Managers

Andre Villas-Boas has never lasted more than two seasons at any particular club, but he’s just landed another monster paycheck out in China with Shanghai SIPG, becoming the third highest paid manager in the world.

The Chinese club will pay him almost $14 million a year for two years, and that’s following a contract with Zenit Saint Petersburg that earned him over $23 million for two years of service.

There is one individual rivalry in soccer that has stuck out from the rest over the last few years: Jose Mourinho vs Pep Guardiola.

The managers met for the first time in September 2009 when Guardiola’s Barcelona team traveled to the San Siro to take on Mourinho’s Inter Milan side, ending in a 0-0 draw. They met four times during the 2009-2010 season, with Pep’s team winning twice, but it would be Mourinho getting the last laugh when Inter Milan eliminated Barcelona in the semifinals of the Champions League that season, leading to their first European title since 1955.

The sharp decline in Jose Mourinho’s career over the last 12 months is undeniable. As a measure of his drop-off, consider the following: In the Portuguese’s first 130 games as a Premier League manager, he lost just a dozen times. It’s taken him just 25 further matches to double that tally.

Inter sacked Frank de Boer on Tuesday morning. He had been the manager for 85 days, right up until the moment a conference call confirmed that his services would no longer be required.

It is obvious to note that De Boer’s tenure was doomed from the start. Even putting aside the notion that Dutch coaches are somehow the ideological opposite to their Italian counterparts, the way he swept into the club so late in the transfer window was an early indication that everything was not quite right.

Both the American Football and EPL versions of Monday Night Football have been largely awful so far this season. 

But hey, there was hope this week, at least in the EPL! Swansea manager Bob Bradley, the first American to manage in one of Europe's top leagues, was in action! Surely Bradley, as an American, understands the importance of Monday Night Football being good more than anyone else!

The good: the game was wildly entertaining.

The bad: the game was also wildly awful.

Pep Guardiola went six matches without a victory for the first time in his career. It started to become a concern for Manchester City, as their form dipped after starting the season with ten straight wins. 

Saturday, Manchester City beat West Brom 4-0, so it appears the worst of it is over.

Mortada Mansour is the chairman of Egyptian club Zamalek, and he doesn't like the way his boys were beaten in the African Champions League final by Mamelodi Sundowns. Frankly, he smells a rat.

Monsour, per the Guardian, said this after the match:

“Is it natural to waste 18 chances in front of goal? Things were obviously not normal and there was magic and sorcery involved.” 

In a news conference following Monday’s tie with Liverpool, in preparation for their thursday night Europa League match, Mourinho made it clear to reporters that Manchester United have no “untouchables”. He contrasted it to his time at Chelsea, where in 2006 Moutinho described his squad as having nine players that would not be dropped.

Mansfield Town manager Adam Murray sees society being overtaken by cell phones, brightly-lit screens replacing good-old interpersonal communication, and he does not like it one bit, so he banned cell phones.

From The Guardian: