On the touchline they prowl, besuited at times, on other occasions looking like they’ve been dragged backwards through the club shop.
They gesticulate wildly and shout at players who cannot hear them. When their team wins, they are a genius. When they lose, so often that their Premier League odds slide, they’re sacked.
Either way, they are obligated to give their opinion afterwards to a hundred different people, usually on just the one incident, a hundred different ways.
When you stop to think about it, who in their right mind would be a football manager?
Given their constant close proximity to being fired, and the immense pressure they’re under, perhaps top-flight gaffers are deserving of our sympathy.
But then they go and do any one of the following traits and any credit they have in the bank is lost.
Selective Eyesight
Let’s start with one of the classics, a habit that was attributed so often to Arsene Wenger back in the day.
It’s a random weekend and a top-flight player from Team A innocuously pulls at the shirt of an opponent from Team B who dramatically flings himself to the turf. The incident occurs by the corner flag, at the far end of the pitch to the dug-out. A million miles away.
A couple of passages of play later Team B concedes a goal. The delicate winger is still on the deck, writhing in fake agony and holding his injured shirt sleeve.
The manager of Team B rants and rails in his post-match presser. He demands that refereeing standards improve. He blames the ‘obvious foul’ for the game’s outcome.
A week later, right in front of him, one of his own players commits a violent assault. It’s knee-high and nasty. How he avoids a straight red defies all logic.
When asked about it post-match the manager’s response is depressingly inevitable. “I’ve not had chance to see it yet.”
Of course.
So, So Good
Pep Guardiola is a repeat offender when it comes to this one but others too have been known.
Once in a blue moon, Manchester City lose and on even rarer occasions they have looked sluggish and predictable throughout.
That’s when you can set your watch on the Catalan going overboard in his praise, in defence of his players.
They were so, so good. He is so, so happy. That was City’s best performance of the season.
You’re fooling no-one Pep and furthermore, yawn.
Haranguing Fourth Officials
By some distance the worst habit included here and sadly the most common.
A fourth official has numerous roles, from overseeing substitutions to maintaining order in the technical areas. It is not part of their remit to be a verbal punchbag for fully grown babies to vent their frustration at.
This wholly unedifying sight is witnessed at least once per game and really needs to stop.
It wasn’t the fourth official who made the decision that provoked such outrage, nor is there any universe in which he will assist the manager in getting that decision reversed.
It’s tantamount to bullying.
Bullying Journalists
Talking of which, the purposeful punching down on journalists needs to also get in the bin pronto.
We’re looking at you, Jurgen Klopp, though again he’s hardly alone in doing this.
A perfectly reasonable enquiry is ridiculed, or failing that, the individual’s knowledge of football is openly questioned in front of his peers. Often these instances are shared online, only adding to the reporter’s humiliation.
It goes on in press conferences and post-match and unsurprisingly there is a direct correlation between this happening and a team posting a poor run of results.
Managers need to acknowledge a very simple truth. That respect goes both ways.
Mind Games
An oldie that continues to rear it’s ugly head from time to time. A debunking therefore is long overdue.
So let’s try here.
‘Mind games’ is the invention of sycophantic reporters, who used to hang off every word uttered by Sir Alex Ferguson and Jose Mourinho, managers who, let’s not mince words here, could be a git when the mood took hold.
When said gaffers acted especially gittish, and their team went on to win that weekend, it was erroneously credited to mind games.
The fact their team cost half a billion pounds, and were hot favourites in the sports betting, was oddly enough never factored in.
*Credit for all of the photos in this article belongs to Alamy*
