UK Football

photo: Gordon Flood

Sven Goran Eriksson has once again found himself out of a job, perhaps prematurely, as the Swede has just been sacked by the Mexican national team.  And I don’t particularly understand why Sven’s career has gone this way, considering he’s really not a bad manager.  England played much better under Eriksson than we’d seen the national team play in years, and he led us through 5 fantastic years of international football.  And then Manchester City, who through Sven achieve a ninth place finish, and earns them a place within the UEFA Cup through UEFA’s fair play rankings, and still is sacked at the end of the season.

Despite the fact that City looked better last season under Eriksson, who did not have the benefit of the stars Mark Hughes has been able to purchase with City’s unlimited transfer funds, the Swede still loses his job.  I don’t really understand that at all.  I think given the money Hughes has had available, Eriksson would have had City up at fifth place by this point in the season, at least.

But Eriksson may have screwed his career by going to Mexico, mostly because he was given a lackluster Mexican national team to work with, and was expected to create brilliant results.  Of course Mexico didn’t produce much on anything at all, with Eriksson’s final record with the team being 6-6-1, and now Sven gets blamed, and looks terrible as a manager.

Eriksson voiced his wish to return to English football, but with the bad reputation he’s been inadvertently garnering, I don’t know if that will ever be possible again.  Which is very unfortunate because Eriksson is a hell of a manager, and struggling clubs like West Brom, Newcastle, or Stoke would do well to get a manager of his quality.  

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