Just desserts for basic failures

FEB 14 — I always believed that Tony Adams would make a great manager for The Arsenal. No, it’s not because they share the same initials, TA. That’s stretching it, I know. I think it would simply be a good step up for a true servant of the club who came up the schoolboy ranks and went into the first team, becoming the club’s youngest captain ever at the age of 21.

Now, I am not so sure anymore.

Just one week ago, I realised that no manager had been sacked in the English Premier League since Paul Ince was given the boot by Blackburn Rovers in mid-December 2008. It felt like an eternity.

For a while, it looked like Mark Hughes would be next. But it’s just his great luck in having a bunch of naïve useless Arabs as the new owners of Manchester City.

But alas, that “dry” spell recently came to an end. And talk about “when it rains, it pours”. Not one but two managers have become like many of the European football fans in these troubled times … unemployed!

Ironically, one was a novice who paid the price for a club’s desperation to stay in the EPL, while the other very experienced and well-respected manager fell victim to a club’s desire for instant success.

Adams is the former. He won every domestic trophy as a player in top-flight football in England. He earned every respect and accolade as a player but has struggled as a manager. His first stint in 2003 with then Third Division league side Wycombe Wanderers resulted in their relegation.

He was on the sidelines since 2004 until last October. He inherited a managerial handicap when given the Portsmouth job. Trying to fill the shoes of Harry Redknapp — the only man, it would seem, who knows how to work Portsmouth — is no easy task.

After the home loss to lower division Swansea in the FA Cup 4th Round on Jan 24, Adams was told he had four matches to save his job. It is slightly shocking that his sacking came two games short of the four and that too after coming so close to beating Liverpool.

His weakest link has certainly been the defence. Given his background as a solid defender in his playing days, Adams failed to rally his ex-England colleagues David James and Sol Campbell (whom he also partnered at The Arsenal) to hold the fort for Pompey. Not that they needed any help. They are established internationals after all.

But sadly, Portsmouth have been defending like schoolboys for one too many games. Adams further let his team down in their last match by not making a tactical change after taking the lead against Liverpool with 13 minutes left. He opted to keep his three attackers on the pitch, leaving his defenders to face an onslaught from a strike force led by top scorer Fernando Torres.

It was a similar story in the Uefa Cup match against AC Milan back in November 2008, when Pompey let in two very late goals to be denied a famous victory against the Italian giants.

Luis Felipe Scolari is the other casualty. He is a managerial veteran who has won the ultimate prize as a coach, the Fifa World Cup, while in charge of the Brazilian national side in 2002. He then led Portugal to the Euro 2004 final held in Lisbon, Portugal, but sadly lost 1-0 to underdogs Greece.

Last August, Scolari took charge of the team with the most number of established international players in the roster of any club in England. It should be easy for him to lead such a compilation of star players, or so everyone thought. Yet, it seems that working with a smorgasbord of personalities, languages and talent in super-rich Chelsea has now led to his undoing.

To put it bluntly, Scolari lacked the right ingredients to be leading a top club in Europe. He took the Chelsea job after almost 10 years out of club management and it showed.

Incidentally, that previous stint was in Brazil with Cruzeiro. Previously, he managed Palmeiras and Gremio, both from Brazil, as well as a short stint in Japan with Jubilo Iwata.

Let’s not also forget that his glory with Brazil came with a team that even I could have taken to the World Cup final. It comprised Cafu, Dida, Roberto Carlos, Rivaldo, Ronaldo and Ronaldinho, all in their element and many at the peak of their career.

Scolari was accustomed to receiving his players in peak physical fitness from their clubs and applying the finishing touch, rather than putting together a regiment that would attain and maintain fitness suited to the pace of the EPL.

That probably explains why John Terry and Frank Lampard complained about the lack of intensive fitness training.

Finally, Scolari's chief failure has been the inability to inspire the entertainment he was hired to produce. Chelsea are not Brazil. They haven't just regressed as a points-collecting force, they have regressed aesthetically. Their last match was a performance that did not even reach the heights of ordinariness.

When the list of EPL 2008/09 flops is compiled this May, you can bet that Big Phil will be near the top, if not at the summit.

I predict that he will soon be back in the international football scene. Who knows, he might just be the man to take over Mexico with current coach Sven Goran-Ericsson possibly on his way out. At least language wouldn’t be a problem there.

However, I wonder if Malaysia could convince him to come and pull our national team out of the rut. With all the millions that certain parties are dishing out for people to “move”, this might be the one move that is really worth such an obscene “investment”.