Tony Mowbray wins Manager of the Year at West Brom, but what about Phil Brown, Gary Johnson, Neil Warnock and Saint Glenn?

Cracking little title that isn’t it? It’s catchy, and to the point. Anyway…

The Manager of the Year award has always struck me as being a little, well, lop-sided. More often than not the person who wins won the league as is the case this year in the Championship this season after Tony Mowbray of West Bromwich Albion picked up the award, but is that the best measure?

What’s to say that Mowbray has done a better job at West Brom than say, I don’t know – Phil Brown at Hull, Neil Warnock at Palace, Gary Johnson at Bristol City or our very own Glenn Roeder?

I’m going to try and work it out.

To try and keep it manageable (and not at all because I’m a little on the lazy side) I’m just going to weigh up these five bosses and come to my own conclusion.

Straight off the bat you’ll notice that I’ve left Tony Pulis off my list of “nominees”. Let’s not beat around the bush, he has done a tremendous job in getting Stoke into the Premier League but to quote Al Murray the Pub Landlord “my gaff my rules”, so Pulis is disqualified on the grounds of being a 50 year old man who insists on wearing a baseball cap. Sorry Tony.

I’m going to use several measures to score the bosses, and we’ll see who comes out on top. They will be:

1. Points scored per game.
2. Expectations.
3. That so-called “X” Factor (also known as the way I try to manipulate the figures “Labour Party” style to get Roeder to win).

The manager who tops the list will score 5 points; second-place will get 4 points and so on.

Let’s get cracking.

WherestheMatch.com

I don’t often write posts promoting other sites directly, as I don’t really think that’s the idea of a football blog (not my one anyway). That said I’m all for a bit of mutual back-scratching, and occasionally you get made aware of a site that just has to be plugged.

I can’t be the only person who likes to get my footy fill by watching as many games on TV as I can (Forest Green Rovers versus Exeter City? Yes please), but I often miss games that I may otherwise have watched by not knowing they were on in the first place.

That’s where my new friends at WherestheMatch.com come in. It’s so simple it’s genius. Want to know what football is on the box today, or this week, or this month? Here you go it’s all here. From Sky Sports 1 to itv 4, from the Premier League to the Blue Square League to Serie A to Le Championnat, if it’s on the TV it’s on there.

And if you’re one of those people that like to dabble in a little cricket or rugby during the “off” season, that’s all on there as well.

Marvellous.

Delighted for Bristol City – and fair play to Neil Warnock

I’m really pleased to see Bristol City make the play-off final after beating Crystal Palace last night. What Gary Johnson has achieved already at Ashton Gate this season must be the stuff of dreams for Robins supporters, so win lose or draw at Wembley they’ve had a hell of a season.

And fair play to Neil Warnock. When Michael McIndoe smashed in City’s second goal even he applauded it – and I think I even saw him applauding some of the Bristol City fans after he’d shaken Gary Johnson’s hand.