It is confirmed. If Nigel Pearson, Sean Dyche, Steve McClaren and Harry Redknapp stay with their clubs — Leicester, Burnley, Derby and Queens Park Rangers respectively — all three managers who join the Premier League next season will be English.
The news that Redknapp will contest the final place with McClaren at Wembley, the England manager who never was against the one who might wish he never had been — and how McClaren will hope it doesn’t rain — filtered through during last night’s League Managers’ Association dinner.
Dyche, for having got Burnley up automatically on a budget much more modest than that of, say, Redknapp — a point emphasised by two crucial goals against Wigan from Charlie Austin, whom QPR plucked from Turf Moor last summer — was a little unlucky not to receive the overall Manager-of-the-Year award.
On the other hand, Brendan Rodgers, who did get it, had been a shade unfortunate not to win the Premier League title — his side are the only ones to miss out after scoring a century of goals. This is not to say that Manuel Pellegrini’s Manchester City were not deserving winners — of course they were — but the LMA members tend to show an acute sense of financial fair play, judging each other with reference to their clubs’ resources.
Hence the Premier League Manager-of-the-Year award went to Tony Pulis, for yanking Crystal Palace into mid-table despite a wage bill 10 times smaller than the champions. Russell Slade, whose Leyton Orient could reach Wembley tonight, thoroughly deserved to share the League One award — as Wolves’ impressive Kenny Jackett eloquently conceded.
Sir Alex Ferguson, in presenting the League Two award to Russ Wilcox, kept calling him ‘Bruce’. But then who wouldn’t confuse the Scunthorpe boss with Bruce Wilcox, the American artificial intelligence programmer who worked on such computer games as Jurassic Park and Walking Dead? We’ve all done it.
