’ll be interesting to see who is brought in to replace Ferguson, I can’t think of many managers that could turn things around for the club. Ferguson is young so he is still developing, but at the same time has shown magnificent maturity in what he has accomplished. Any club that decides to snap him up will have a gem of a manager – I have already seen that Brighton fans are hopefull of the Scot filling their vacant managerial post after Russell Slade was given the axe. All I can see for Ferguson is success in the future and I hope he is back in management sooner rather than later.</p>
<p>It’s also quite ironic that Ferguson’s last game in charge came against another club whose chairman makes a few questionable decisions – Newcastle United. Anybody fancy getting the rumour mill going regarding a bit of Mike Ashley advice to MacAnothony?</p>


Darren Ferguson sacked by Peterborough? - World Soccer Talk

Darren Ferguson sacked by Peterborough?

<div id="attachment_639" style="width: 235px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><div><figure class="image"></figure></div><p id="caption-attachment-639" class="wp-caption-text">Ashley: no longer on the fans good side</p></div>
<p>Since his takeover of Newcastle United in 2007, Mike Ashley has had a turbulent tenure as owner of the Toon Army. Ever since I left the North East to attend university in Leeds, I get asked quite a lot what I think about Mike Ashley and why the fans have such a strong dislike towards him. I hope I can answer a few questions that I (and I imagine other Newcastle fans) get asked frequently and explain a few reasons why we’re so keen to see him leave.</p>
<p><strong>1. The Kevin Keegan saga</strong></p>
<p>When Kevin Keegan was <a href="http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/n/newcastle_united/8286967.stm">awarded £2m</a> this month just about all of my housemates, classmates, work mates and even 2 of my lecturers asked ‘you must hate “King Kev” now eh?’. Well, no. The <a href="http:\/\/timesonline.typepad.com/thegame/2009/09/i-love-kevin-keegan-love-him.html">wonderful George Caulkin can explain it in no better way</a>. But to echo that statement (or if you can’t be bothered to read it) Kevin Keegan has done so much for the club and in my opinion has every right to have that money. He stood up for what he believed in, which is the same reason Alan Curbishley left West Ham weeks before Keegan left his post at Newcastle. He was brought into that club and signed into a contract under false promises; I’m pretty sure if all responsibility was taken away from your current job you wouldn’t best be pleased. There is no way Ashley, Llambas, Wise or anybody can defend signing a player to appease two agents and directing the manager to ‘go watch him on Youtube’. When I first started supporting Newcastle KK was in charge, so I can personally never thank him enough for getting a whole city excited and making me as enthusiastic about supporting the team as I am today.</p>
<p><strong>2. Hiring Dennis Wise</strong></p>
<p>This does relate somewhat to the first point, but it has it’s whole own story. What infuriates me most is Dennis Wise all of a sudden coming out on sky sports trying to seem like his was right all along and how innocent he feels. I don’t care if he ‘did what he was told’; he made a lot of bad decisions. Xisco and Ignachio Gonzalez being two names that spring to mind, Gonzalez being signed for what I feel is the equivalent of what is known as a bung in football; which is illegal. The way Gonzalez came to the club alone shows his lack of commitment and Wise’s neglect while in the director of football position.</p>
<p><strong>3. “Hiring Alan Shearer is the best decision i’ve made since I bought the club”. Ok…and then…?</strong></p>
<p>That was a rare quote from Ashley after Newcastle were relegated from the Premiership. I’m pretty sure the bookies weren’t taking bets on the next permanent Newcastle manager at that point, so it begs the question, why does Shearer not manage the club now? I take nothing away from Chris Hughton, I’ll admit that Hughton has done a great job at Newcastle and I respect him for the job he has done; I hope he keeps his job no matter what happens with the ownership of the club. A lot of people I know have said he should have the full time job, but I don’t think so. He’s made a good start, but what about when things take a turn for the worse and we start to lose a bit of form, is Hughton the sort of man who can fire up the players? I think Chris would be the first to admit he works best as an assistant manager and it is my belief that Alan Shearer would make a great manager and should of learnt his trade in the same manner as Kevin Keegan did. People also comment on the fact that Shearer didn’t manage to save us in the end. But he tried, he is a true professional that loves the club and the region; if Newcastle were 2-0 at half time this season I can guarantee you Shearer could get a message across to the players a lot better than Hughton could because he has the passion. Alan Shearer in charge of the team would inspire the city once more and get home attendances back up (even though the club still gets a higher average crowd than a lot of premier league clubs…Sunderland). Also just to note <a href="http:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1204473/Joe-Kinnear-Newcastle-want-I-return-St-James-Park-December.html">Joe F’in Kinnear’s comments</a> at the start of the season, claiming he was offered the job on a full time basis. So when were you going to install Shearer exactly?</p>
<p><strong>4. Not speaking to the fans</strong></p>
<p>Freddie Sheppard and Sir John Hall were some what shady in their dealings, but at least they made some effort to speak to fans, you can barely get a word out of Ashley. Even when Newcastle fans do hear from Ashley they have to hear it from some outside source, <a href="http:\/\/www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/football_league/article6396030.ece">mainly national newspapers</a> rather than a local source or even the clubs own website. And then there’s the club’s bizarre relationship with sky sports who are shall we say slightly selective of what they claim and the fans they broadcast. Even after KK got sacked the club made no comment, proving how very wrong they were. The fans are in the dark about everything at the moment, which is a shame because they still show their faith week in, week out.</p>
<p><strong>5. No structure</strong></p>
<p>A football club is not a business in a normal economic sense. Mike Ashley brought in a number of old associates to help make up the hierarchy of Newcastle United and help run the club to make us have a structure a lot like the top 4 English teams. What he didn’t understand however is that Peter Kenyon was hired by Chelsea because he knows how a football club should work. It would have been fair of Ashley to stay out of matters and merely watch games if he had put in the right structure and hired people who know how a football club should be run. Instead he hired Chris Mort, who although had built a slight rapport with the fans in some respects, quit and returned to his expert field of business. He was replaced with Derek Llambas – who still lives in Essex. This is also a man who was apparently <a href="http:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1208411/Nude-castle-United-Llambias-runs-naked-St-James-Park-losing-bet-Ashley.html">dared by Mike Ashley to streak across the St. James’ pitch</a> and obliged. Oh an that was only in August when the club is supposed to being the process of getting sold (allegedly) and being described as ‘in turmoil’ from every news source on the face of the planet. Great job guys!</p>
<p><strong>6. Lack of bodies</strong></p>
<p>Newcastle played all of last season with one recognised left back at the club. That is a Premiership team with one left back. In the January transfer window all our dealings came in the last 3 or 4 days. At one point in this season we had about 13 players in our squad that had actually made a senior start in a league competition. I’m pretty sure that Chris Hughton has had a word in Ashley’s ear this season and told him that he needed the bodies and thankfully we’ve managed to get in three loan signings (Danny Simpson, Marlon Harewood and Zurab Kish…you know the one). We have managed to keep hold of quality players and Peter Lovenkrands has returned after he found out the hard way that nobody in the Premiership wants him. Oh and he got a 3 year contract, quite a lot for a championship club who are struggling with debts most would agree. And not forgetting our two Argentina internationals…</p>
<p><strong>7. The sale of Newcastle United</strong></p>
<p>You could say anything you wanted about the sale of Newcastle United Football Club and you’d probably have as much evidence as any other news outlet. I am sick of hearing phrases coined like ‘South African businessmen shown around St. James’ Park’. I know selling a club or major organisation can be a long process, but something tells me that Ashley is merely holding out for his ridiculous valuation of the club. I think it was several weeks ago the club issued a statement on their website that a bid had been received, yet they’ve said nothing since. All I have heard is rumours, and it makes me wonder why state that bid has been received to the public if you are not going to then say anything else within a month. The price tag of £100m is ridiculous and it doesn’t surprise me that all of these businesses most likely came in with lower offers. I always hope every day that I’ll be able to wake up to the headline ‘Newcastle sold to [insert name/multibillionaire sultan here]’ but I just give up. It is a strange feeling when I return to Newcastle; when I grew up the people from the area actually knew what was really happening at the club.</p>


7 Reasons Why Newcastle United Fans Dislike Mike Ashley - World Soccer Talk

7 Reasons Why Newcastle United Fans Dislike Mike Ashley

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