Football Betting: Geniuses and fools

Premier League / Robert Hughes / 27 January 2009 / Leave a Comment

Around the clock football coverage has created a hyper-reality where managers are either lauded or vilified. Robert Hughes wonders how any manager is supposed to learn his trade under the glare of a fickle media.

There have never been so many opinions out there about football. Hours of TV and radio airtime, endless blogs, message boards, column inches - all crammed with people giving their views on the game, from established journalists to armchair fans ready to condemn and vilify after every mistake or dropped point.

Such over-analysis of what is still a very simple game seems to have created a heightened sense of reality, where everything is exaggerated and speeded up. The media seem to portray managers as either geniuses or fools - there is, seemingly, no in-between. The tendency to make instant judgements and sweeping statements seems to have spread from tabloid newspapers to much of the mainstream media - the problem with this approach is that you can so easily be proved wrong by the end of the season, or even by the end of the week.

Take the example of two high-profile managers. Early in the season, with Chelsea topping the table and playing the sort of flowing football rarely seen under his predecessors, Luiz Felipe Scolari was being praised by everyone, while his lack of English was merely an amusing side issue. With Chelsea having slipped a little but still only two points off the top with 16 games left, he has now been transformed into a stressed, bumbling foreigner whose poor English means he cannot communicate with his players. There are even suggestions that his job is on the line.

Similarly, with Liverpool clear at the top at the turn of the year, Rafael Benitez was being lauded for finally producing a tough and consistent team which could sustain a title challenge longer than September. Having dropped a few points he is now portrayed as incompetent, unstable and cracking up under the pressure of Sir Alex Ferguson's mysterious 'mind games'.

However, if you concentrate on the facts, the race is still very close - although they have played a game more, Liverpool are still level on points with United with Chelsea a further two points back. Yet United are currently just [1.61] to win the title, while Liverpool are [6.8] and Chelsea [5.6].

It may have become a cliché to refer to Sir Alex's first few years at United as an argument for giving a manager time to get it right, but it still bears repeating that it took him seven years to win his first League title. It shows that it is possible for a manager to have several years of failure and be generally perceived as not good enough, and yet end up as the most successful manager in the history of English football. Of course, in today's climate he wouldn't have been given that long - he'd have been sacked after a couple of years and disappeared for a while before resurfacing as manager of Newcastle, Wigan or Bolton.

Increased media pressure has altered the way managers and clubs behave, and speeded up the process of hiring and firing. When clubs act in this way, it only serves to encourage the media to stir up even more trouble, because they know it gets results. There seems to be an obsession with creating the impression of a 'crisis' within a club - Chelsea and Liverpool being the most recent examples.

As media favourites, certain managers are treated differently. For example, Harry Redknapp is managing to avoid the sort of criticism suffered by his predecessor, despite the fact that Spurs are without a win in six League games and dangerously close to relegation. This disparity is also reflected in the relegation odds - Tottenham are currently [9.4] to go down, despite being level on points with West Brom [1.67], Stoke [1.6], and Middlesbrough [3.75]. Even Portsmouth, who are three points above Spurs, are [4.4].

The media want to give the impression that they know exactly what's going on, and what the outcome of every competition or season will be - there is no room for 'wait and see'. In truth, of course, no-one really knows what's going to happen - so ignore the hype and do not be swayed by dramatic statements about clubs being 'in crisis', title challenges being over and managers' jobs being on the line.