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A Gold-Plate Generation full-back, taking a surprise appointment abroad, having never managed a club before; what could possibly go wrong? Must we really endure Jamie Carragher making hilarious sport of another inevitable failure every time he’s comprehensively defeated in an argument on Monday Night Football (MNF)? Er, no, because unlike Gary Neville, Ashley Cole hasn’t been presented with a job managing Cesena thanks to his friendship with a cuddly billionaire, able to fit the Valencia gig around his day-job of buying up swathes of his beloved Manchester for personal enrichment.
Rather, Cole has earned his position by taking a succession of coaching jobs while showing himself to be an excellent analyst and communicator when appearing on TV, such that the question ought really to be why has it taken seven years for him to be given a managerial position, and why is that managerial position a temporary one, in Serie B? By way of comparison, Steven Gerrard was at Rangers within two years of retirement while Frank Lampard took the Derby post in similar timeframe – likewise Wayne Rooney – before failing and moving on to Chelsea, then failing again, to be rewarded with the big chair at Everton.
