I’m not going to go into too much detail about Liverpool’s 7-0 thrashing of Manchester United last Sunday. A million column inches have already been dedicated to this astonishing result and, to be fair, there is nothing I could say that hasn’t already been said.

What I do feel compelled to discuss, however, is Erik ‘Nearly Ten’ Hag’s shocking decision to keep Bruno Fernandes as his captain.

As far as I am aware, a captain’s role is to lead by example, to rally the troops, to keep up morale, maintain discipline, identify where things are going wrong and help sort them out. During that painful, record-breaking defeat, Fernandes failed to do all of the above.

As the goals flew in, he got more petulant and moody by the minute. Instead of ensuring his teammates kept their heads, he slowly but surely lost his own. And then, once his sense of discipline had vanished, he decided to lose interest in the game entirely.

His pathetic performance was encapsulated late in the game when a Liverpool player skipped past him on the touchline and he just stood there watching him disappear into the distance rather than chasing him down.

At a time when the chips were down and United needed a captain and a leader the most, he went missing in action.

Yet Ten Hag insisted last week that Fernandes is “an inspiration to the team” and will continue to lead it.

There isn’t much the Dutch boss has got wrong at United since he arrived. But this feels like a display of misplaced loyalty that isn’t going to do the club any good in the long term.

Many people argue that the captain’s role is little more than symbolic – just someone to lead the team out and argue with the referee. But I don’t see it that way.

A good captain should know what his manager is thinking at all times and be his mouthpiece on the pitch. A good captain drives the team on and motivates it to be better than the sum of its parts. A good captain can be instrumental when it comes to turning defeats into draws and draws into victories.

And Fernandes is not that type of person. I’m not questioning his football talent – he is a great little player – but I am questioning his temperament, personality and leadership skills.

Of course, if Ten Hag didn’t have any other options, then maybe, just maybe, sticking with Fernandes would make sense. But he does have other options. Or one in particular. And that is Casemiro.

He may not have been at Old Trafford for very long, but the Brazilian has already shown he is a natural leader of men, a player who is capable of picking his colleagues up when they are down and someone who doesn’t let the pressure get to him. He is crying out to be given the armband.

Casemiro may not have been at Old Trafford for very long, but the Brazilian has already shown he is a natural leader of men

And, if you want my opinion, the only reason Ten Hag hasn’t made the move already is because he is afraid what a demotion would do to Fernandes’s ego. The Portugal international believes the sun shines out of his own backside, and taking away the captaincy could send him into a prolonged sulk. With United still in the running for two more trophies, he doesn’t want to trample on the morale of one of his best players at a crucial time.

But don’t be surprised if Captain Casemiro emerges at the beginning of next season...

 

Not so great Scott... for now

Scott Parker is having a few months to forget.

Last season he guided Bournemouth to promotion to the Premier League and was widely seen as an exciting young English manager with a bright future ahead of him. But the former Tottenham Hotspur and England player was fired by Bournemouth – unfairly in my opinion – in the wake of their 9-0 stuffing by Liverpool back in August.

He didn’t rush back to work, biding his time before joining Club Brugge at the end of December. But the 18-time champions also fired him last week after their 7-1 aggregate defeat to Benfica in the Champions League. He was only in charge for 12 games, out of which he only won two.

Why I am writing about this? It’s just another managerial dismissal, isn’t it?

Well, for the most part yes. But I’ve watched Parker’s managerial career grow, and I’ve seen his teams play, and there is something about him that makes me feel he is actually a special talent. Once in a while you get that feeling that someone is destined for greatness – either a player or a manager – and that’s what I sense about Parker.

This season hasn’t panned out the way Parker expected but I am equally sure he will bounce back in a pretty big way. Watch this space.

 

New day, new Watford manager

As a Watford fan, your morning routine probably involves logging on to the club’s website to see if the manager changed while you slept.

Since September 2019, the club has had nine permanent bosses and a couple of interim ones as well. And this high turnover is not a new habit either – since 2013 they have had no less than 20 different managers (well 18, to be accurate, as two have been stupid enough to try it twice).

Last week, Slaven Bilic became the club’s latest victim when he was fired after a run of just one win in the last eight matches. In fairness, he had been in charge for a whole five months which, by Vicarage Road standards of longevity, makes him a bit of a Sir Alex Ferguson.

With the club still harbouring hopes of an instant return to the Premier League, they moved swiftly to appoint Chris Wilder as manager till the end of the season.

And, while there are less than a dozen games left, I still wouldn’t bet on him being there at the end.

This supercharged version of the old managerial merry-go-round sounds like it should cause chaos, with the constant upheaval leaving players entirely unsure of the manager’s systems and tactics. And, probably, name.

But, in a strange way, it seems to work for Watford. Despite changing managers like most of us change underwear, they haven’t gone into freefall and plummeted down the leagues, and spend most of their time either in the top flight or trying to get back to it.

Would Watford’s past decade have been any better if they had had the same manager for the 10 years? Possibly, possibly not. It’s impossible to say.

But at least this chop and change approach keeps everyone – fans, managers, players – on their toes, which is better than being bored I guess.

 

E-mail: James@quizando.com

Twitter: @Maltablade