Lifelong fans Wilder and Hodgson work wonders as Brit bosses bite back in Premier League
IT’S FOR the good of English football that the number of home-grown managers has shot up to 11 in the Premier League. Only three of them are in the top half but let’s not be too greedy. Leading the Brit Pack is an Ulsterman, Brendan Rodgers at Leicester, a surprise, although not a big one, […]
IT’S FOR the good of English football that the number of home-grown managers has shot up to 11 in the Premier League.
Only three of them are in the top half but let’s not be too greedy.
Leading the Brit Pack is an Ulsterman, Brendan Rodgers at Leicester, a surprise, although not a big one, because the East Midland city were champions three managers ago.
The Foxes’ challenge to Liverpool has faded lately (hasn’t everyone’s?) but Rodgers’ revival of the 2016 spirit and the way he has brought on James Maddison and restored Jamie Vardy as the viperish raider of unthinking defenders is wonderful.
Well done to him. Even more so to Chris Wilder, the sharpest Blade in Bramall Lane for many a year.
Sheffield United’s impact on the Premier League was, until this season, as fleeting as springtime snow.
Since the league’s formation in 1992, there have been three appearances and two relegations.
Mind you, actor Sean Bean did brighten the gloom slightly, starring as a supporter in the film When Saturday Comes, broadcasting in a genuine home-made Sheffield accent, too.
Wilder has changed all those worrying Saturdays.
Like many another director, I’m jealous the Blades have made such progress under a man who has worn the badge of his club with such pride for all of his 52 years.
Of the five clubs filling the tenth-15th places, three are managed by Englishmen — Roy Hodgson, Steve Bruce and Sean Dyche.
Burnley’s 2-0 victory at Old Trafford is further evidence Dyche is the most under-rated coach in the league, while Bruce has shocked Tyneside with his motivating skills.
There are irresistible similarities between Wilder and another boss on the brink of the top ten. Silver-haired and serious, Hodgson has a dry sense of humour, too.
The Crystal Palace leader is old enough at 72 to be Wilder’s dad but age is just a number.
He has managed as many as 16 teams, which seems to me as sturdy an act as that of the Galapagos tortoise I was reading about the other day.
Diego is about 100 and repopulated an island by rather noisily fathering about 1,500 offspring.
He is being retired, which Hodgson, so far as I know, isn’t and shouldn’t be.
And why should Palace’s owners wish to do so?
It was an inspired move by chairman Steve Parish and his board to appoint a man who, like Wilder, was a lifetime supporter wherever he roamed.
It has to be said that the only major honour Hodgson has won is to be made a Knight, First Class, of the Order of the Lion of Finland.
In football, nothing in his home country. In Scandinavia, arise Sir Roy!
After the Euro 2016 fiasco, which saw him resign after the humiliating defeat to Iceland, he appeared to be used goods.
But when Palace plunged to four goalless defeats at the start of last season, Parish crossed his fingers and prayed Hodgson could work some form of magic.
Most read in football
Three defeats might have brought doubts but, hey presto, since then Palace have been in gradual ascent.
They have stabilised and, unless something horrendous happens, are safe from relegation.
Hodgson doesn’t look any happier than he did in the third week of his takeover but his side, honest and earnest, play in a similar style to Wilder’s, both making a few goals go a long way.