Even by our ‘It’s Never Dull” © standards this has to go some.
After it emerged last week that we had approached Yaya Toure to speak to us about the managerial vacancy and he had subsequently turned us down to remain as a coach at Tottenham, a few days later another Toure was suddenly in the frame.
This time Yaya’s older brother Kolo. This was quite the surprise when betting markets had made it clear Neil Critchley looked like he was about to be appointed as Leam Richardson’s successor.
So the weekend came and went without any clear confirmation on the new name to expect above the door of the manager’s office but as the clock ticks to two weeks since Leam Richardson left by all intents and purposes it looks it could well be Kolo Toure being named Wigan Athletic manager.
So not a name that was in the running or had even been mentioned by the bookmakers. It shows you that those odds lists shouldn’t be used to inform any sort of debate.
So Kolo Toure, what do we make of that? Well the board and Talal are the ones who make the decisions of course and they say they’ve reached an unanimous decision that Kolo is indeed the man for us. There’s two things to say on this, we as supporters haven’t sat in on any of the interviews.
We don’t know what prospective managers have pitched or promised and we don’t know in turn what has been promised to managers in terms of support or transfer budgets.
It’s a left field choice but sometimes those choices pay dividends. Was anybody thinking of David Wagner when he took over at Huddersfield or Mauricio Pochettino when he took over from Nigel Adkins at Southampton. I’m not comparing Toure to either of those managers but the situations are similar and led to successful outcomes for those clubs.
It’s refreshing to see that we’re looking outside of the usual Championship merry go round, and by doing that it may well offer us more value than we could get normally.
But of course it’s a risk, all management appointments are a risk. In our situation a risk may pay dividends. As I’ve made clear in this column in recent weeks I wouldn’t have sacked Leam but we are where we are. If the board have decided Kolo Toure is our man and they’re going to back him in the transfer market then he deserves our full support.
The Wigan Post have reported that Toure is the most expensive option due to the compensation owed to Leicester for Toure and any staff he’s expected to bring with him which should put paid to the rumours abound regarding our imminent financial implosion.
The new manager will have two weeks to work with his squad before we return to action at Millwall, he’ll need to get up to speed quickly with a hard working squad that although it has it’s limitations is full of heart. If Toure can somehow get the side away from the bottom three by the end of the season he’ll be the latest in a long line of well loved managers to make their home WN5.
Sean Livesey
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