I am not sure what the Hull City board is thinking these days. With only 9 games to go this season they let go of Phil Brown and replace him with Iain Dowie.
Now I am not a big Phil Brown. I thought that Hull should have gotten rid of him last season when Hull went months without a win and only avoided relegation on the last day of the season. This season Hull are currently 3 points from safety, but their schedule is such that they a lot of the teams around them in the table. I would say that it was 50-50 that Hull would avoid relegation this season under Brown.
Hill Chairman Adam Pearson believes the odds should be higher than that saying:
“We feel that we’ve got a quarter of the season to go with some winnable games within that. It’s not a fixture list that’s packed full of ‘top four’ games, it’s a fixture list with games where we would expect to get some points. We feel that we’re best served by making the change now. That will bring a fresh face in, some new impetus and some new focus to get those 14 or 15 points that we’re going to need.”
So Pearson thinks Hull can get 15 points out of a possible 27, which is a point per game rate that is double what they have earned all season.
So Hull’s board did not think that Brown could achieve this point total and replaced him with Iain Dowie, who I classify as a professional manager. A professional manager is someone who is not good enough to stay in one place for long periods of time, but for some reason teams keep hiring them. That is Iain Dowie.
Hull say they brought in Dowie because of his experience managing teams at the bottom of the table. You know its never a good sign when your new manager is familiar with battling for relegation.
But a look at Dowie’s record show that he is not successful keeping teams in the Premier League. He previously has managed three Premier League clubs: Crystal Palace, Charlton Athletic, and a brief stint as assistant to Alan Shearer at Newcastle.
He guided Palace into the Premier League in 2004, but they went straight down, drawing with Charlton 2-2 on the final day of the season and getting relegated by a single point.
Dowie then moved onto Charlton where he lasted just 12 league games (two wins) and left with Charlton bottom of the Premier League. Charlton were relegated that season and have never recovered.
Finally Dowie was number 2 to Alan Shearer last season at Newcastle, who were also relegated.
So what does Adam Pearson see in Iain Dowie that the rest of us don’t? . Looking at Dowie’s record there is no indication that Dowie will be an improvement over Phil Brown and I expect another Dowie side to get relegated this season, which might make him the most unsuccessful manager in Premier League history.
