Hull City

Another day and another sacking in the Premier League. Mike Phelan was sacked last night from Hull City presumably for getting the most out of a very poor squad and actually putting up a fight against relegation as opposed to Hull doing a Derby County which many pundits had predicted would be the case. Besides Robert Snodgrass Hull do not really have anyone that can pull them out of the relegation zone so I do not really see how sacking a competent coach like Mike Phelan would really help matters. Perhaps a bigger issue now they have sacked him is that who takes over? If the job advert was honest it would read something like wanted: ‘a manager who does not care about having a poor squad at a club with no transfer funds as the owners desperately try to flog it.’

To quote Alan Partridge ‘you are the subject of a sacking’ is what Bobby Bradley (I added the Bobby – makes him sound more stereotypically American) was told late last year after just a couple of months in charge. True their performances were god awful but Bradley did not even get to make his picks for the Swansea Swans in the January draft! I’ll stop with Americanisms now. Bradley wasn’t sacked because he’s American, he wasn’t sacked because he referred to penalties as PK’s, he was sacked because Swansea have impatient owners. Now fair enough if they had an excellent alternative up their sleeve but they did not. They had Paul Clement. Hiring Clement is a bit like bringing a piece of celery to a gunfight – pretty useless.

Similarly it appears that Hull do not really have anybody in mind to replace Mike Phelan. The Hull job is such a poisoned chalice that surely not even Pardew would touch it. Unless you can find the desert island that Alan Curbishley has been hiding on for the last 9 years then I’m not sure any manager would take it. Harry Redknapp’s name has probably been linked with the job but the commute from his home in Sandbanks is definitely too far. There’s a reason why ‘Arry has never managed outside the South Coast or London. It’s clear for Hull that it’s the club not the manager that is the problem. Aston Villa tried multiple managers last season (although one was Tim Sherwood so does that really count?) but no one could save them from relegation. It seems obvious to me that managers should be given more time at clubs but in defence of the owner I do not have millions of pounds on the line if the club gets relegated.