Hunt for new manager begins
BOLTON Wanderers have started the hunt for a new manager following the departure of Sammy Lee after just 14 games in charge at the Reebok Stadium.
The former Liverpool and England midfielder left the football club earlier today, following a disastrous start to the season.
Wanderers currently lie second bottom of the Barclays Premier League with just five points from their first nine games. They have finished the last four seasons in the top eight.
While Lee's departure had been widely predicted, the timing - 10 days after Wanderers lost 1-0 at home to Chelsea and three days before they travel to league leaders Arsenal - took most observers by surprise.
Lee was philosophical. "There is no good time," he said before declining to comment further.
A club statement issued at 11 o'clock today, said
Chairman, Phil Gartside, said: "This has been a difficult decision for all parties, but we have agreed that the time is right. Sammy has played an important role in the club's recent history. We wish Sammy and Frank well for the future.
"Our efforts will now be to look for a replacement manager and to concentrate on the future."
While results undoubtedly conspired against him, Lee's position was not helped by repeated rumours of dressing room unrest and of senior players and backroom staff questioning his methods. The damaging speculation was fuelled last week when veteran midfielder, Gary Speed, who had been dropped from the squad, gave up his coaching role to focus exclusively on playing.
Lee, who appointed Speed as player-coach in May, said he had relieved the 38-year-old former Wales international of his duties, but the player insisted he had resigned.
Already under pressure to lift
Wanderers out of the relegation zone, Lee's position was considered by many as "untenable".Lee faced a daunting task when he took on his first managerial role, succeeding Sam Allardyce on April 30, two games from the end of last season.
In the previous seven and a half years, Allardyce had helped transform Wanderers from a struggling Division One club into a formidable Premiership force and was always going to be a hard act to follow.
Lee, who joined Wanderers as assistant manager in July 2005 after impressing in coaching roles with Liverpool and England, said he relished the challenge.
"It is a great legacy that Sam has left and it is my job now to carry that forward," he said. "It took me one second to accept the job after it was offered to me."
But his reign lasted just 171 days. Of his 14 matches in charge, Wanderers won three, drew four and lost seven. Two of those victories, however, came in cup competitions - a dramatic Carling Cup win at Fulham which booked a home tie against local rivals Manchester City in the last 16, and a victory over Macedonian minnows, Rabotnicki, which secured a place in the group stages of the UEFA Cup in which they will meet the German giants Bayern Munich.
His case was not helped by a succession of key figures leaving the highly-acclaimed backroom staff, many of whom followed Allardyce, when he was appointed manager of Newcastle United.
But the threat of relegation from the Premiership, which would be a financial disaster, was the biggest concern of the Reebok hierarchy. And, despite wanting to give the new manager time to turn things round, a single league win - at home to an under-strength Reading side - put increasing pressure on the club's owner, Eddie Davies, and chairman Gartside to opt for a change now rather than later.
Archie Knox, the former Manchester United and Everton assistant manager who joined Wanderers last month as coaching co-ordinator, is understood to have been placed in charge of team affairs on a temporary basis ahead of Saturday's game at Arsenal.
Former Wigan Athletic manager, Paul Jewell, who resigned at the end of last season saying he needed a break from football, is the bookies' favourite to succeed Lee.
in The Bolton News
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