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| Remi Garde |
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| Gary Neville |
It is normal for a man (or woman) who has invested millions of dollars in a project would protect and nurture it jealously.
Owners of football clubs in Europe are not only trying to protect their huge investments, they also want to make a name for themselves. But some make the mistake of employing managers with little or no experience to oversee a struggling team.
Bringing in a young or inexperienced manager mid-season to guide a beleaguered team is a recipe for disaster. The players’ morale is down, the fans are uptight and, like hounds, the press scrutinise the new manager’s every move. If he doesn’t get results in his first three games he are as good as dead.
Last week, two inexperienced managers – Remi Garde and Gary Neville – were sacked by Aston Villa and Valencia respectively after just a few months in charge. How the owners of these clubs thought these rookies would turn around the fortunes of these great clubs beats me.
There is nothing wrong with giving a young ambitious manager a top-level job. But there are so many essential things that have to be in place for the guy to succeed. Some exceptional young coaches like Pep Guardiola and Diego Simeone have recorded successes because they were in the right environment and understood the terrain.
Neville, who has never managed a club, has never played in Spain; neither can he speak the language. In fact, his entire career was spent in Manchester United where he played 602 games and won 16 trophies before retiring in 2011.
Obviously the odds were stacked heavily against him in Valencia. He knew neither the players nor the culture, yet Valencia owner Peter Lim, his friend and business partner, employed him. Probably because he is a great pundit who wowed football fans with his deep knowledge of the game. But punditry and coaching are two very different things. Neville has finally realized that.
When he took over, Valencia – six-time Spanish champions – were ninth on the league table. By the time he left four months later, the club had sunk to 14th. The 41-year-old coach picked up only 14 points from 16 La Liga games, leaving them just six points above relegation zone with eight games left to play this season.
He lost 11 games out of 28, including the 7-0 loss to Barcelona in the Copa del Rey semi-final first leg in February. That was the team’s worst defeat since 1928.
Randy Lerner, owner of bottom-of-the-table Aston Villa, also made a wrong call by appointing Remi Garde to replace Tim Sherwood, another manager who was just learning the ropes. Garde arrived Villa Park from France in November 2015, but was sacked after just five months into his three-and-a-half-year deal. He was clearly not the kind of manager that is suitable for a relegation scrap in the Premiership.
Villa has been tottering for the past four seasons. They have had five managers since Martin O'Neill resigned in protest in 2010. They have continuously lost a stream of its best players. Last summer they lost four – Christian Benteke, Fabian Delph, Ron Vlaar and Tom Cleverly.
During the December transfer window the board didn’t buy any player. It is hardly a club for an inexperienced manager. Garde was doomed to fail.
Villa, which has never been able to leave the base of the league table all season, was thumped 4-0 at home by Chelsea a few days after Garde left. So obviously, the Frenchman wasn’t the problem.
Now, due to poor planning this great club will lose out on the windfall coming to premiership teams next season.
Garde and Neville will lick their wounds now but will probably return as better managers in future.
The sour experience of these two nice guys will add to the worry by Manchester United fans over appointing Ryan Giggs as the team’s next manager. However, since he has spent his entire career at Old Trafford and knows the club in and out, Giggs may have a better record than Neville.
But Man U fans should rule out winning the Premier League in the near future if the Welshman is made manager.
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