It must be tough being a Premier League manager. The media are always on you. The fans are after you. Constant spotlight. Huge salary.
Still, there’s no excuse for completely losing the plot. And, in very different ways, that’s what Arsene Wenger, Harry Redknapp and Manuel Pellegrini have just done.
Wenger
His answers to Jacqui Oatley in a BBC post-match interview were awful.
The moment the plot was lost:
Wenger said in a rambling answer that “You look at the numbers, look at the number of shots on goal, how many times did they come in our half and you will see that they defended well…”
Oakley follows up with: “You feel you didn’t win the game because they didn’t come out of their half enough?”
Wenger: “I didn’t say that, you don’t listen really well to me.”
No, you didn’t say that exactly – which is why Oatley was trying to clarify what you meant. That’s the point of an interview.
Redknapp
The Adel Taarabt saga is awful. Harry has hung him out to dry, and Taarabt to his credit is fighting back at the 3-stone jibe. Maybe he is a lazy footballer, but he’s clearly not overweight.
The moment the plot was lost:
Redknapp said in the Sun: “The only reason he has lost weight is because he has had tonsillitis. That’s the only way we could get any weight off of him.”
So is he overweight or not? When this started, barely two days ago, Harry said that Taarabt was overweight. Now he says he isn’t. Thanks to an illness.
QPR may be struggling, but not as much as their manager with reality.
Pellegrini
The normally rational Chilean is unhappy about playing CSKA Moscow in the Champions’s League in an empty stadium. Apparently, “the biggest loser is the game of football”.
Quick recap: CSKA are playing behind closed doors because of racist chanting from fans.
The moment the plot was lost:
The moment that Pellegrini opened his mouth. So UEFA’s efforts to stop racism in football are bad for football? Or, could it be that racism is bad for football? No, that’s not it. Playing in an empty stadium is worse. Of course it is.
