President Laporta had been trying since the summer to replace his head coach and has overcome initial reluctance over XaviRayo Vallecano scored and The Final Countdown began. The last goal Barcelona conceded under Ronald Koeman was met by Europe booming round Vallecas. “I made a mistake,” Sergio Busquets said. “I slept and they robbed my wallet. It’s my fault.”But on Wednesday it wasn’t just him and he wasn’t the one who paid. He had been caught out, Gerard Piqué was beaten, Jordi Alba absent and Lionel Messi in Paris. Radamel Falcao scored, someone hit play, 14,297 fans joined in, scarves twirling, and Rayo were on their way to victory. Koeman was just on his way. Continue reading...
Dutch manager has a big task to move out some massive names and must be quick to stamp his authority on the club“If nothing goes awry, the new manager will be Ronald Koeman,” Barcelona’s president, Josep Maria Bartomeu, said, and this time at least nothing did go awry. That was Tuesday night; on Wednesday morning it was confirmed, two days after the sacking of Quique Setién, one after the departure of Eric Abidal as sporting director. “Welcome home!” cheered the announcement, the club’s website calling him “one of us”.This was “the return of a blaugrana legend”, whose first task is to get rid of many others. Men even more successful than him. “It is time to offer an honourable farewell...
Former centre-half can bring back bite but a harder task will be to get everyone at the club, including the owner and chairman, pulling in the same directionDavid Unsworth has been in charge of Everton for only a week but has quickly become adept at saying all the right things. Yes, he would like the job permanently. Yes, Everton can climb out of trouble. And yes, they can still remember how to scrap if they have to.That last detail could be important, because Ronald Koeman appeared to have smoothed out all the rough edges of Everton’s old dogs-of-war approach before leaving, but Unsworth happens to be a paid-up member of the dogs‑of‑war era. And just to be on the safe...
Like Frank de Boer and Frank Rijkaard, Koeman is the latest in a line of managers to stumble outside the Ajax and Barcelona models in which they were schooledLong before he was sacked, a criticism of Ronald Koeman at Everton was that he seemed to regard the club as a stepping stone. “He called us Everton, he never called us ‘us’,” as the former Everton captain Kevin Ratcliffe put it on Monday. Koeman’s ultimate ambition, as he has made clear since he took his first steps in management with Vitesse in 2000, is to manage Barcelona.That seems ridiculous as he slinks away from Goodison Park after an unprecedented summer spree with Everton in the relegation zone. Perhaps now there have...
The Dutchman may not have seen the end coming on Monday but he had overseen a shambolic start to the season after a muddled transfer windowRonald Koeman finished his last, brief, funereal press conference as Everton manager with a dismissive: “Write what you like to write.” He cannot be surprised that his Goodison Park obituary now follows.There was a note of defiance in the 54-year-old’s assessment of the 5-2 mauling by Arsenal on Sunday when he insisted he could arrest Everton’s swift and steep decline. According to friends Koeman was under the impression he retained the support of Farhad Moshiri, the club’s major shareholder, when he dined at San Carlo restaurant in Manchester later that evening with his wife, Bartina; and...