Inside Track: All the 3s not lucky for some managers

Wilfried Nancy shouldn’t feel alone after lasting just 33 days as Celtic manager. Two better-known bosses than the Frenchman were in a job for the same length of time many years ago. Like Nancy, they hadn’t even time to spit in the fire or get their feet under the table.

One of them had a Celtic connection, stronger than Nancy could have hoped for when he took over at Parkhead, succeeding interim manager, Martin O’Neill.

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When it seemed the revered Jock Stein would forever be on the Celtic sideline, having led his team to numerous Scottish titles, and, of course, the very big one, the European Cup (as the Champions’ League was known at the time of Celtic’s 1967 triumph), he took off to Leeds.

There was no acrimony in his parting with the Yorkshire club, at the time one of the English League’s best. His stay at Elland Road lasted for just over a month.

The Scotland job had become vacant, and Stein was the obvious choice to succeed Ally McLeod, having previously been in place with the national side.

In contrast, Brian Clough’s 33 days with Leeds – following his time with Derby County – were turbulent, and there were probably no tears shed on either side when he took off.

The move to Nottingham Forest, however, opened up a door, behind which there were riches that not even the cocky Cloughie could have imagined. Among them were two successive European Cups.

Wherever Nancy goes next, it’s a sure thing he’ll never match Clough’s record. Nor had he anything to match Stein’s before being given the reins at Celtic. His only successes as a manager had come in Canada.

January was always seen as a moving month for players, going from one club to another. This time, it’s managers who are on the move, not necessarily to another club.

Ruben Amorim and Enzo Maresca have, like Nancy, been given the chop – and who knows, before this appears in print, there could be others to suffer the same fate. That chap looking after West Ham, the wonderfull-named Nuno Espirito Santo, can’t be sleeping too soundly.