PANIC BOOT ROOMS

Five games into the Premier League season. It’s probably time to start panicking. Six teams have failed to win a match. Now, where were those spare bedsheets? For unemployed managers looking for further opportunities, probably time to accept requests to appear as a pundit, get the face back out there, even if that means having to fly to Doha. Admittedly, it’s not quite sacking season. Most clubs are more patient these days. The halcyon time of Peter J Swales wielding the axe on Peter Reid after 13 days of Manchester City’s 1993-94 season, despite a new contract, are in the past. Modern clubs are projects, moving forward together as stakeholders in symbiosis and all that jazz. If the suits are copper-bottomed against much being their fault, it’s still a bad look to have conducted a full and exhaustive recruitment process in which no stone was left unturned but you appointed the second coming of Villa-issue Rémi Garde.

So, who’s on the chopping block, to use a medieval vernacular to remind that, yes, the managerial game is something of a bloodsport? Let’s start at the bottom with Gary O’Neil and Wolves. Nobody seethes with impotent rage quite like Angry Gary, who in full flow against the great evils of VAR can resemble the younger Gary Oldman or Tim Roth. It’s not what he says, but how he says it. Public reminders that his bosses sold Max Kilman and Pedro Neto from under him are well aimed, and will doubtless be used if the chop comes, though one league win since March – and that against Luton – is not great.

Sean Dyche, level on points with Angry Gary, may too growl that his Everton hand is forced by having players sold from underneath him. But with new owners coming in – well, hopefully – and a new stadium set for next season – well, hopefully – Dycheball could well be victim of a new broom sweeping clean in time-honoured style, wanting a polished, progressive salesman for the hi-tech enormodome. People forget how good Status Quo were at opening Live Aid. And completing the bottom three, Russell Martin, his Southampton team trying to play football the right way but forgetting that includes not passing to the opposition. Removing him would appear an act of great ruthlessness considering playoff success last season and performances have been pretty OK, if you believe in what the stattos refer to as “underlying numbers”.

Entering the chat: Julen Lopetegui, previously depicted as the Basque David Moyes, a comparison that only now works if Moyes had forgotten how to organise a defence. Poor Julen ended up so annoyed by West Ham’s 5-1 Rumbelows Cup defeat at Liverpool he managed to knack himself, leaving Anfield on crutches. Which leaves mid-table’s Erik ten Hag and Ange Postecoglou, meeting this Sunday. This week, Manchester United suits set a target of winning the Premier League in 2028, almost certainly hastening Ten Hag’s exit by doing so. As for Ange, “it’s just who we are, mate” is a catchphrase that could well soon be wearing rather thin.

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QUOTE OF THE DAY

“What is called the Mourinho effect? Trophies. Cups. We cannot win trophies in September. There are no trophies to win in September. How can you see the effect? In every club I’ve been at, I won cups. Except Tottenham” – José Mourinho in full flow after Fenerbahce edged out Union Saint-Gilloise 2-1 in Bigger Vase.

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