The merry-go-round has started spinning
13/10/02 | by Daniel Harding

This week saw the first managerial casualties in the First Division this season.

First, Steve Coppell was appointed the new manager of Brighton and Hove Albion, taking over from Martin Hinshelwood who may revert to a Director of Football position, after a dismal start to the season for Brighton. Coppell had been interviewed for the job in the summer, but he had been rejected partly because he had the audacity to say he thought the club would struggle!

Steve Cotteril then jumped ship to become Howard Wilkinson’s No. 2 at Sunderland as a new management team was installed after the departure of Peter Reid. This completed a whirlwind six months or so for Cotteril who has gone from 3rd division manager of Cheltenham to the Premiership in no time at all. He may have to bide his time at Sunderland, but he is most definitely being groomed as Wilkinson’s successor, in a Micky Adams style, and this is likely to be later rather than sooner. Sunderland fans will be hoping that they do not have to turn to Cotteril to take them back to the big time next season as Micky is doing at Leicester.

He had been doing a magnificent job at Stoke, who had turned in some brilliant performances of late, including a 2-2 thriller at home to the Reds. The club appears not to have shared his ambition with a lack of funds available to strengthen the squad and there appears to be a little unrest in the boardroom left over from the summer sacking of Gudjon Thordarsson.
    P + - Pts
1 Portsmouth 12 28 10 31
2 Leicester City 12 19 10 27
3 Norwich City 12 21 7 25
4 Watford 13 20 18 24
5 Nott'm Forest 12 24 13 23
6 Sheffield United 12 18 14 21
7 Coventry City 12 17 15 21
8 Rotherham Utd 13 23 18 19
9 Burnley 12 15 18 18
10 Reading 12 14 12 17
11 Derby County 13 15 17 17
12 Bradford City 13 13 17 16
13 Gillingham 13 14 19 16
14 Ipswich Town 11 15 12 15
15 Wolves 11 21 16 14
16 Stoke City 12 15 17 14
17 Walsall 13 16 20 14
18 Crystal Palace 12 15 15 13
19 Preston 12 15 18 13
20 Millwall 13 12 22 13
21 Wimbledon 13 11 19 11
22 Sheffield Wed. 13 11 19 9
23 Grimsby Town 13 9 23 8
24 Brighton 12 9 21 4

Divison One table: 13/10/02

Finally, the "custodians" (in the words of David Sheepshanks) of Ipswich Town decided to sack George Burley after eight long, and mostly successful, years. The final straw for Burley was the 3-0 defeat to Grimsby in the week. I think this is quite a harsh sacking as Burley took them into Europe and was manager of the year only two years ago. I think European football has proved to be Ipswich’s downfall in recent years as it proved a distraction in the Premiership, their form only improved when they had been eliminated. Also, foreign stars were signed to help them in Europe but they seemed to go against the very ethics that had been instrumental in getting Ipswich there in the first place. The UEFA cup also made Ipswich look like they have made a disastrous start to this season. They have played fewer games than the majority of clubs giving them a false position. If they win their games in hand they will be right up there. Burley has been let down by his players who let success go to their heads and I really feel for him because he is a top manager. He has unearthed gems such as Kieron Dyer, Richard Wright, Matt Holland, Titus Bramble (to a lesser extent) and the one and only David Johnson. Darren Ambrose and Darren Bent are very promising prospects as well.

Ronnie Moore, of Rotherham United, has been linked with the Portman Road hotseat and he has even admitted he would jump at the chance. Ipswich officials have denied making any approach, which Rotherham claimed, was made on Friday. This was pronounced a hoax by Sheepshanks who stated that Moore may or may not be on their managerial shortlist. I would expect Moore to be the favourite considering what he has done for Rotherham on a tight budget which is what he will encounter at Ipswich. The difference is he has a big fan base and some high-quality young players to work with. The dark horse is David O’Leary who has a slight penchant for giving youth its head.

On the pitch, Ipswich scraped a 2-1 win at home over struggling Sheffield Wednesday, thanks to a Pablo Cõunago brace. Simon Donnelly scored for Wednesday with Lloyd Owusu coming close to getting a point for the Owls. Terry Yorath may be next for the chop.

Watford climbed into fourth place above Forest with a hard-fought 2-0 win at home courtesy of goals from Dominic Foley and Tommy Smith.

Burnley are in the middle of a mini-revival after a bad start to the season they are now 9th in the table after a 2-1 success over Walsall. Robbie Blake got the first with a lob from Steve Davis’s pass and then Davis finished off a smart move by meeting Glen Little’s cross. Gary Birch got the consolation for Walsall. Burnley could do well this year, Blake and Moore up-front bears resemblance to Blake’s thrilling partnership with Jack Lester at Forest, which ripped through defences in this league with ease.

It was a strange day for Millwall's Stuart Nethercott who scored an own goal then atoned for his error by equalising with a header from Kinet’s cross in a ‘classic’ (yeah right!) encounter with Wimbledon. Millwall had the best of the chances but Wimbledon had efforts of their own. A draw appears to be the right result.

Meanwhile Derby warmed up for next week’s encounter with a 0-0 away to Bradford. Rob Lee was sent off for two bookable offences and Adam Murray received a straight red in injury time. Ashley Ward should have punished his old team but he missed from five yards out. Perhaps he was too busy laughing, along with the Forest scouts, at how crap they were.

Coppell’s Brighton did not play as too many of our lads were playing for their countries. Managerless Stoke’s game against Sheffield United was called off (perhaps due to Stoke having the whole Iceland team, who incidentally lost 2-0 to Scotland) as was Portsmouth’s clash with Wolves and Coventry’s game against Norwich.

If form is anything to go by, Forest will annihilate Derby next week but the formbook counts for absolutely jackshit in games like this. I think Forest will win and climb back into fourth or even third place. I think that the first twenty minutes are key as they will be very tense. Not sure where we are gonna fit Prutts in but I think it will be at the expense of Jess and Bopp will move forward.

Not bearing any comparisons to any other big derby matches in recent years, my crystal ball tells me Branko will poke Derby into an early lead before a pretty instantaneous equaliser from DJ. Ward then pulls off a blinding save from Bolder. Williams will then score his first for the club from long range after a corner, just before half time. DJ then completes his hat-trick in the 66th minute before Marlon rounds off the scoring.

Good luck to all those who will be there. Whatever happens, it’s gonna be emotional.

One more thing - thank God for Michael Owen! 20 goals for England now (only ten behind Shearer and he’s only 22!), even though I think the first was Beckham’s. It was a good result considering the conditions and it showed once again that Scholes does not belong on the left wing.