\u2018FEELS LIKE WE ONLY GO BACKWARDS\u2019<\/p>\n
Last December, Wolves and Southampton were the Premier League\u2019s bottom two clubs, seriously at risk of being cut adrift. Both then hit the panic button within 24 hours of each other, Wolves sacking Gary O\u2019Neil after a testy late 2-1 home defeat<\/a> by Ipswich, and Russell Martin getting the boot for an equally ominous 5-0 gubbing<\/a> by Spurs. Both clubs rolled the dice on grizzled, combustible European coaches. In the short term, one appointment worked \u2013 V\u00edtor Pereira led Wolves on a chaotic pub crawl<\/a> to safety \u2013 and the other did not. Ivan Juric earned four points in 14 games and was sacked before achieving his ambitious goal of not leading \u2018the worst team in Premier League history\u2019. Southampton were relegated with seven games to play, while Juric vaulted back on to his feet by getting the gig at Atalanta.<\/p>\n What happened next? Well, the Lionesses\u2019 Euro 2025 heroics meant Saints and Wolves were no longer vying for the title of best Hampton<\/a>. Wolves struggled with a post-survival hangover, but offered Pereira a fresh three-year deal despite four defeats from their first four games. \u201cNow is a time for stability,\u201d cheered chief suit Jeff Shi. Forty-five days later and with two points on the board, Shi decided now was a time for upheaval, and Pereira was given the boot. Perhaps he was panicked by the sight of Southampton sitting 21st in the Championship, like the ghost of relegation still to come. In just 13 games, Saints had shredded the reputation of one of Europe\u2019s most promising young coaches \u2013 and revived their strange parallel with Wolves by sending Will Still packing just a few hours after Pereira.<\/p>\n That connection has intensified further with both clubs seemingly considering a return to the managers they had sacked 11 months ago. Have they completely lost the plot? We understand successful managers going back to their old clubs is very much in vogue these days, but the key word there is successful. O\u2019Neil appeared all set for a \u2013 what\u2019s the opposite of triumphant? \u2013 return to Molineux but has walked away from what is surely the last Premier League job he\u2019s likely to be offered. That said, Southampton appear to be actually willing to consider rehiring Martin, burned by a bin-fire stint at Rangers and with a career win percentage of 39% \u2013 exactly what\u2019s required for a Championship relegation scrap.<\/p>\n If either club really wants to turn the clock back, they should imitate Everton\u2019s move for David Moyes or Martin O\u2019Neill\u2019s romantic return to Celtic. Maybe Southampton could give Gordon Strachan a call. As for Wolves, if they\u2019re going to go down, they may as well get big Mick McCarthy in for the meme potential<\/a>. As for the bigger picture, it\u2019s worth noting that since the start of last season, 46 of the 94 clubs to play league football have changed manager; Southampton have done it three times, with a fourth poor sap on the way. Like the owner Fosun at their twin crisis club up in the West Midlands, Saints majority owners Sports Republic have dragged a stable Premier League club into turmoil through bad recruitment and impulsive decisions. Perhaps it\u2019s time the suits accepted they don\u2019t know how to run a football club, and marched themselves through their well-used doors marked Do One. On the other hand, Brendan Rodgers is available.<\/p>\n LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE<\/p>\n Join Niall McVeigh at 5.45pm for Bigger Cup updates on Slavia Prague 0-2 Arsenal, while Scott Murray will be on hand at 8pm for Liverpool 3-3 Real Madrid and Rob Smyth\u2019s clockwatch will have goal updates from all the other action.<\/p>\n QUOTE OF THE DAY<\/p>\n \u201cI love Leeds, I love the place, I love the club. If everything was OK, I would have stayed there. But I didn\u2019t want to be playing second division football, and they couldn\u2019t afford for me to stay\u201d \u2013 a quarter of a century from his four-goal show against Liverpool, Mark Viduka reminisces<\/a> on playing in Croatia during civil war and opening a flamin\u2019 coffee shop after retirement.<\/p>\n Mark Viduka living his best life, earlier. Photograph: Mark Viduka\/Instagram<\/p>\n Your Memory Lane picture (yesterday\u2019s Football Daily, full email edition) of Sunderland fans with their car in 1973 stirred some unpleasant memories of the vehicles of that era. I\u2019m not convinced that they have painted stripes on their Morris 1100. More likely to be the duct tape required to hold it together\u201d \u2013 David Branch.<\/p>\n May I be number myself among at least 1,057 others in being horrified at your suggestion that the Muppets in The Muppet Christmas Carol should be considered \u2018muppets\u2019 in the derogatory manner intended by the disgruntled West Ham fan you quoted (yesterday\u2019s Football Daily<\/a>). Michael Caine\u2019s performance is of course a straight-faced delight, but to suggest that he was surrounded by a hapless cast is ludicrous. Perhaps Sam Eagle was a bit wooden (and got one of his lines wrong), and maybe the mawkish minor characters were a bit too close to the clich\u00e9s of the source material, but the rest light up the screen and fill the audience with festive cheer. Perhaps, instead of Jarrod Bowen and his fellow Hammers, the \u2018human actor plus Muppets\u2019 comparison might thus be applied more accurately to Leo Messi and his Barcelona teammates in 2008-09?\u201d \u2013 Luke Davydaitis (and no others).<\/p>\n Send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com<\/a>. Today\u2019s prizeless letter o\u2019 the day winner is \u2026 Luke Davydaitis. Terms and conditions for our competitions can be viewed here<\/a>.\u200a<\/p>\n RECOMMENDED LOOKING<\/p>\n