Marina Hyde on McClaren

[cymrococh]

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/sport/2007/08/...ts_sidesho.html

 

There is a famous episode of the Simpsons in which Sideshow Bob, Krusty the Clown's erstwhile sidekick, emerges from beneath a car in pursuit of his nemesis, Bart. He steps on the teeth of a rake lying on the ground, and its handle swings up and smacks him in the face. He mutters an inaudible curse, and steps away, straight on to the teeth of another rake. Its handle swings up and smacks him in the face, causing him to step away on to the teeth of yet another rake, whose handle smacks him in the face. The move is repeated eight times.

 

So emblematic is the scene that screenwriters now use "the rake bit" as a byword for the device of making a gag, then flogging it too long, then flogging it so long that it becomes funny again. Watching Steve McClaren attempt to extricate himself from his latest pratfall, it is hard not to be struck by the same sense of repetitive slapstick, though perhaps none of us is quite at the stage where it all seems screamingly funny again.

 

The similarities are not endless, of course - Sideshow Bob is a genius - but there is trainwreckish quality that seems to attend McClaren's most basic attempts to get names on a teamsheet these days.

 

The u-turn that saw David Beckham restored to the national side was well-documented at the time, though we shall return to its latest absurdities shortly. But it is the business with Jamie Carragher that offers most scope for bewilderment at present, epitomising as it does the England manager's preternatural ability to add insult to injury crisis.

 

It was one thing to consistently remind Carragher of his third-choice status behind Ferdinand and Terry. It was another to pick Ledley King ahead of him.

 

But to stay all but silent when the Liverpool centre-half mooted his international retirement, only attempting to build bridges weeks later when an injury crisis hit - that takes a special sort of talent, if a faintly puzzling one in a man who minds so much about being liked.

 

Perhaps dimly aware that Carragher may reject his garage-forecourt bouquet, McClaren has suggested he might then turn to Sol Campbell, whose notoriously hardy state of mind he no doubt took into account when he opted to dump him from England duty via answerphone message, probably without even the grace or good sense to provide him with the traditional "it's not you, it's me" fig leaf.

 

There is, of course, a certain irony to all these u-turns from a man who, back in March, responded to inquiries as to how he was going to reverse a run of five games without a win with the words: "Keep going, keep going. Keep doing the same things."

 

Still, we are now in a situation where it might appear that the easiest way to ensure an England call-up is to retire from international duty or to be retired from it by the great thinker himself.

 

This week, as part of another clean-up operation, the manager travels to Washington, where he hopes to see David Beckham play for LA Galaxy - good luck with that one - and "to have a chat with him".

 

Whether it would have been necessary to travel across the Atlantic for a natter had he handled things a little more sensitively in the past is hard to say, but while Mr McClaren goes to Washington, the rest of us must ponder his idiosyncratic approach to man management.

 

The England job magnifies all shortcomings, notoriously, so it's notable that when he appointed him to the post, Brian Barwick chose to ignore the mutterings about McClaren's man management that surfaced periodically during his time at Middlesbrough.

 

Then again, possibly Barwick was in such a flap about the fact that his own failings in this area had led to the Scolari fiasco that he pressed blithely on. We could also use the breathing space to inquire once again and with increased insistence after the precise point of Bill Beswick, the sports psychologist to whom McClaren is so devoted, and who is given to asking "who coaches the coaches?"

 

If, as one suspects it might be, Mr Beswick's question is rhetorical, perhaps he could familiarise his pupil with the Ladybird Guide to Man Management. The plain fact is that the nearest we have got to strategic thinking under McClaren is that agonisingly short-termist cliché "we've got a game of football to win", and if even this approach is compromised by his being unable to maintain relations with players, one has to ask if this depressing interregnum has not run its course.

[Stevie H]

did mclaren make any statement about carra after he'd phoned up talksport?

[Kahnee]

did mclaren make any statement about carra after he'd phoned up talksport?

 

Don't recall hearing anything

[growler]

they don't call him manclaren for nothing. expect a call up for steve bruce soon...

 

all that crap about there being no defenders either. what about Woodgate? Dawson? And its a friendly for gods sake. you know, the game to try out new players, tactics etc.