Chris Dunlavy
A FRESH TAKE ON FOOTBALL

EARLIER this season, I wrote that a certain EFL manager had - on occasion - ordered his players to hoof it long.
A week later, he gave me a call. “You think I’m bad,” he fumed. “Did you see f***ing West Brom the other night? People talk about young managers, progressive football. Well, that was some of the worst football I’ve ever seen in my life.”
By the end of Valerien Ismael’s lifeless sixmonth reign at the Hawthorns, it was a view shared on the terraces.
Abysmal. Turgid. Worse than Sunday League. Social media buzzed with disdain, and this fr...