Emery brilliant, Chelsea plunged into actual relegation battle

Unai Emery, Roy Hodgson and Gary O’Neil are showing that mid-season manager appointments can work. Chelsea genuinely might get relegated with theirs.

Gary O’Neil
While it can sometimes seem as though successful top-flight management is beyond the capabilities of English central midfielders who played in the Premier League during the mid-2000s, Gary O’Neil has taken the invert route of Messrs Gerrard, Lampard and even his Bournemouth predecessor Parker.

Those excellent players became mediocre coaches. This average player has turned into an excellent manager.

Considering Parker has been intermittently linked with the Tottenham job in recent years, this was a doubly satisfying win for O’Neil. He inherited a Bournemouth side condemned to relegation and has instilled a belief few other sides can match. The Cherries have a worse squad than most, but a far better idea of what they are doing and an attitude which should shame many of their rivals.

O’Neil is not close to the best manager in the league, and doubts remain over his long-term suitability to the post. But it feels absolutely fair to say that no-one could have done a better job for Bournemouth in the circumstances.

Brighton
Copying someone’s homework sounds easy and tempting enough but there will soon be problems if you don’t understand the sums. Chelsea can steal all the answers they want; only Brighton can show their working-out.

There might never have been a more gratifying, rewarding result in Premier League history. Chelsea took Brighton’s manager, his entire coaching staff, their head of recruitment and a £60m player. Chelsea then took an absolute beating as Brighton out-shot them more than three to one, with four times as many corners and more possession in their first-ever league victory at Stamford Bridge.

The plight of Marc Cucurella epitomises everything. Chelsea saw him thrive at Brighton and threw money in their general direction. They managed the ‘who’ of recognising a good player, without even vaguely considering the ‘why’ or ‘how’ of what made him so, the systems and tactics and culture and environment and dynamics that go into competent squad building.

The Spaniard spent the whole match on the bench.

Without knowledge, money is useless. Brighton have the blueprint and they know what comes with the territory of being the biggest league in the world’s best-run club by far. The vultures will return from Chelsea and elsewhere but the Seagulls have…