Given that the men’s team she found herself linked with a few years ago was also a basket case, Emma Hayes would probably take a dim view of the idea that Chelsea should have handed her over to Frank Lampard. leading their men’s team in recent years. six weeks.
That previous link you may recall was with Wimbledon, who were third bottom in League 1 and were sinking like a stone in February 2021, when it was reported that they had deigned to consider her for their shortlist to replace manager Glyn Hodges, who ‘I just showed the door.
Hayes was leading Chelsea to a WSL title and a Champions League final at the time, managing Fran Kirby, Pernille Harder, Magda Eriksson, Millie Bright, Maren Mjelde, to name but a few of the world class players that she had reunited.
With all due respect to Alex Woodyard, Shane McLoughlin and Joe Pigott, this alternate option didn’t quite pan out.
Hayes raised the assumption that a failing third-tier men’s team represented career advancement for what it was. An insult.
Emma Hayes guided Chelsea to a fourth straight Women’s Super League title on Saturday
The victorious Blues rose to Manchester United’s title challenge with a 3-0 win over Reading
An invitation to sort out Chelsea’s current failing men’s team would have been different, however. The ultimate test of a manager who has repeatedly rebuilt his own team and won a fourth straight WSL title this weekend.
Quite a compelling prospect too, given what we now know of the utter obliviousness and utter disrespect that some members of this squad seem to have had for Lampard. Smiles when a player was late for the team bus, judging by an authoritative report over the weekend. Another player posts an Instagram image mocking an elderly gym user. A member of the squad questions the value of Lampard’s extra running drills.
Good luck to anyone who tries such complacency and insolence on Hayes. It is not necessary to be very long in her company to know that she does not suffer from imbeciles or inadequacy. ‘It’s f****** Chelsea – we give it our all. Improve yourself or I’ll bring someone else in,’ she tells her players after an unsatisfactory performance, in a locker room chat captured in the DAZN documentary that followed her for two seasons from 2017 .
Would she have shaken this team of fabulously rich alpha males from their lethargy? I think so very strongly. To me, his managerial brand would have been vastly preferable to that eternal air of tragic desolation that Lampard seemed to carry during his 51 days back at Stamford Bridge.
Chelsea caretaker manager Frank Lampard endured a miserable fate at Stamford Bridge
Since joining Chelsea in 2012, Hayes has won six WSL titles and five FA Cup trophies
At an event in central London last night, Brighton chief executive Paul Barber and former England international Karen Carney both contributed to a debate over when a woman will lead a Premier League side. Hayes’ work advances which causes a great deal. But the question is complex and full of pitfalls.
It certainly transcends that rather simplistic notion – posed by Arsenal women’s manager Jonas Eidevall earlier this year – that since women have run this country and driven change in the boardroom, the management of the Premier League is A fatality.
Women’s and men’s football are two marks of the same sport, with degrees of difference that do not exist in political and corporate life. Women’s football is still in its infancy of professionalism compared to men’s football. Hiring a woman in, say, Brighton or Brentford would be a substantial risk. The most progressive fans I’ve interviewed, both male and female, have their doubts.
An Emma Hayes, Sarina Wiegman or Carla Ward at the top of the Premier League would bring new eyes, ideas and perspectives to a management world stuck in a rinse-repeat cycle of grizzled old firefighters. But the progress and credibility of female coaches would be undermined by appointments made in panic or in a club’s selfish attempt to appear progressive.
It would be a huge risk for Hayes, or others like her, to put their reputations on the line. Would a men’s club give them time or panic if they lost the first two or three games? The spotlight would be searing, given that the Hayes/Wimbledon story went viral without the club even talking to him. Misogynists who cling to their belief that football is a man’s game would love a woman to take a stand and fail.
Hayes’ bossy management style reportedly helped keep Chelsea superstars in line
Mauricio Pochettino has come to take full control of Chelsea’s men’s team from this summer
Women’s advance towards one of the last bastions of male dominance must be organic and carefully managed, not a random roll of the dice for a bankrupt or publicity-seeking club. Needless to say, women bring the technical and tactical component that some of their male counterparts in office don’t care about, as they sit in another padded executive seat.
The proof is there, black and white, in a longitudinal study of all the European Women’s Championships since 1997, published in the 2022 edition of the UEFA technical report. It details the increasing technical level of women’s football and the impact of better coaching.
The network of professional female coaches does not reflect the excellence of the women who put the game where it is. Only a third of WSL managers, and just six of the Championship’s 12 lower league managers, are women.
The next generation is emerging – partly in young boys’ and girls’ football. Natalie Henderson worked with Newcastle United’s boys’ academy before becoming England Under-17 head coach under Wiegman’s structure. Former Swansea City academy coach Nia Davis is now part of the Wales setup. Some players, including Viv Miedema and Beth Mead, are taking UEFA B licenses. Jill Scott has expressed interest in role work with Manchester City boys’ and girls’ teams.
Lionesses head coach Sarina Wiegman, who won Euro 2022, has also been tipped to manage a men’s side in future – although no English league side have yet been willing to take the job. risk.
It was an eventful first season for American chef Todd Boehly at Chelsea, who finished 12th
It looks like one of this generation, rather than Hayes, will finally put female coaches in their place, a world away from the stereotype embedded by Cherie Lunghi in Channel 4’s The Manageress 34 years ago.
Some in the men’s game were terribly offended when Hayes joked Wimbledon couldn’t afford it in 2021, but perhaps it would have been wise to move heaven and earth to persuade her to take the job. . The club finished four points above the relegation zone this season. Lampard won one in 11 games on his return to Chelsea and lost eight.
talkSPORT shows BBC how phone calls should be made
There were absolute gems on the talkSPORT phone show with Jamie O’Hara and Gabby Agbonlahor, who made the two-hour drive from Leicester an unmitigated delight on Sunday.
Like the ecstatic Everton fan who said: “My wife went to bed because she’s sick of hearing me out, I took out the bottle of vodka and my dogs are barking because they’re also Evertonians.”
Gabby Agbonlahor (left) and Jamie O’Hara (right) host one of football’s best phone shows
“Good call,” O’Hara said repeatedly that evening, clearly delighted to see contributor after contributor offering so much.
Brilliant radio. The best football phone show.
Proof, if the BBC’s 606 wanted to know, that phone calls don’t need to be riddled with screams, arguments and riots of the senses.
How my grandson and I finally finished our sticker book – well, sort of…
This final Panini sticker of the season should be a celebration, given that we bought the stickers to complete the Manchester United, Fulham and Brentford pages of the grandson and my Liverpool.
New territory for me. Didn’t pay the 2p per sticker needed to wrap things up in the late 1970s. It all seems slightly unsatisfactory. Kind of like cheating. I will start earlier next season and try to trade more.
Currently looking for Panini social groups for older collector.
