Alan Curbishley has been constantly under-pressure for the past 2 seasons at West Ham, ever since the club was subject of a takeover from an Iclendic consortium. To his and West Ham’s credit, the club has performed very well so far this season, and currently sit 5th in the Premiership.
However, this has not been enough to keep Curbishley happy and he has decided to resign from his position as manager of the club. It is believed that the decision to sell George McCartney to Sunderland on Monday was the final straw for Curbishley – who had previously stated that Anton Ferdinand would be the final transfer made by the club. Obviously the owners had different ideas, and so Curbishley decided enough was enough.
You can see at Newcastle United the exact affect that new owners can have on a club, and specifically on the decision that a club brings in a new transfer-policy, with the manager taken out of the equation with regards to the players that the club buys and sells. Keegan is fed up with the club making their own decisions on who to buy and sell, without his own say so, and now it appears that Curbishley is also fed up.
Although Keegan may not have resigned, or been sacked (it appears he is now back in negotiations with the Newcastle board), but it is certainly true that Alan Curbishley has become the first Premiership manager to leave their job. No doubt that he won’t be the last manager to leave due to the unwanted input of foreign owners, especially with the regards to the clubs own transfer policy.
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It seems more and more of a trend nowadays where the managers are not in control of the new signings and I would imagine that is a real headache for them.
If they are forced to buy/sell players they do not agree with how are tey supposed to build a team they are confident in?
The new number of foreign owners of British football clubs seems to be having a bad impact on managers and they don’t seem to last two minutes which is a real shame.
John