The Peterborough owner may be right about this season but who is to blame?

I am going to write about Peterborough United who are currently eleven points from safety at the bottom of the Championship. On transfer deadline day, a very strange day indeed, they sacked manager Mark Cooper and employed former Stockport and Motherwell boss Jim Gannon in his place.

Owners

More accurately I want to write about Peterborough’s owner Darragh MacAnthony and the role of owners and chairman in general.

For those who don’t know, Peterborough enjoyed huge success under their previous manager Darren Ferguson, who took them to consecutive promotions from League Two and League One into this season’s championship. This meteoric rise was achieved with players cobbled together from the lower leagues and the non-league and surpassed anything that even the most fanatical Peterborough supporter could have hoped for or predicted.

Struggled

Unsurprisingly, Peterborough struggled on their arrival in the rarefied heights of the Championship but rather than supporting the man who had achieved miracles, Darren Ferguson left the club in November with his side having just two wins to their name. The reasons for the ‘sacking’ or departure by ‘mutual consent’ have never really been clear but there was obviously a total breakdown in the relationships behind the scenes.

Peterborough made the surprising decision to appoint Mark Cooper as their new manager, taking him from Blue Square Premier League side Kettering. The forty-one year old boss had a torrid time and just thirteen games, one victory and seventy-nine days into his football league career, Peterborough terminated his contract.

Honesty

It seems that most Peterborough fans accept the decision and whilst they have recognised Cooper’s commitment and honesty they have also felt he was totally out of his depth. Perhaps, when looking at the huge leap he made, that is not surprising.

Just last week the owner, MacAnthony, issued a statement on the club’s official website saying that the season had been a disaster. He criticised everyone at the club from top to bottom and said that he was ‘done with defending the players’. He went on to say that the current season is a shambolic mess.

Comments

Many people would applaud MacAnthony for his honesty but I would want to look at his comments and actions much more closely.

A few weeks ago I saw Mr MacAnthony on television saying that he was disappointed with the pre-season regime that his coaching staff had conducted and criticising some of the tactics employed by the team in some of their matches. This interview raised huge concerns.

Unnecessary

Whilst the owner of a club is more than entitled to his opinion, for him to comment publicly on football matters is totally unnecessary. The thought of a non-football man trying to get involved in the football side of things just because he happens to have done well in business and bought a club is the very stuff of nightmares for a manager.

The owners job is to run the club successfully as a business and to employ the right football people to ensure success on the pitch. If the owner thinks he can influence both parts, he is always completely mistaken.

Shambles

When describing the season as a shambles I wonder if Mr MacAnthony thinks that falling out with the manager who was the best thing to happen to Peterborough in their history, losing him and then employing a man who was untried and untested at that level may have had anything to do with it?

I hope he is fully aware of just how much he is responsible for what is happening at the club. The two best seasons they have enjoyed for years are a distant memory now and that is a real shame.