Warren Joyce would be a fantastic and courageous choice as the next manager of Hull City, were Adam Pearson to decide we need one.
One would hope Pearson will indeed have established by now that restoring Phil Brown to his previous role would be an own goal that even Kamil Zayatte would think outlandish, while Iain Dowie's experimental period in charge has been a complete failure. Neither should have the job next season. Neither deserve it.
City are not in a financial position to go offering the job to highly-prized managers currently in work, so those suggesting Gary Johnson, Danny Wilson, Sean O'Driscoll or Lee Clark need to remove the rose-coloured specs. The salary that Pearson will probably need to offer with the role would also struggle to tempt good, unemployed managers like Tony Mowbray and Alan Curbishley - not to mention bad, unemployed managers like Gary Megson.
There are wildcards out there. Footballers and football people rate Jim Gannon extremely highly, but he refused to sign contracts with both Motherwell and Peterborough United because of family commitments in the north west. Paul Jewell has a good CV but is tarnished by his failure to make Derby County a success under the watchful eye of a certain Adam Pearson, who both hired him and fired him. Jim Magilton has good credentials as a coach but made little progress at Ipswich Town and struggled to keep the belief of the players in his last job at QPR.
So Pearson will need to dig deeper. And here is where Joyce comes in.
The former City player-manager is already a club legend as architect of the original and best Grest Escape campaign of 1999. Without wishing to belittle Brown's achievements of 2007 and 2009, there was no finer, more dramatic nor more important rescue act than that which Joyce achieved with a bunch of focussed cloggers and talented kids, especially as Joyce was not a popular player with the Tiger Nation when he was first asked to take over from the wretched Mark Hateley.
That Joyce was fired the next season by a dimwitted, impetuous and spiteful board of directors who wanted promotion to be handed on a plate remains one of the great scandals of Hull City's modern era. Joyce himself has kept a quiet, dignified silence when questioned in later years about the matter, but it still burns and rankles.
He was the one who first took Fraizer Campbell out of Manchester United when, as coach of Antwerp, he borrowed the raw young striker who promptly delivered a return of goals that was beyond stunning. Such was the impact of Joyce's time in the Belgian League that he was headhunted by Sir Alex Ferguson to become reserve team coach at Old Trafford, where he remains to this day. He and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer together have brought through Manchester United's latest supply of gifted youngsters now featuring semi-regularly in the first team.
He loves Hull City, will feel he has a job to finish off and the Tiger Nation utterly adores him. He won't be expensive, either in salary or in compensation, and he will not have his boss standing in his way. He can use his influence to persuade bright young stars of Manchester United's future to come play for the Tigers in the Championship. He can tap into the psyche of footballers of any age, ability or ego and, as the club looks to become a much more approachable, likeable and solvent entity after the recent excesses, he will bring some much needed humility to the task.
The more you think about it, the more sense it makes.
.jpg)
