Inside Track: Season has only begun and already managers are feeling the heat

Who’d be a manager? If it’s of a team in British soccer, the answer is probably plenty. There’s prestige, but more important, the pay is good.

But there are pitfalls, failure being the obvious one. Win competitions and you’re a hero, finish at the bottom and life on the line can be unforgiving.

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Mid-table? Job secure for another season at least, but word could come from on high: “We want better the next time. A win, for instance.”

The new season is only out of the cot, but already, there are gaffers feeling a wee bit wobbly. Graham Potter for one, and Russell Martin for another.

The first round of the English Premiership had only been played when Hopper found himself in the headlines.

His West Ham side had gone down to Sunderland, and when it was followed by another even bigger defeat, the former Chelsea boss couldn’t have been feeling good going into work.

It’s all about a carry-over from last season when the Hammers could only finish 14th, this after they had made a late revival. Potter had come in early January, but saw his team slump before winning enough points to eliminate all fears of relegation.

Russell Martin had a night to forget last week, his Rangers side taking a slamming from Club Brugge in a European Champions League play-off.

Already floating on a soapy bubble after the first leg, the Ibrox side could have waved the white flag at the break, at which stage they trailed by five goals.

It was only slightly better in the second half, just one further going in; but that was no consolation.

It was a defeat of calamitous proportions, and having only joined the club after seeing his Southampton side relegated at the end of last season, Martin will come under pressure from the stands as much as anywhere else.

It’s not all sweetness and light at the other end of Glasgow, even though that part of the city’s pride and joy have quickly reacquainted with the top of the SPL.

Celtic, like their fierce rivals, are out of the Champions League running, for the simple reason, they couldn’t put the ball in the net over two legs against Kairat Almaty.

Well, they actually did hit the onion sack, twice in the penalty shoot-out, but that wasn’t enough to get them through. Kairat got three.

Brendan Rodgers is in a tussle with the club’s bosses, trying to prise money from them to buy new players.

He’ll have the support of the fans as he continues in his quest, and that puts him in a better place than his Rangers counterpart. The two were set to go eye-to-eye in the first Old Firm clash of the season on Sunday.

And what of Ruben Amorin? The defeat his Manchester United team sustained in the Carabao Cup was as humiliating as Rangers’ the night before. But whereas the Scots were out against a team of equal status, United took on a basement-dweller, Grimsby Town.

What was epic about this game, aside from Grimbsy’s win, was the number of penalties required to get a decision after it had ended 2-2 in ordinary time, Harry Maguire grabbing a late equaliser. There were 23 in all, the winners claiming a dozen of them.

The Grimbsy crowd had a ball, telling Amorin, “You’re getting sacked in the morning”, and one that would have hurt United most of all, “Can we play you every week?”.

Mention of United, the young man written about in these pages a while back, is making great strides at Old Trafford. If things continue as they are now, we might see Joseph Junior Gabriel being thrown a first-team jersey.

JJ wasn’t christened Gabriel, but Ó Cearúill. (Just thinking, the fádas were hardly included on the birth certificate.)

He’s a son of Joe, who, because of his name, provided Inside Track with lots of copy over the years. I’m told that Joseph Junior can be followed on something called Instagram.