What Southampton football club lost in Gordon Strachan the manager, the media world gains in Gordon Strachan the pundit and columnist.
He’s always been refreshingly honest on the TV, and his column in the Guardian looks to be shaping up equally well. It’s almost surprising to read something from a genuine football insider that’s been done with such keen eye for what’s interesting to the fans, and with a willingness to lift the lid on the game’s gungy innards.
This week he’s looking at the concept of “player unrest”, suffered by Strachan’s successor at Southampton – Paul Sturrock – until his departure from St Mary’s earlier this week, and currently being endured by Sir Bobby Robson at Newcastle. “I don’t believe there really is such a thing as player unrest at all,” writes Strachan today.
“Southampton and Newcastle have both supposedly suffered from it and you can bet other clubs will be mentioned before long. The papers, television stations and phone-ins are full of this kind of stuff and the public thinks it’s true. I’ve no doubt it’s put about by people who want a manager out.
That could be an agent with an unhappy player or with a manager he wants in that job. It could be a chairman who’s not brave enough just to sack someone. It could be a journalist or people behind the scenes with an axe to grind, from the physio to the kit man.
These days that kind of gossip is so easy to spread. If I’m the agent of an out-of-work manager all I have to do is get four people to call a phone-in and some others to text Sky Sports and straight away you get a message across. I think it’s getting as cynical as that.”
Fantastic stuff.
