I guess everyone has seen the yearly rumours linking Arsene Wenger with a move to Real Madrid, after it has been revealed that Jose Mourinho is not getting on very well with his players, and he was even (like Wenger) abused by the Real Madrid fans despite his team being five points clear of Barcelona [.

Chris Coleman has been appointed the new manager of the Welsh national team.

An odd fact associated to the appointment of Chris Coleman is that in March 1994 Wales played Norway in an friendly at Ninian Park. It was the solitary game in John Toshack's first spell as Welsh manager (a spell that lasted for little more than a few weeks).

By Mark Burke

Editor's Note: Mark is an ex-professional footballer who played at Aston Villa, Wolverhampton, and Middlesbrough in the late 80s/early 90s, as well as abroad in Holland, Japan, Romania, and Sweden. He provides deep, unique insight into the game and its surrounding business and tactics.

Amidst all the hoopla and hilarity of the season's first managerial sacking in the Premiership - Steve Bruce by Sunderland FC - it's easy to lose sight of the fact that it typically doesn't help to sack the manager. To be sure: there often seems to be a bounce-back in results for teams that appoint a new manager; but statistically speaking, the bounce-back is likely to occur in any case, with or without sacking the gaffer.

Photo all rights reserved by tbirdshockeyfan

Manchester United's long serving manager is considered to be one of the best in the world. He is at the helm since 1986, and presently has no signs of retiring.

Alexander Chapman "Alex" Ferguson currently has 12 Premier League championships, and helped beat Liverpool's 18 league championships in 2010-11 season.

Gasperini lastest victim of "Mourinho's Curse" - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

With Gian Piero Gasperini's dismissal as Inter Milan manager, the Mourinho's Curse has claimed it's latest victim. Since his appointment at FC Porto, full-time successors have struggled to cope with the expectations of a Mourinho coached side.

Bob was a finalist with three other coaches, Francisco Maturana of Colombia, Zoran Belosevic of Yugoslavia and Milovan Rajevac of Serbia although only former Ghanaian NT coach, Rajevac was considered a real contender. Reportedly, Bradley was the 1st choice and the lone holdup being the salary demands of Bradley.

If you were looking here to find out if Bradley was hired as the Egyptian NT coach, I wish we could tell you that someone, anyone was hired. Reportedly, the hold up on Bradley is that he's asking ~$1mil where Egypt is offering ~$680K ($80,000 more than he was paid by the USSF). Why someone who got fired for subpar performances (albeit 3 good ones too, like upsetting Spain), should get a $400K
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So, no more Holloway in the EPL this season. So I've been left to troll around the rest of the leagues, trying to find that manager that incites some fire in his players. Someone that has that fight. I think I found him. Introducing, Grimsby Town's Rob Scott. Now, sorry the vid/sound quality is not the best, but basically, a Grimsby Town fan is obviously upset with Scott and the team after
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Ian Walton/Getty Images(Bleacher Report)Players often bear the brunt of fan criticism, but managers take their fair share of vitriol as well. There's no discounting the effect a managerial change can have on a club: it can galvanize a sputtering side, instilling a quiet confidence that bodes well for the future.

Alex McLeish is a big gamble for Aston Villa - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

Looking beyond the city rivalry, there's plenty of ammunition for Villa fans to suggest that 'Big Eck' is not the right man for the job.

Alex McLeish has won just 26% of his games as a Premier League manager, so far no Aston Villa manager with more than five games in charge has posted such a low percentage.

Harry Redknapp's opinon of Lionel Messi: "He's a skinny runt who looks nothing like a modern-day footballer really. "He has funny little legs that move awkwardly when he runs and if he turned up at your club as a 16-year-old, you'd send him away with a pat on the head and tell him he'd no chance of making it.

After Cardiff City's exit against Reading in the semi-finals of the Championship play-offs, Dave Jones has been sacked as manager. Jones spent six years at Cardiff, leading them to the 2010 play-off final where they were defeated by Blackpool. The Liverpudlian has paid the ultimate sacrifice for his side's inability to get over the final hurdle and get promotion to the Premiership.

Swindon Town's New (and Controversial) Boss

You couldn't ever accuse Swindon Town supporters of having little to talk about. The team has pogoed around the divisions in the last twenty years (they were present in the second ever Premier League season of 1993-4, and are at present the only former Premiership team to have been relegated to the lowest league tier).

Port Vale manager (again), Micky Adams

30th December 2010. Micky Adams is confirmed as Sheffield United manager, fulfilling a long-standing dream for the boyhood Blades fan. His appointment has been facilitated by his good work at Port Vale, who he took from being League Two's nearly men for the last two seasons to genuine promotion contenders.

2008/2009 was all-in-all Barcelona's season. Pep Guardiola led his childhood club to glory like no other manager had done before him.

United on the other hand, weren't too bad the whole season. They were back again in the UEFA Champions League final to defend the title that they had won last year against Chelsea.

They Think It's All Over... takes a look at Stoke City, this season's FA Cup Finalists.

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In Europe the football seasons are coming to a close, but in the Bundesliga in Germany the last games are more controversial than normal. There is a transcript below, while explanations of key vocabulary (in bold) can be found at the foot of the post, while other key phrases (in blue) also have meanings explained.

Pablo Correa is stepping down as Nancy's coach. The Uruguayan manager who also was a striker for the team from 1995-2000 help bring Nancy to the Coupe de la Ligue trophy in 2006. Since then, the team hasn't done as well and currently the team lies twoard the bottom of the able. To be exact, Nancy is 14th in the standings and is six points above the relegation zone with only 10 matches left in the

Fergie has a 5 match band. Here is a list of things he can do to keep busy:Learn to knit because he heard it's therapeuticCollaborate with Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas to record Fergalicious: Part IICatch up with "My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding"Start his memoirs and reveal which Arsenal player threw that damn pizza at him.

Here is the promised follow-up to the earlier post about the effectiveness of sacking a manager. Remember that managerial resignations are common - as the study* by Dutch economist Bas ter Weel shows, between 1986 and 2004 in the Eredivisie, about 40-50% of managers per season left, and many of these were forced resignations.

With Everton being dragged into a relegation battle, Chelsea faltering in defense of their Premier League crown, and West Ham struggling for any sort of consistency it is surely only a matter of time before the next Premier League manager is sacked.

In terms of patience shown towards managers this has been a relatively good season for those occupying the Premier League dugouts.

It's easy to be distracted by some of the soap opera-like goings-on we see in professional soccer; every year (week, day?), there's plenty of gossip and bad behavior on and off the field. Some of it is even entertaining and interesting. But it's easy to lose track of some of the fundamentals of the game when we pay too much attention to that sort of stuff.

It has been revealed that Barcelona and Pep Guardiola have reached an agreement to renew his contract with the club until June 30th, 2012.

Guardiola is developing into a club legend after an illustrious career as a player, guiding the reserve team to promotion as a coach and then taking over as the head coach of Barcelona and bringing trophy after trophy to Nou Camp.

Here's an interesting (and perhaps useless) factoid of the day. Don't know how and why I missed this last summer, but I was astonished to read just today about the huge discrepancy in the numbers of highly qualified coaches across European soccer nations, and in particular England's relative and absolute backwardness.

And I don't just mean the new kits, because they are beautiful, or the French girls, because they are too.
No, this is beauty, elegance, and freedom of the mind.

Before you read on let me first put forward a question. If Roy Hodgson was to have played Glen Johnson in the left back position in a must win match against Blackpool he would surely have been crucified by the Kop and indeed any other follower of Liverpool, yet ‘King' Kenny Dalglish does this and it is seen as a step in the right direction.