Paul Jewell must really regret quitting as Wigan boss. It is surely the cushtiest job in football. Low expectation, a great chairman with plenty of ambition, small crowds and virtually no media spotlight. The Newcastle United job it is not. Even if they had been relegated two seasons ago when David Unsworth's penalty kept them up and sent Sheffield United down, they would still have been in a decent position to get promoted again the following season as Birmingham and West Brom have done over the last number seasons.
Paul Jewell just couldn't hack it. Jewell quit at a time when money and jobs were as plentiful in football as everywhere else and with his stock still high, it was considered only a matter of time before he would land a top job somewhere else. He resurfaced at Derby County, who under his stewardship went on to become the worst team in Premier League history. They were already well on their way to that achieving that most unwanted of accolades when he took over but he made sure they stayed on course and they were duly relegated in March.
Jewell said he took the Derby job to reawaken a sleeping giant which had a large, passionate support and I suppose Paul thought he could recreate those heady days when they were successful. He had some reason having taken both Bradford and Wigan to the Premier League and keeping them there. Not insubstantial achievements whatever his backing. He is to be commended surely for seeking out this new challenge but in hindsight he must feel like he jumped ship at Wigan too soon.
Steve Bruce now enjoys that most comfortable of jobs. I would say that Wigan are a well run club but the reality is that they have snuck ahead because of how the shambles other clubs find themselves. Newcastle, Spurs, even Man City, Blackburn, Sunderland, Portsmouth have all arguably been the cause of their own undoing this season.
Even at Middlesborough I would have more sympathy for Gareth Southgate. He gives local players a chance and it has been his big signings who have really let him down. If Alfonso Alaves had taken a fraction of the chances he has been presented with this season, Boro would be sitting comfortably in mid-table now. Steve Bruce doesn't take chances with such inexperience and rightly so. His teams are full of seasoned professionals or tough South Americans for whom bedding in time isn't an issue. They just go out and play. Amr Zaki aside, there is little drama at Wigan, on or off the pitch.
Southgate is paying the price for his style at Boro but Steve Bruce is reaping the benefits of being a safe pair of hands. It would be difficult to have lofty ambitions at a club like Wigan and it is clear that Bruce has accepted their "at best mid-table status". Looking at Wigan, it sort of makes you wonder just how pointless the Premier League is after all. For ill-equipped clubs like Stoke, West Brom and Hull, it is a massive adventure in peril with nothing to lose except the amount they over-extended themselves by to compete. For the down around the bottom, they have been dragged into it by mismanagement or the withdrawal of investment while Steve Bruce's team have risen up the table just by doing the simple things right. A little bit like Roy Hodgson at Fulham.
Maybe I dislike Bruce because he makes it all look so simple but I never like Wigan have anything to play for meaning that everyone at the club is making a fortune just by providing opposition for the top four and a bit of competition for the relegation candidates. Maybe I'm just sentimental but I wistfully hope for a time when there would be a more competitive even league. This mid-table nonsense benefits noone.
Steve Bruce once turned the Newcastle job if not, twice probably because he didn't want or couldn't the pressure. Why should he? He earns a fortune at Wigan for the minimum of stress. Maybe he looked at Paul Jewell and looked on it as a cautionary tale.
Paul Jewell just couldn't hack it. Jewell quit at a time when money and jobs were as plentiful in football as everywhere else and with his stock still high, it was considered only a matter of time before he would land a top job somewhere else. He resurfaced at Derby County, who under his stewardship went on to become the worst team in Premier League history. They were already well on their way to that achieving that most unwanted of accolades when he took over but he made sure they stayed on course and they were duly relegated in March.
Jewell said he took the Derby job to reawaken a sleeping giant which had a large, passionate support and I suppose Paul thought he could recreate those heady days when they were successful. He had some reason having taken both Bradford and Wigan to the Premier League and keeping them there. Not insubstantial achievements whatever his backing. He is to be commended surely for seeking out this new challenge but in hindsight he must feel like he jumped ship at Wigan too soon.
Steve Bruce now enjoys that most comfortable of jobs. I would say that Wigan are a well run club but the reality is that they have snuck ahead because of how the shambles other clubs find themselves. Newcastle, Spurs, even Man City, Blackburn, Sunderland, Portsmouth have all arguably been the cause of their own undoing this season.
Even at Middlesborough I would have more sympathy for Gareth Southgate. He gives local players a chance and it has been his big signings who have really let him down. If Alfonso Alaves had taken a fraction of the chances he has been presented with this season, Boro would be sitting comfortably in mid-table now. Steve Bruce doesn't take chances with such inexperience and rightly so. His teams are full of seasoned professionals or tough South Americans for whom bedding in time isn't an issue. They just go out and play. Amr Zaki aside, there is little drama at Wigan, on or off the pitch.
Southgate is paying the price for his style at Boro but Steve Bruce is reaping the benefits of being a safe pair of hands. It would be difficult to have lofty ambitions at a club like Wigan and it is clear that Bruce has accepted their "at best mid-table status". Looking at Wigan, it sort of makes you wonder just how pointless the Premier League is after all. For ill-equipped clubs like Stoke, West Brom and Hull, it is a massive adventure in peril with nothing to lose except the amount they over-extended themselves by to compete. For the down around the bottom, they have been dragged into it by mismanagement or the withdrawal of investment while Steve Bruce's team have risen up the table just by doing the simple things right. A little bit like Roy Hodgson at Fulham.
Maybe I dislike Bruce because he makes it all look so simple but I never like Wigan have anything to play for meaning that everyone at the club is making a fortune just by providing opposition for the top four and a bit of competition for the relegation candidates. Maybe I'm just sentimental but I wistfully hope for a time when there would be a more competitive even league. This mid-table nonsense benefits noone.
Steve Bruce once turned the Newcastle job if not, twice probably because he didn't want or couldn't the pressure. Why should he? He earns a fortune at Wigan for the minimum of stress. Maybe he looked at Paul Jewell and looked on it as a cautionary tale.
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