BURNLEY HAVE begun the hunt for the “new Owen Coyle” after the original reaffirmed his determination to defect to Bolton Wanderers yesterday.
As the clubs thrashed out a compensation deal and Coyle waited to start work at the Reebok, sources at Turf Moor indicated that, ideally, the club are seeking a bright, young “up-and-coming” replacement much in the mould of the out-going manager. Previous Premier League experience is not regarded as essential.
While that opens the door to candidates such as Darren Ferguson, currently also interesting Preston North End, John Hughes is likely to loom high on the shortlist after being recommended by Coyle. Hughes has impressed as the manager of Hibernian this season, and worked with his Coyle as joint-manager at Falkirk.
The pair share similar football philosophies and values, and the 45-year-old Hughes, who is believed to be earning in the region of €250,000, would have no problems with working within Turf Moor’s tight budget.
There may, though, be concerns he remains largely a stranger to the English game. The former centre-half spent most of his playing career in Scotland, although Hughes did have one spell in the English League with Swansea City.
Coincidentally, Paulo Sousa, the Swansea manager who succeeded Roberto Martinez during the summer, is also understood to be on Burnley’s radar as they search for a man who will preserve the team’s sweet-passing, purist style cultivated under Coyle. At 39, Sousa is the right age to appeal to Burnley’s chairman Barry Kilby and, as a celebrated former Portugal international, he would bring a dash of glamour to East Lancashire.
Ferguson would also want his team to play passing football and is very much available after being sacked by Peterborough United – who he had led to two successive promotions – last November.
Mike Phelan, Alex Ferguson’s assistant at Manchester United, could also be a dark horse.
In the short term, Steve Davis will shift from his coaching job at Turf Moor to become Burnley’s caretaker manager, having filled that role just over two years ago as the club waited for the then relatively little-known Coyle to arrive from St Johnstone.
A club statement yesterday lunchtime effectively signalled the end of the 43-year-old’s Turf Moor tenure. “Owen Coyle has today reaffirmed his desire to leave Burnley FC and join Bolton Wanderers,” it read. “Burnley will now enter discussions with Bolton due to the fact that compensation has yet to be agreed.”
Coyle set his heart on rejoining the club where he enjoyed two-and-a-half seasons as a striker playing under Bruce Rioch during the mid 1990s, after meeting Phil Gartside, Bolton’s chairman, for talks in Scotland at the weekend.
On Monday evening Coyle – who led Burnley into the Premier League last spring before signing a 12-month extension to his existing three-year deal after being courted by Celtic – flew back to the English northwest for a meeting with Kilby. Refusing to be persuaded into an 11th-hour volte-face, he instead made it clear his heart was set on relocating to the Reebok, where Bolton’s budget for player wages alone is understood to be €50 million as against €18 million at Turf Moor.
As tensions between Burnley and Bolton heightened over the former’s compensation demands – Burnley want around €4 million, Bolton would prefer to pay nearer €1 million – the irony of Gartside’s involvement in Coyle’s appointment in 2007 became harder to resist. The Bolton chairman recommended Coyle to Kilby after the Scot had been narrowly beaten to the Bolton post by Gary Megson, the man who he now seems certain to replace.
GuardianService
