Soccer: Watch your back

The macabre betting on which manager will be first to get the sack in the English Premier League this season has gone into overdrive.

Ranting supporters in Hull have been calling for the head of manager Phil Brown; fans at pointless Portsmouth have lost faith in Paul Hart; and Gary Megson at Bolton has been on the receiving end of more abuse at the Reebok.

The trio face tough matches this weekend, so the sack may only be a few days away for one of them. And history is heavily stacked against them.

Only three times in the past 11 Premier League seasons have we entered October without at least one managerial casualty in the top flight.

Last year, Alan Curbishley left West Ham on September 3; the season before, Jose Mourinho was turfed out of Chelsea on September 20.

Hart is at greatest peril, with Portsmouth firmly rooted to the foot of the Premier League without a single point. The chances of them ending that run at home to Everton look remote, while speculation mounted yesterday that the club's chief executive, Peter Storrie, is about to resign.

He is said to be on the verge of walking out after admitting to having difficulty working alongside the club's new owner, Sulaiman al-Fahim.

The Arab businessman was due to hold a meeting with fans yesterday but cancelled it at 24 hours' notice because he was "concerned the coverage generated will distract the players from their preparations for Saturday's crucial game".

Hart is clearly feeling the heat, snapping at reporters in a pre-match press conference: "What are you asking for, a fourth vote of confidence in three weeks? Whatever supporters are feeling, magnify that by one million and you'll get to where we at the club are."

He may yet survive even if Portsmouth lost overnight, as the financial repercussions of sacking him could damage the penniless club. But defeat to Wolves in a week would probably seal his fate.

As for Portsmouth's future, reports continue to suggest that the club could be the first Premier League club to go into administration, with some suggestions that the club has to find £6 million to stay ahead of their creditors.

Reports that no money was available for replacing key players - Portsmouth have had to sell their best players, Glen Johnson, Peter Crouch, Sylvain Distin and Niko Kranjcar - have been confused by further stories that money will be available. Only time will tell.

Over at Hull, Brown has four games to turn it around, so some observers say. Others reckon six. It is all a far cry from a year ago this weekend, when he was masterminding the club's historic 2-1 victory over Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium. Now he has chairman Phil Duffen going on local radio to voice his unequivocal support for his manager after Hull's 4-0 home defeat to Everton in the Carling Cup on Wednesday.

Duffen told BBC Radio Humberside: "I would say it's pathetic. The Premier League season is only six games old. This is a manager and coaching staff that have delivered this football to the city. It's despicable."

Brown was defiant after the midweek humiliation, saying: "Everybody is expecting us to go out of this division because of the second-season syndrome. It is about rolling the sleeves up now and fighting even harder.

Hopefully, whatever team I pick at Liverpool [played overnight] will respond in the right manner. Nobody likes being in the bottom three but we have a job to do that is a long-term plan. That long-term plan is six games in. We have got a long way to go."

After last night's trip to Liverpool, Hull face Wigan, Fulham, Portsmouth and Burnley in more winnable games.

Megson took his Bolton side to Birmingham overnight, grateful for the blessed relief of a midweek victory over West Ham in the Carling Cup.

The Bolton manager is confident he will survive this latest test of his management.

"The spirit in the dressing room is good," he said. "Only we seem to know that in the last five games we have won three, drawn one and lost one, and that was against Liverpool with 10 men. There are one or two other football clubs who would swap with us at the moment."

Those managers' fortunes contrast sharply with those of Aston Villa's Martin O'Neill, one of the few clubs outside the big four enjoying a good Premier League season, lying fifth in the table and knowing a fifth win on the spin against Blackburn Rovers (played overnight) will herald their best run since April 1998.

Yet the term began with the team being booed off and was briefly scarred by what the manager calls a "contretemps" with his confident young midfielder Nigel Reo-Coker. For the modern manager, stress comes in many guises.

"The game has become very difficult for managers," said O'Neill. "In my time as a player, players had no power whatsoever. You played where you were told, the manager decided what you earned and you were lucky if you were involved with a top manager like Brian Clough as I was [at Nottingham Forest]. Now the players are in power.

"I will never begrudge the top-quality player being paid top dollar. These are the ones who bring people into the stadia. But when the money is handed down to very average players and they have that power, that becomes an irritant."

As O'Neill spoke, Reo-Coker was outside, climbing aboard the coach that would whisk the squad to Ewood Park. Dropped for two games, Reo-Coker was back in from the cold, Villa's manager having made his point about who was in charge.

O'Neill does not seek the players' friendship, just their respect. "I don't think I would be remotely close to their list of invitees to any function they were going to. I wouldn't really want to go either. I would find them relatively boring. No, seriously, distance is important. I don't concern myself about not being fantastically popular."

The size of squads nowadays means some rotation is inevitable, that some players will be aggrieved at being omitted.

"Keeping everybody happy is really difficult. There will be three or four players who desperately want to play but won't. You should have seen the long mug on me when I was left out.

"It's easier to keep a lid on things if you are winning games. Sir Alex Ferguson has done it brilliantly in bringing people in. I went to watch Manchester United play Wigan Athletic. Two rows down from me were players in their United ties, at least three of whom had European Cup medals, who had travelled but hadn't made the bench. They accepted that because United are highly successful."

As Villa's squad has expanded, the likes of Reo-Coker will find themselves being stood down on occasion. "I do want to do a bit more rotating, possibly because of what we experienced last year." (Villa began strongly but faded.)

Resting players, though, can lead to unrest. Just as players question managers' authority, so supporters criticise decisions.

"The turnover of managers is unbelievable. Roy Keane has managed only a few games at Ipswich. People are talking about 'he had his honeymoon at the end of last year' and now that results are not going so cleverly, everything he is doing is being questioned. He's under microscopic scrutiny. People are making judgements on one result."

Having so many young players at Villa, O'Neill has needed to be a psychologist as well as full of zest, particularly when the swaggering likes of Gabriel Agbonlahor and Ashley Young return crestfallen from England duty at a time when James Milner quietly accelerates into Fabio Capello's World Cup plans.

"Gabby played last year [against Germany] and got discarded. It's difficult. You are lauded to the high heavens when not involved in the England squad and then get a half to justify all that praise. If it doesn't go well, you can get discarded. You have to have an inner self-confidence.

"You might have that arrogance here at Villa, where you are big news, where the manager believes in you, but not with England, where the players are world class and might not approve of your cockiness. You have to prove yourself again to people going 'let's see what you can do'.

"If Ashley is inhibited in training with England, it is because people don't know him. Milner has taken it in his stride - and that's great - but James and Ashley are totally different characters.

"James gets on with it. James does not possess that swagger but he doesn't get overawed. So far it hasn't happened for Ashley with England but it will come. He has the talent."

If Young feels under pressure, he should look and learn from how O'Neill handles stress so adroitly.

- INDEPENDENT