While football is a game of opinions only one opinion really counts, that of the manager (or in the case of Cardiff City, Vincent Tan). It’s all well and good being on top of your office fantasy football league but do you have what it takes to be able to cope in the pressure cooker of Premiership football management. As we approach the start of the season, why not answer the following questions and discover if you have what it takes or just all mouth and no trousers!
Q1. You meet the squad for the first time. Do you...
(a) Inform the players that building a football team is like building an aircraft while it’s in flight. Then spend the next two hours trying to explain how a half-built aircraft can fly.
(b) Ask them what they think of Tottenham?
(c) Read a passage from the book ‘How to Lose Friends and Alienate People’ before putting the captain on the transfer list.
(d) Get your 2nd in command – a former player of the club – to tell a few gags while you go over the small print of your contract.
(e) Stand in front of the group and get them to recite your philosophy, “The manager is always correct, the manager is always correct…” until the sun disappears over the horizon.
Q2. You lose your first game. Do you…
(a) Explain the difference between an irresistible force and an immovable object and then declare your team was neither of those things.
(b) Say that the players were a little bit ‘short’ physically, performed with the handbrake on and had no windscreen washer in the little compartment under the bonnet.
(c) You say that you saw the ref enter your opponent’s dressing room, sit down with their players and give them a half-time pep talk.
(d) Pretend your ‘Ingleeesh’ is not very good and have a translator to act as a buffer in interviews.
(e) Walk in the press conference and waffle on about how ’it’s just a process’ and then start asking the interviewer questions about their love life.
Q3. The next game is a tight affair and you need to do something to tip the balance and win the game. Do you…
(a) Stand motionless as if meditating while chasing away distracting thoughts of the post-match sandwiches.
(b) You take your frustrations out on the 4th official and then start flapping your arms like a French wood pigeon.
(c) Bring on the team bus and park it outside your penalty box.
(d) Get one of your subs to distract the linesman just enough to enable your striker to score from an offside position.
(e) You switch your team’s formation five times in five minutes and confuse everyone.
Q4. Your star player earns a match winning penalty by simulation. Do you say…
(a) “We employ Tom Daley on a freelance basis and he has been helping the players make their dives more realistic.”
(b) “I need to see it again on video because at the time of the incident I was watching a beautiful cloud formation in the sky.”
(c) “The foreign influence is killing the English game but I’ve have had a word with the boy and he’s promised he won’t do it again unless we need a goal.”
(d) “At least he didn’t bite anyone”.
(e) “That is a stupid question. Next!”
Q5. It’s the closing stages of the season and a rival manager starts playing mind games. At a press conference you’re asked for a response. Do you…
(a) Slowly shake your head disappointedly and then start singing… “When you walk through a storm hold you head up high…”
(b) Smile enigmatically and say, “Everyone thinks they have the prettiest wife at home, apart from Harry Redknapp that is.”
(c) Sneer menacingly and accuse your rival of being a specialist in failure who has voyeuristic tendencies.
(d) Clear your throat, pause and then say… “Que?”
(e) Say you will talk to your rival ‘Mano-o-Mano’ in a neutral car park of their choice, discuss the situation and then agree you are the best.
Mostly a’s… You are ‘The Guru’.
You are a leader who has a ‘steel fist within a velvet glove’ approach and if that doesn’t work you possess the versatility to adopt the carrot and the stick approach instead. You know that even if your players eat the carrots it will enhance their peripheral vision, especially beneficial for night games. It’s what you like to call a win-win situation. You may be short of stature but your football brain is the size of Uranus and you like to deploy a system of play that is best described as otherworldly. Each and every one of your players must travel on a spiritual path until their mind, body and soul is attuned with the universal truth of ‘Pass and Move’.
Mostly b’s… You are ‘The Mad Scientist’.
To you, the game is a combination of art and science which when played in the right spirit can not only make your team successful but also help the evolution of humankind. Abstinence from the twin evils of alcohol and day time TV ensure your players can act as pure vessels through which the football of the Gods can be played. Like all great visionaries you have your blind spots, such as an intense dislike of the strategic fouling and an inclination to wear coats that look like sleeping bags, but this does not detract from your philosophy. A skilled communicator, you deal with the media like an expert when things are going well but can look like an exasperated professor when after 99.9% possession… your team loses and concedes 6 goals.
Mostly c’s… You are ‘The Megalomaniac’.
Probably bullied as a child you have developed a deep-seated fear of failure that drives you to succeed at everything you do. You cannot bear to lose at anything, whether that be a football match or a game of ‘Pizza Slice’ on your mobile phone. Your game-plan is based on a system that you have secretly encoded ‘The Stationary Positioning of a Public Transportation Vehicle’. The master of ‘mind games’ you use your manipulation skills and viper’s tongue to cast spells over journalists who swoon under your steely gaze. Sometimes it feels like your mouth has a separate existence from the rest of your body, leaving you embarrassed when people tell you to zip it.
Mostly d’s… You are ‘El Mister’.
A man of the world with simple tastes, if you were not a football manager you would have been content to spend your days growing oranges and selling them at vastly over-the-top prices. You may look like you’ve seen better days but behind that hang-dog expression lies a hang-dog with an appetite for attacking football. On occasions you have been known to toot on a bugle and roar ‘VAMOS’ just before your players leave the dressing room but you like to keep your methods of motivation close to your chest, next to the copy of your contract in your inside pocket. You are aware that one day you will be sacked but know that the pay-off will enable you to buy a small island in the Gulf of Mexico, where you can grow oranges.
Mostly e’s… You are ‘The Way’.
While some may say that the earth travels round the Sun you know that the world in fact revolves around you 24-7-365. Some may mistake your confidence for arrogance, to which you would reply ‘you’re right, it is’. You are well travelled and your forthright manner has left a trail of broken journalists who thought they could take you on. You do not suffer fools gladly and you enjoy bringing them to their knees just by the sheer loudness of your shouting. Your players must submit to your will and avert their gaze when they’re in your serene presence. Detractors say that you think you’re a God but you would reply that you have a better level of consistency. Your nomadic nature means that you don’t like to hang around too long before everyone realises that just like the Wizard of Oz, you’re full of hot air.
Remember, watch all the best of Premier League football in the new season right here on NOW TV.
