Approach for sacked manager to re-take job part time turned down!

With out of work managers under their nose and no doubt keen to speak to Norwich over the vacancy created by Glenn Roeder's sacking, the Norwich board have taken the ridiculous decision to approach Northern Ireland boss Nigel Worthington.

Worthington, prematurely sacked two years ago with the club on the fringes of the Championship play-offs, is now seen as worth having on a part time basis by the same board who deemed him not good enough to run the team on a full time basis little more than two years ago.

Fortunately, the Irish FA have rejected the Canaries' approach for their manager, perhaps forewarned from having lost Lawrie Sanchez to Fulham in similar circumstances.

Whether Worthington would be a short term fix while another manager is found, in the Joe Kinnear mould, is unclear. Why an unemployed manager couldn't be brought in quickly is another question.

Debate has, bizarrely, suggested that Aidy Boothroyd, the favourite for the job, would be a 'long term solution to a short term problem'. What? Worthington was a long term solution undermined by a short term problem. Peter Grant was a short term problem, and Glenn Roeder was a long term solution to a long term problem, who had succeeded in the short term but struggled in the mid term.

For a club looking for its third manager in as many years, the idea of an overtly short term solution is ridiculous. How could anyone who succeeded in the short term, ie saving the club from relegation, then be discarded for a better long term prospect? How would that be defined?

The board seems horrendously confused when a solution is right under its nose. Boothroyd has been criticised because of his supposedly direct style of football at Watford, a means to an end.

Sam Allardyce was put off the Blackburn job in the summer by a similar campaign and the same fans then forced Paul Ince out of a job before welcoming Allardyce. Preconceptions about such managers are useless.

The other idea, that a Worthington or a Bruce Rioch could come in and 'groom' the likes of Darren Huckerby to take over is also a non-starter. Name one occasion when that has worked. There isn't one. Stuart Pearce showed it at Manchester City and Tony Adams is proving it at Portsmouth.

Please, Delia and co, look at what's right in front of you nose...