Managerial Poaching is preventing the lower League teams from progressing
The harsh reality is that much more lucrative salaries from Championship clubs are making lower league clubs stepping stone clubs for young enthusiastic managers.
In the modern world with all of the money that is floating around in football it is now near impossible for the clubs from League 1 and 2 to try and gain stability in the higher leagues. For example just this year Eddie Howe, who had a fantastic few years in charge of Bournemouth lifting them out of the relegation zone in his first involvement and in the following and his first full season in charge, managed to secure automatic promotion into league one. With a very minimal budget to work with in League 1, Eddie still managed to place Bournemouth in the promotion places for the majority of the following campaign! His achievements have not gone unnoticed and he was continually linked with a switch to Peterborough. With the on-going speculation Howe finally ended that rumour by confirming he wanted to still be a part of Bournemouth. How those views changed when a week later Burnley confirmed their interest in the Bournemouth manager and a few days after Eddie Howe was confirmed as the new Burnley manager. Luckily for Bournemouth they have still managed to maintain in and around the playoff positions and are still in the hunt for promotion.
A more intense example is the saga surrounding Paul Ince (a much overrated manager in my opinion). At the time he had worked wonders for MK Dons, achieving almost identical records as Eddie Howe had at Bournemouth, but again a bigger club came sniffing around. Surprisingly this club was Blackburn, and money talked and Paul Ince was gone. Non-surprisingly for me, Ince was poor at Blackburn and was sacked after just six months in charge. MK Dons however who were flying at the time of Ince’s reign and since then have failed to really progress in League 1.
There is no doubt that in the near future that Gus Poyet will be subject to plenty of speculation this summer after this weekend being crowned League 1 champions with Brighton, still with four games to go. Brighton has stormed League 1, being top of the table since their eighth game of the season. I do hope that Poyet does stay with Brighton as they will most definitely need his inspiration for them to try and stay in the Championship for the years to come.
I do not put any blame on the managers themselves, because who wouldn’t want to manage in the Premiership and Championship; it is the teams that actually come in for their main targets who I hold the blame for. Like their tactics to poach players, it is mostly dirty and unethical through unlawful processes to contact the manager offering them huge contracts and promising great things, making it almost impossible for the managers to turn them down.
Obviously managers are obliged to move to bigger and better things and that things shouldn’t be stood in their way if a big club moves in for them, but it just seems very harsh on the lower league clubs that they should feel the worst effects of the move. It is a continuous cycle which sees young managers leave the lower clubs to bigger teams, and some continue their great work but for the majority the move is too soon and they cannot handle the pressure. A great manager in my eyes is one that stays with a club through thick and thin, managers that take their club through the leagues instead of jumping teams to get there. Obviously this is going to take years but if a manger was able to achieve this, I would give them the “legendary” status, and would have the utmost respect for them.
