Surely not, but big Mick is the favourite for the Nottingham Forest job.
The good news, your club has been taken over by wealthy Middle Eastern owners.
The bad news, Mick McCarthy is the favourite to become manager.
Of course we are being a little disingenuous here about McCarthy, he has a solid track record at Championship level, and let’s face it, everything they have tried in recent years has backfired on them.
From the disastrous David Platt reign, to Joe Kinnear, Gary Megson and Steve McClaren, it has not been an easy 15 years for supporters.
The news the historic club was taken over by rich Kuwaiti family the Al-Hasawi’s has been a real tonic, and offers supporters genuine hope for the season ahead.
They made an instant mark, relieving manager Steve Cotterill of his duties, much to his disappointment – with the now former boss arguing he deserved a chance.
The family want to bring in their own man, and spoke this weekend of wanting to bring ‘exciting football’ to the City Ground.
That would surely rule out Alex McLeish, who has also been linked with the post, much to the frustrations of supporters.
Mick McCarthy is one who does not really seem to fit the bill in terms of excitement, but his record of getting clubs promoted from England’s second tier, with Sunderland and Wolves, certainly stands up.
However Wolves fans would warn against trusting him with big money after the wasted £7 million he spent on signing Roger Johnson last summer.
Glenn Hoddle is a name linked who presents a convincing argument, but reasons against too. His penchant for the 3-5-2 formation, which he recently advocated again, could lead to the exciting football the owners crave, while his name and reputation from his playing days would attract the interest in the club that Steve Cotterill would not have done.
Don’t forget he has managed at the top level too, with Tottenham, Chelsea, and of course England. Against? He has been out of the managerial game for so long. It was the summer of 2006 that he stepped down as Wolves boss, and since then he has been setting up and running his own football academy.
The challenge of a club as rich in history as Forest, combined with the new deep-pocketed owners may just be enough to tempt him back into the game, but the danger as Liverpool found out with Kenny Dalglish is that appointing a manager who has been away for a little while brings with it an obvious risk of rustiness.
The other ‘big name’ linked with the job is Harry Redknapp, although we are unsure how to take that one. Redknapp will find himself linked with pretty much every job going until he takes one, he was even touted as a possible Russia manager last week.
The job would appeal to Redknapp as it would a lot of managers, but whether his pride would consider it too much of a step down so soon after leading Spurs to fourth place in the Premier League is a valid question.
Portsmouth fans would also warn against handing Redknapp a job with a big pot of money, just look at them now, facing starting the season in League One with a 10-point deduction.
Whoever is installed as new boss will face a lot of pressure, Forest’s owners will want at least a strong push for the play-offs, and we suggest they may have to compromise their target of exciting football, and concentrate at least for now on success.
Who should be given the Nottingham Forest job?
image: © joncandy
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