Tom English: Lure of Parkhead not as irresistible as some would have you believe

Published on Saturday 30 May 2009 20:55

OWEN COYLE, you may have gathered, is a lifelong Celtic fan. He was born at the side of the road on Kerrydale Street, humming the words of the Willie Maley song, wrapped in a blanket of green and white hoops. He was taken directly from there to Parkhead where the first season ticket of his life was pressed into his tiny hand, aged 15 minutes. "Hail, Hail," cried the baby. His parents looked at him proudly. "One day," they sobbed. "He might be the manager here."

Well, sort of.

If I was a Celtic fan I'd be wondering why Coyle seems to be backing away from the Celtic job like a break-dancer doing the moonwalk. Emotional attachment to Burnley, you say? Well, fine, but only to a point. Coyle has done a freakishly good job in getting his team into the Premiership and naturally he would like the chance to test himself against the best of the best. He's earned the right.

Coyle's team conceded just two goals in their last six games in the Championship which was unbelievable given that they'd let in 58 in the matches that went before. They shipped more goals than any other side in the top 12. Yet when the chips were down, they were nigh on unbreakable. This is a Burnley defence that is made up of somebody called Clarke Carlisle who plays alongside such journeymen as Mike Duff, Stephen Caldwell and Christian Kalvenes.

Their manager must be some kind of miracle man.

That's what they think down Burnley way. And no wonder. They played nice football and scored plenty of goals despite having a main strikeforce of Steven Thompson, formerly of Rangers, Martin Paterson of Northern Ireland and Robbie Blake who's 33. The star quality is only present in the manager's office. Clearly Coyle has It, whatever It is.

But, equally, he didn't get where he is today by having his head in the clouds.

He's a smart cookie. A very shrewd young manager. He knows the odds on Burnley staying in the Premier League and they are not good. History tells us that at least one, if not two, of the promoted teams in the Premiership go straight back down again. In four of the last six seasons this has been the case and normally the promoted managers have seen their reputations dip more alarmingly than a plane with engine trouble. From high fliers to spluttering wrecks in the space of months.

None of this may happen to Coyle, but Aidy Boothroyd was once in his position after getting Watford promoted. Billy Davies was a hot ticket after his glory at Derby. So was Paul Jewell and Alan Pardew after they hauled Wigan and West Ham into the big league. Nigel Worthington won the Championship with Norwich in 2004. Iain Dowie took Crystal Palace up the same year. Micky Adams and Dave Jones brought Leicester and Wolves into the promised land in 2003.

As these cases prove, getting your team into the Premier League is no guarantee of job security. Most of these guys were given pretty moderate budgets when they joined the big boys and many of them struggled. None of them, we would suggest, had as big a rebuild job as Coyle has now. If he's lucky he'll have about 10 million to spend on new players which doesn't look remotely enough cash to survive. Hull stayed in the division by the skin of their teeth only after laying out a net spend of 15m. Stoke stayed up with a net spend of more than 16m. That West Brom got relegated was little surprise. Tony Mowbray's net spend was just 6.5m.

Coyle could go from boy wonder to joker pretty quickly next season. Not saying he will, but there has to be a danger of that happening to him. So why wouldn't he want to get out of Burnley while he's still a God? Why wouldn't he want to join a club he's adored from birth? There is not a lot of hard information coming out of Celtic Park these days but we can take it on trust that Coyle was the man they wanted. So why does he seem unlikely to jump?

Is it all to do with the appeal of the Premier League? I'm not convinced.

The new Celtic manager is going to have to do what Gordon Strachan did in his first season – cut the wage bill and win the title while competing against a team with the advantage of Champions League money. The home support never gave Strachan nearly enough credit for the wondrous thing he did in 2005-6. He slashed salaries by 5m, lowered the average age of the squad quite dramatically and yet played fine football, scored lots of goals and won the title at a canter.

They never liked his personality, his abruptness, but never allowed for the fact that maybe his personality was the very thing that helped haul Celtic out of the giant hole that Martin O'Neill had left them in when he departed.

Salaries can come down easily enough at Celtic. That's not going to be the new man's main problem. Bobo Balde, Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink and Artur Boruc hoover up 80,000 a week between them and could be replaced adequately for little over half of that.

The big issue is the kitty for transfer fees. It's been guesstimated at 5m. If Boruc is sold it may rise higher but there's no promise of the goalkeeper bringing in fabulous riches in the transfer market the way he's performed over the past year.

So the new boss has to find at least one new full-back, a replacement for Shunsuke Nakamura – assuming he leaves – and two new strikers. Vennegoor of Hesselink will go and that leaves Georgios Samaras (inconsistent and not the solution) and Scott McDonald (outstanding but depended upon too heavily). That's a lot of holes to fill for not a lot of money.

If Coyle had a look at those numbers you could excuse him for not being euphoric at the prospect of taking over his boyhood club, especially since winning the league doesn't seem enough for the Celtic support who want it won in style and with the manager smiling his way through it all in a way that was anathema to Strachan.

Coyle may want the Celtic job but he may not want it on those terms. Anybody who thinks that Parkhead has an irresistible tug for him don't reckon on the reality of the job, its huge demands and the toll it takes on a man.

The club are looking for somebody who can cut the budget and bring the glory. Those guys are not in great supply. They found one four years ago but the fans were never happy with him and a fair number of them were glad to see him go. To that we can only say, be careful what you wish for. If Coyle is happier taking his chance as a likely lamb to the slaughter in the Premiership and Mowbray is determined to stay in England, the options elsewhere can't be all that appealing to the demanding souls of Parkhead.

"Better the devil you know" might yet be a phrase uttered by the anti-Strachan brigade when this business plays itself out.