The Fireman Hath Honor...

The firefighter hath honor, but only when the fire is raging. Few, very few people remember him the moment the inferno dies down. It is such a dispiriting job.
Mr Sam Allardyce, erstwhile coach of Everton Football Club, England should be the last person to be surprised by his recent sack by the club. He has said he is disappointed by the decision of the club but that is a feeling he should have inured himself against. In his storied managerial career, and few coaches, football or not, have lived through more interesting times, sacking has always been his lot. From Newcastle to Everton.
He knows he is a fireman, to be called in only in times of disaster raging or about to break out. He is the guy directing the water hose or wielding the axe to break down doors and hurl himself into a raging inferno. He is the muscular rescuer, savior, football's superman. He smashes into car doors to pull out the trapped and injured or dives into water to hold aloft the drowning, the sinking, give him something, even a straw, to cling on to. Even the drowned is not beyond his attention. He has led Bolton and West Ham from the lower rungs of British football back into the Premier League.
He knows he is not the elegant, sophisticated conductor directing an orchestra. Leave that to the Wengers and Guardiolas. Such sophistication, refinements are for Arsenal and Manchester City, clubs least likely to be entangled in the dangers of sinking or drowning. Therein the lines are already written and arranged, the only problem is for performance to be made perfect, flawless. Allardyce is the wild savage, body stripped bare save for a cluster of leaves covering essentials and streaked into a frightening motif, veins coursing wildly with blood, all too eager to plunge into battles torrid and enervating. The beats of calling are from the drums of the primeval tribe and elegance is so far away. He cannot be too chic and classy in the type of hero he wants to be. He was called in when Everton was sinking, sinking badly and he has done the job he was appointed for. It did not really matter how he went about it, if it involved pumping balls into the opponents' box and giving the devil free rein to less loose some of its most feral hounds, so be it. In a drowning, any straw will do. It is safety first and methods later. If anyone still cared about methods.
It is his lot. The job has been done, thanks and goodbye.. He should hardly harbor ill-feelings about his dismissal. It is a very ungrateful world in football. Fans are so demanding and besotted with ingratitude that after safety their next inclination is to bask in the luxury of questioning the methods that brought the result. The heroic fireman soon becomes the distressing, boring villain. And who can really blame them? They own the club, pay to high heavens to be entertained and in the new world, getting value for money is a quest folks don't hesitate to push to extreme limits. It is such an unfair world. He is the strange fireman. People eagerly accept his exertions, his drive and after safety, immediately turn around to question his methods. From their dissenting cacophony in the safety of dry land, you would think they would have preferred to drown in the first place.
But he should not be too dismayed. Drowning, sinking, is a very common accident in football, especially in the Premier League. Infernos break out at will. It won't be long before his services are required again. After all Everton did think they had enough life-jackets when they appointed Koeman as coach. It may be yet that the same club will come begging, cap in hand. Returning, as we say in Africa, to lap up their own vomit. 

Aristotle Mentors Wenger: But the Business of Football is no Business.

"Watch the costs and the profits will take care of themselves."
Poor Arsene Wenger. As a student of economics, he must have gushed over this ancient dictum: one day he was going to run a football club - forget Arsene who? - one of the biggest on earth, and he must have taken old Aristotle admonition as a tool to be taken far more seriously than a managerial wisecrack. He wasn't the only one: for ages, it was an advice that had saved many a business and businessman from collapse and ruin.
Wenger turned out to be an excellent master at tweaking costs. He would buy players dirt cheap and place them under salary structures that were not going to trouble club finances for a very long time and with his undoubted technical ability, mold them into stars that would eventually leave at enormous profits to the club. Aristotle must have beamed with delight in his grave. He also was an excellent salesman. His beautiful brand of football was to do all sorts of exciting things to British football, a brand hitherto notorious for long balls and hooliganism. His football tactics served him well, and so was the financial model that propped up the alluring brand. The pinnacle of his smart money moves was the construction of the magnificent Emirates Stadium.
But the business side of football wasn't going to remain the business of pizza or laundry soap for long. Strange competitors would enter the market. Rich guys with with oversized pockets and king-sized egos. Starting with the Russian oligarch, Roman Abrahamovich, football clubs became mere expensive acquisitions, like yachts, private jets and priceless arts and jewelry. Clubs became expensive toys that helped massage personal egos. In other words, costs no longer mattered, profits even less. Overnight, the double model of success: winning on a solid footing of financial prudence split violently, prudence cast into the abyss of immediate gratification. A satisfaction that could be bought by spending lavishly on the best footballers on earth. The Chelsea model was soon riding hell-for-leather on the increasingly limping Arsenal model.
Wenger's model wasn't going to gain traction too by the ever-changing nature of the game. There was no football during Aristotle's time but even this wisest of all men must have been a bit stretched imagining the business side of this sport: a product with a demand so maddening you could play the most absurd version of Russian roulette with its costs and still come out a winner. Football clubs like Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Barcelona, Manchester United were incurring hefty costs in acquisition of players and were still making hefty profits. Talent was hemorrhaging at Arsenal under Wenger's watch and there was little he could really do about it. He could not bring new infusion of prime talents and it was inevitable the club would slip rapidly. No Messi or Ronaldo was coming down to Arsenal.
He would eventually bring in expensive talents like Lacazette and Aubameyang into the club but it was all too late. Inertia and rot had set in and such acquisitions were more or less panic buyings. Football has grown malignant. Even not watching the costs is no longer a guarantee that success, which has practically replaced profits, would take care of itself. Aristotle would have been amazed.