Next Dundee United Manager… Malky Mackay?

Well I thought, I would take a quick look into the top 3 favourites for the Dundee United managers job.

Now don’t get me wrong I won’t be firing out hunderds of stats at people as lets be honest you can manipulate stats to suit your argument.

Having said that thought lets take a quick dive into the current top 3 according to the bookies. A quick disclosure that I looked at about 5 different websites for the odds and the top 3 seemed to change on every website I went on. So I’ve taken the 3 that appeared the most in the top 3. Those 3 were Malky Mackay, Tommy Wright and Steve McClaren.

So we have Malky Mackay first. Now I will jump into the obvious elephant in the room with him in a moment. First though as a manager he has had 3 clubs at Watford he was manager for 2 seasons (his assistant was Sean Dyche). The first season they finished 16th but for most of that season they sat just above the drop zone and took until the penultimate match of 09–10 season to keep themselves in the championship. The second season they finished 14th. They had a pretty “meh” season. They won 16 and lost 17 for most of the season they stayed in mid table becoming the very definition of a mid table side. Now for context it should be added that the club had, in his first season the last of their EPL parachute payment so in his second season the income to the club fell from £12 million pound to £900’000 pound. So it does give an idea of what he managed under such strain and in March 2011 the club was taken over by a new owner. Mackay left much to the disappointment of a lot of Watford fans in June 2011 after he was approached by Cardiff City.

At Cardiff City in his first season 2011-12 he signed 12 players for nearly £2.500’000 million. Including Kenny Miller, Craig Conway and Don Cowie. He won Manager of the Month in November after going a month unbeaten. They finished the season in 6th on 75 points, 5 above the team in 7th but in the play offs they were roundly beaten 5-0 over two legs by West Ham. During this season he took Cardiff to the League Cup Final losing on pens to Liverpool after a 2-2 draw. The run to the final Cardiff played Oxford United, Huddersfield Town, Leicester City, Burnley, Blackburn Rovers and Crystal Palace none at the time were in the EPL. In his second season at Cardiff the club spent over £10 million pound on 17 players coming in, letting 16 players go for only £1.5 million. Also by this point the owner changed the history of Cardiff by swapping the blue shirts to red after 104 years of history. The club had a great season though finishing as champions on 87 points winning 25 drawing 12 and losing 9. The club did go out of both cups in there first games against Macclesfield Town and Northampton Town losing 2-1 on both occasions.

Now in the EPL Mackay had an interesting time to say the least. Starting he brought 8 players in for £31 million pounds including £8 million on future Dundee defender Steven Caulker. 5 players were released on frees in that summer and Craig Conway handed in another transfer request, and was loaned out to Brighton until December when he was sold to Blackburn. Mackay was sacked after 18 games in which he won 4 including a memorable 3-2 home win over Manchester City. He drew 5 and lost 9 ending up with 17 points during his time. He was sacked after a 0-3 defeat at home to Southampton. It was by this point in the media that the Cardiff owner had been extremely public about his questioning of Mackay’s signings the money he had spent and the amount of money that was spent on the agent fees and to lawyers.

Now when he was sacked the media and fans were incredibly angry at the owner believing that he was “taking their club from them”. Now the owner Vincent Tan was not popular with the fans when it was announced that the club tops were changing colour and with Mackay being seen as the man who had got them promoted the fans rounded nearly to a man on Tan after the sacking off Mackay. However, as the season went on and more became known about the messages and behind the scenes actions that anger did subside.

After he was sacked by Cardiff it wasn’t until August 2014 that his named appeared as a contender for the job at Crystal Palace. However, it was by now Cardiff gave the FA a dossier of evidence that is said contained evidence of misconduct and some allegations related to text messages considered to be racist, sexist and homophobic in nature. Also it questioned fees paid to agents and lawyers during his transfer deals during his time at the club. As a result he didn’t get the Palace job. He did issue an apology through the LMA about 2 messages being disrespectful of other cultures.

It wasn’t until 19th November 2014 that he was given the Wigan Athletic job. This was in the face of extreme pressure from the fans, the charity Kick It Out and one of the clubs main shirt sponsors who pulled there support for the club costing the club a seven figure sum. Wigan stated that as the FA investigation was on going that if he was found guilty they had a clause which allowed them to dismiss him. During his time he won only 5 games out of 24 and on the 6th April 2015 he was dismissed to be replaced by Gary Caldwell. When he left they were 8 points from safety with 5 games to go. When he was sacked the Wigan supporters went on record to say that the sacking of Mackay was very popular among them.

In July 2015 the FA investigation into him was concluded and it was announced that the FA wouldn’t charge him with any offence. It was in December 2016 that he was appointed by the SFA as performance director. This action came under scrutiny from many quarters for the appointment, this was in the face of the charity Kick It Out showing that he had under gone diversity training with the English FA.

So with this background would he be the correct choice for Dundee United. As a manager its really hard to say. Yes he won the Championship in England which really isn’t easy but it should be pointed out the points told he had in the previous 3 seasons would only have got them into the play offs also he had a lot of money to spend compared to other clubs in that league. His time in the EPL is hard to tell because hindsight makes it difficult to judge him in anyway without bringing the messages up.

Since then he has been really out of the club game. Never managed in Scotland and is really singing off 2 and a half seasons with Cardiff in which he spent £43.5 million pound on players. At United he could only dream off spending that sort of money. Does this mean he is a bad manager, no it doesn’t but it does make it difficult to really judge him. Same as his time at Wigan he spent just 138 days at a club that when he joined was in the drop zone and never left there during his time. That said you can’t really judge him from that time either as many managers have taken on clubs in that situation and not managed to change the tide.

In my opinion its hard to tell if he would as a manager be a good choice. People who use the excuse that because he won the championship in England would make him a good top level manager in Scotland need to bare in mind that Steve Coppell also won the Championship and you wouldn’t take him. So the only thing that is certain is if United did bring him in it would do a fantastic job of ripping the support into two camps ones behind him and ones who won’t accept a man with such a controversial past.

One thing is for sure though if he does become manager the media will love it. Its a case of pride some people will support the club no matter what whilst others will have a serious issue with what was done. It isn’t so much what was said its the words that were used. Yes he is of a different generation to a lot of younger United fans but just because they are younger doesn’t make there feelings any less important. So we now just wait and see.