“I had never watched a single football match in my life [before buying Blackburn]". These are the words of new Blackburn owner, Anuradha Desai - said after taking over Blackburn Rovers. Sam Allardyce has been sacked, with no real reason other than they want "good football and Blackburn to be fourth or fifth in the league or even better" - aspirations that are not only ridiculously high for the outgoing manager, but any other manager coming in.
How then, can they decide as to whether the manager - vastly experienced and relatively successful at the clubs he has managed is not good enough, despite only seeing a few games of football with him in charge. Sir Alex Ferguson, a good friend of Allardyce said:
"I've never heard of such a stupid decision in all my life, it's absolutely ridiculous. I don't know what they're doing up there, but deary me. "That is coming from a man who knows what it is like being a manager, under pressure - but in a job, as he sits in the position of being the longest serving manager currently still managing in the football league, and he is right of course.
Will the new Rovers' owner be one of those owners of a football club? By those I mean another Mike Ashley - recently sacking the excellent, widely supported boss, Chris Hughton. After all, it was the same Anuradha Desai that said of Allardyce after her takeover:
"He deserves a chance"and
"To this end the group have promised manager Allardyce funds to spend in the January transfer window."That is - if he still has the job - which he doesn't, and so it turns out, both are lies on the part of the owners, as they falsely led Big Sam into a sense of security in his job - something that very few managers have these days.
The League Managers association said this:
"When new owners take over a club, sadly the manager's position often hangs by a thread."If this is what footballing is turning into for managers, then it really isn't a good advert for any young managers wanting to come through and earn their trade. I think that the owners should only interfere when the situation is severe - or it is suggested that the clubs situation is balancing on that. Blackburn weren't, and a man who was being tipped for the England job finds himself out of a job all together thanks to a poor, poor decision.
