With hindsight, Mark Hughes probably regrets his bombastic response to being asked whether he was in danger of being sacked as the manager of Premier League Stoke City. “Who else is going to do it?” he said.
It was not a particularly bright soundbite. It made the Stoke job sound like a poisoned chalice. Or one that was impossible because the board were interfering, there was no money to spend and there was vastly unfair expectations. None of this is true. Instead, Hughes sounded like he was goading his bosses.
Soon, Hughes will have the answer to his flippant response. Following an awful display in defeat by Coventry City, of the basement division, in the FA Cup, Hughes was sacked. Stoke are finding that there are plenty of candidates to replace Hughes.
But it appears that one of them will not be Slaven Bilic, the former West Ham manager sacked this season for a similar sequence of results which did in Hughes at Stoke. Bilic is incredibly short on the outright betting for the job at BMR’s green-listed bookmakers at -1000. That’s the sort of price that suggests Bilic has signed already. But he hasn’t.
Newspaper reports on Monday night suggested that Bilic wasn’t interested in a relegation dogfight. Instead, he will take the gig if they stay up. So Stoke fans can breathe a sigh of relief. Bilic would be a bizarre appointment for a team in a such a scrap, considering that’s the state he left West Ham in.
The word in Stoke is that the club are in need of a firefighter, someone who has experience of getting clubs out of trouble. But there are very few candidates. Roy Hodgson, Sam Allardyce and David Moyes would each have been ideal but have been asked to stave off the dreaded drop at Crystal Palace, Everton and West Ham, respectively.
The only possible candidate remaining would seem to be Martin O’Neill, the Ireland manager. O’Neill has apparently stated his interest in the role on the basis that if he keeps Stoke up then a longer deal could be discussed or Stoke would have the option to look elsewhere for someone to build a dynasty.
There is some weight to O’Neill’s chances. You just need to look at his odds. Ladbrokes go as short as +400 while William Hill and Bet Victor offer +1200.
The latter is certainly worth a nibble on, even if we accept that we’re betting blind here because someone, somewhere is always going to know more than us. And besides, there is strong logic to O’Neill’s selection, which would surely appeal to a club run by a betting firm. And as they say, bookmakers are always right.
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