Stop genuflecting in front of glorified games teachers like Klopp and Arteta

The Manchester United managerial psycho-drama is vaguely ridiculous.

Sometimes when I see how some fans respond to a manager, especially fans of one of the rich, self-obsessed clubs, I am astonished at the emotional involvement some nurture and want to say ‘he’s not your dad, why do you care?’. But people do, and take it all far too personally.

Erik ten Hag eventually suffered people openly mocking him. Then there’s the subsequent slavering over and vaunting of Ruud van Nistelrooy. Perhaps it’s in lieu of having fulfilling personal relationships. It’s all little short of hysterical.

Get an elite manager in, job done. As if life or football is that easy. But of course, the elite manager will, like everyone else, lose and fail to win trophies, in other words not be ‘a winner’ and not be this nebulous concept of ‘elite’.

You can say for example that Carlo Ancelotti is elite given the team he expensively manages, but he didn’t look so elite at Everton, did he? He might have won titles but he has had many more eliminations from the Champions League and failure to win leagues and also lost the Bayern dressing room. Elite? Meaningless.

Context matters. You’re not judging people doing the same job in the same circumstances with the same resources. They’re all different. The ‘get an elite manager in’ trope is proved mistaken more often than it’s not. It’s like thinking if you were born inheriting money, you got rich through your own skill (which people do all the time). It’s like a teacher that gets a failing kid to pass their exams; that’s a greater achievement than getting a high achiever to pass. Context. It matters.

The charismatic manager especially attracts the pathetic and sad grovelling and snivelling fans. Jurgen Klopp was painted as some embodiment of all that is good and absolutely deified as such, but then took the Red Bull money. The human is not perfect after all. Can you believe that? Father, what have you done? Look, it’s just a bloke taking a job. Did you think he was going to hover above the masses, inviolate and perfect for the rest of his life like some footballing angel of Mons? If you thought that, you conned yourself.

This paternal God complex is remarkably immature and leads to ‘he’s let us down’ hysteria. He’s just a bloke. Don’t worship or loathe him. It’s inappropriate. Yet these weird attitudes are taken for granted, as if they’re normal, when it comes to football. People for whom the manager becomes a figure of pity or hate, or love, must be trying to fill a hole in their lives.

Some managers even lean into this perversion, professing their undying love for a club they will manage for 5% of their career. It’s usually kiss-the-badge phony emotion. They play on this type of attitude. If you’ve convinced yourself that the manager, who has been in situ for a few months or a few years, cares as much as you do, then you are too wrapped up in the club and have lost perspective, something that social media and even the clubs themselves encourage. It’s odd.

In Scotland, it seems there are 42 managers and they all rotate around the clubs every 18 months or so, each eventually getting a go at every club, such is the recycling of managers. It makes a mockery of aligning yourself with the man as a kind of role model, virtuous and holy, clever or elite. So, by and large, no one does. Derek will be gone soon enough, replaced with Dougie, who will last a few months and be replaced by Scott.

And it is likely the same in the English lower leagues but not in the bizarro Premier League which seems to actively encourage such over-emotional engagement. Look at the recent worship of Jose Mourinho, as though the reporters had a teenage crush on the man. Apart from being something that is deeply pathetic and surely only exists for journalists in a foetid, closed environment without a wider perspective, it’s all part of this hysterical attitude to managers, as though they are a mixture of rock star, comedian and priest. Get a sense of perspective.

I mean, have you seen how some treat Mikel Arteta? Somewhere between an angel and a devil. Pep Guardiola, so slavishly worshipped by so many, so often, regularly seems quite bemused by it and wears a sceptical expression which seems to be saying ’why are you behaving like you’re a child?’ when a reporter or journalist fawns over them.

While every one of us deserve civility and respect, I don’t understand the greasy smarm or the cynic. It mustn’t take any courage to interview a manager. No courage at all. He’s not Vladimir Putin who would have you killed. He’s a middle-aged fella, often one whose English is a second language. The worst he’s going to do is shout at you. It’s not school. Oooh Sean Dyche swore at me. Get over yourself. It’s all part of this excessive culture of deference that has, for some reason, become a default. You don’t have to grovel or confront. There is another way.

I understand that clubs mean a lot to fans, and the manager is important, but all I hope for is that he is treated like a normal millionaire human, not somehow better or worse than anyone, more special, possessing special powers or more hopeless.

If you do or don’t like the manager, fine, but don’t expect them to be a surrogate father or provide ideals to live by or be some sort of secular vicar. They’re just the latest gilet in the job; there’ll be many more and all will eventually fail. Deal with it. They haven’t let you down or betrayed your family with some touchline antics that need dissecting, approving or disapproving, the way we see with so many.

Managers have been criticised just for writing things down, holding an umbrella or not showing enough emotion, that’s how stupid these attitudes are. It leads to short-termism. This is all taking something that isn’t serious far too seriously. It is as though the manager is some combination of mathematician, scientist and moral philosopher, he’s not. In most cases he’s just a glorified games teacher. Stop genuflecting in front of them.