Thursday, 25 February 2016

DAVID WOODS COLUMN: Howe should replace Wenger, Pellegrini to Chelsea still on


IT’S amazing that Dennis Bergkamp is among the frontrunners in the odds to be the next manager of Arsenal.
    THE BOSS: Who will replace Wenger?
Bergkamp, the man who still does not get on a plane because of his fear of flying!
Two other former stars, Thierry Henry and Patrick Vieira, are also touted as eventual replacements for Arsene Wenger.
But the truth is the Gunners face a potential nightmare finding a successor to Wenger.
Bizarrely, the Frenchman insists he does not want to find his replacement.
Earlier this month he said: “I will not choose my successor here. I just want to leave the club in a position where it can do better when I am gone.”
If the Arsenal board need to see what kind of horror story can follow a successful long-serving manager leaving, they just need to look at Manchester United.
No one could have forecast the turmoil at Old Trafford that would follow Sir Alex Ferguson’s departure in the summer of 2013.
He has proved an impossible act to follow for David Moyes and Louis van Gaal, although you still can’t help but think it would have been far better for both bosses if Fergie had disappeared into the horizon and not hung around.
Fergie was at United for 26 years, Wenger racks up a couple of decades on October 1.
With respect to the 66-year-old, along with his burning desire to win a first league title for 12 years and end the club’s Champions League hoodoo, surely he should be also thinking long and hard about who comes in after him.
His best parting gift to the club would be to make sure the manager who succeeds him does not mess things up, like has happened at United.
“It is very easy to pick the wrong man,” former chairman Peter Hill-Wood, who appointed Wenger, told me today. “United haven’t been very clever, but the field is fairly limited.
“I hoped I wouldn’t have to do anything about it. The longer I live the gladder I am because I wouldn’t know what to do.”
A radical solution, and something that has never been seen in the Premier League, would be for Arsenal to announce the successor and let that man spend Wenger’s final season working alongside him.
One name that leaps to mind is Bournemouth’s deep-thinking and assured young manager Eddie Howe.
A year with Wenger would allow the club to make the transition slowly and not suffer the calamity and chaos seen at United.
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IT WAS a surprise to be told that Manuel Pellegrini still has a chance of being the next Chelsea manager.
It seems more likely to be Italy boss Antonio Conte. But you can see the logic of appointing Pellegrini after he is replaced by Pep Guardiola at Manchester City.
Yes, it would not be a sexy name for the fans. But Pellegrini would be a safe appointment and ensure there is none of the controversy sparked by Jose Mourinho.
He knows the Premier League and, although City have not dominated the top flight, they have won it.
Yesterday’s 3-1 win at Dynamo Kiev in the Champions League also suggests the Chilean is at last getting the hang of competing in Europe’s top club competition.
On Sunday he can bag the Capital One Cup. Nothing to get too excited about perhaps, but it will show he is still a winner.
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    THE BOSS: Pellegrini still has a chance of becoming Chelsea boss
FOOTBALLERS are worth tens of millions, yet we still have incidents like the one involving Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain on Tuesday.
Who was surprised to find out Arsenal’s England star damaged ligaments in his high-impact collision with Javier Mascherano?
Yet he carried on playing in the first half and even came out for the second before coming off after five minutes. Surely that must have made the injury worse.
It seems crazy clubs do not have state-of-the-art medical equipment to make quick diagnoses of injuries or, at least, adopt a safety-first approach.
Ben Dinnery, who runs the website premierinjuries.com said: “You have to wonder why Premier League clubs don’t encorporate a medical centre in their stadiums.
“Even if it would cost £2m-£3m a year to run that pales into insignificance with losing a player, who is being paid £150,000 to £200,000 a week, for longer than you needed to.”
You sense one day football will look back on this ‘run it off lad’ approach as something from the Dark Ages.
    CROCKED: Chamberlain could miss the Euros
Arsenal’s 2-0 defeat at home to the Emirates leaves Gunner’s side needing a miracle in the return leg in sunny Spain, with manager Arsene Wenger insisting that his side are 95% out of the competition.
He is almost right with BetVictor making Arsenal 25/1 with BetVictor to reach the last 16 of the Champions League, Barcelona 1/50 favourites, and the Gunners 11/1 to turn the Catalans over in the return leg a the Nou Camp.
Wenger remains the Premier League’s longest serving manager and it will be fascinating to see how long the 66-year-old stays with the North London outfit.
BetVictor cut the Gunners to 6/4 (from 9/4) favourites for the Premier League Title after the last-gasp 2-1 defeat of Leicester at the Emirates a fortnight ago; would the Frenchman walk away if they were to seal a 4th Premier League title?
The Gunners haven’t been crowned Champions since the ‘Invincibles’ of 2003/2004 and league success, given Wenger’s notorious reluctance to spend, would surely give him a massive sense of satisfaction.
Next Permanent Arsenal Manager prices from BetVictor:
Ronald Koeman 12/1
Thierry Henry 14/1
Roberto Martinez 14/1
Dennis Bergkamp 16/1
20/1 Bar

Thierry Henry would be a lot of fan’s choice to replace Wenger but would be an unrealistic proposition given his lack of experience.
Instead the trio of Ronald Koeman, Dennis Bergkamp and Roberto Martinez look a far more likely candidate and have all been associated with the style of football that Gunners’ fans have become accustomed to under Wenger.
DS
Bergkamp has been receiving rave reviews for his work at Ajax as Frank De Boer’s number two and was nibbled at bigger prices earlier in the campaign; now 16/1 (from 33s) with BetVictor.
The market is currently headed by Southampton’s Ronald Koeman with Wenger previously lauding the Dutchman’s style of play at St Mary’s but given the pair’s tunnel bust-up earlier in the month at the Emirates, that appointment would now look speculative to say the least.
The most likely candidate on paper would surely be Everton’s Roberto Martinez, who has moved swiftly through the ranks of English football having done excellent jobs at Swansea, then Wigan and now at Everton.
The Toffees were unfortunate to miss out on Sunday’s Capital One Cup final at Wembley, suffering a late 3-1 defeat in the return fixture at the Etihad.
Speaking of the Citizens, they were cut to 12/1 (from 14s) to be crowned Champions of Europe after beating Dynamo Kiev 3-1 in the Ukraine and are through to the next round barring accidents in the return leg at the Etihad.
Manuel Pellegrini’s tenure with the Citizens will come to an end at the end of the current campaign and BetVictor make Pep Guardiola a 12/1 chance to lead City to the Champions League next term.
Prior to that however Pellegrini will surely want to exit the club having won yet further silverware, and BetVictor make them the 8/13 favourites to lift the Capital One Cup aloft on Sunday.
Liverpool are the 6/5 underdogs and get the nod however to give new manager Jurgen Klopp immediate success with the Reds and they warrant supporting at 85/40 with BetVictor to get the job inside the 90; Man City 13/10 favourites and 5/2 that the cup final goes beyond the 90.

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