Blackburn Sack Paul Ince, Media Immediately Turns Attentions To Mark Hughes

Da da da... Another one bites the dust. Paul Ince became the latest Premier League managerial casualty today when Blackburn Rovers announced his sacking after just six months in charge.

Ince has been under increasing scrutiny in the last few weeks on the back of a poor run of form that has seen Blackburn slip into the relegation zone, currently 19th and five points from safety, and an embarrassing 3-0 loss at Wigan Athletic coupled with louder and louder outpourings of supporter dissatisfaction inevitably led Blackburn chairman John Williams to the conclusion that Ince should be replaced.

Williams had this to say about the sacking: "Three wins in 17 games has seen a squad which finished seventh last season fall to 19th place. We are currently in danger of becoming detached from the pack." On one hand he and the numerous Blackburn fans who have been calling incessantly for Ince's head are correct. The club have been playing quite dismally of late and boast the worst defensive record in the league, though incidentally part-time defensive coach Nigel Winterburn remains employed by the club. A quite brilliantly twisted logic if you ask me.

As well as a porous defence Ince has only managed three league wins in seventeen games, and they have lost their last six on the spin. In the increasingly cut-throat, results driven business that is the Premier League it is hard to look at the hard stats and come to the conclusion that the manager should be given more time. One home win in eight is simply not good enough even at this early stage of the league campaign.

However, if we are to look at the flipside there is a case for Paul Ince. Of those eight home games four have been against the quatre grandes, the so-called Big Four of Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal. They lost all four of those clashes, but would many of their supporters realistically have expected much from those games in the first place?

Six defeats in a row is difficult to defend, no doubt. But with impressive away wins at Everton and Newcastle there were some positive signs that, with more time and some money in January, the manager may have been able to turn the club around. Especially with winnable home games against Stoke and Manchester City and a trip to fellow strugglers Sunderland coming up.

Paul Ince's predicament is not that he has suddenly transformed into a bad manager incapable of handling the pressures of the Premier League as people in some quarters have tried to make out. Unfortunately for Ince in this case he is ultimately more a victim of circumstance. As I attempted to highlight in a pre-season preview of the club back in August, he took the job at the worst possible time and in hindsight it was perhaps the wrong move for him. His predecessor Mark Hughes had done wonders at Ewood Park, finishing seventh last season and achieving three consecutive top-half finishes, an impressive feat for a club of Blackburn's stature.

With Hughes leaving, followed swiftly out of the door by star players Brad Friedel and David Bentley it was always likely their fortunes would suffer a downturn, no matter who took the job. The fact that two of their remaining best players, Roque Santa Cruz and Benni McCarthy quite publicly and obviously want out was also no help to the boss. Replacements were inadequate, but with the January transfer window just around the corner Ince could and really should have been given the opportunity to bring in fresh faces and mould the squad the way he wanted. Right now the Blackburn squad is basically Hughes' minus the players that made them good. It was only inevitable they would struggle during the temporary period of transition.

But, ultimately, the media hype and white noise that surrounds the Premiership like a giant cloud became too thick a fog for Ince, and the chairman has had the final say. It was interesting to note that, within a few hours of Ince's sacking, Sky Sports News was leading with an interview in which Manchester City chief executive Gerry Cook was being questioned about Mark Hughes' future. It begins again. Already six managers have been claimed this season. Now that Ince has gone, I don't think we will have to wait too long for that cloud to engulf another.

P.s. - Apologies for the lack of posts so far this month. I have been in Cuba, where internet is both expensive and slow.