Bundesliga managers on edge before winter break as Red Christmas awaits | Raphael Honigstein


Every day, another manager gets it. Every day, another manager gets closer to getting it in the neck. And all eyes are on Borussia and Wolfsburg

’Tis the season to wind down, buy stuff that nobody needs nor wants, avoid mulled wine drunkards, rummage through recycled paper bags in search of the odd wormless chestnut, laze about until the sun goes down again, bake Plätzchen, watch Johannes B Kerner or Markus Lanz feign interest in a collection of Z listers, musically talented kids and sickness/catastrophe/marriage breakdown survivors and, most of all, be grateful that we Germans have been blessed with peace and freedom – the peace and freedom that comes from being left alone by football for four weeks.

Alas, the most important unimportant thing in the world is not of a mind to go silently into the, er, silent night. Instead of slowing down and taking things easy on the way to hibernating in some cave just now, the Bundesliga has kept going, hurtling forward with pulsating neck-veins, a mind for blood. Every day, another manager gets it. Every day, another manager gets closer to to getting it in the neck. It’s all heading for a horrific, watch-through-your-fingers mid-season finale (spoiler alert). Call it: The Red Christmas.

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