With chairmen often criticised over unjust sackings, Adam Bate asks if managers are actually being given more time than they deserve

On October 18, Steve Gibson accepted Gordon Strachan’s resignation as manager of Middlesbrough. The Championship season was just 11 games old. It is the second October in succession that the Boro chairman has overseen a change of manager. This may lead some to question Gibson’s long-established reputation as the most patient chairman in English football. In truth, could he perhaps be guilty of that little mentioned phenomenon – changing the manager too late.

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With the release of Darren Anderton’s autobiography, Georgina Turner explains why the former Tottenham player should be regarded as much of an England hero as his Euro 96 team-mates

Most people remember England’s Euro 96 campaign for Gazza’s goal and the dentist’s chair, Psycho going… psycho, Gareth Southgate, another heart-wrenching defeat to the Germans. France 98 is the tournament of Michael Owen and David Beckham each for different reasons. No one can think about them without hearing the Lightning Seeds. But I haven’t met many who remember first and foremost, as I do, how brilliant Darren Anderton was.

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With players going down easier, Matt Nation believes football is fast becoming a contactless sport

Watch an Over-55s game on my local pitch and you’ll rarely see a foul. The players may regale whoever will listen with stories of how a match wasn’t a match unless they’d broken their jaw at least once and then barged the opposing goalkeeper so hard that the game had to be stopped so that people could go and look for him, but they’re remarkably mild-mannered on the pitch. They have to be. Tackling is frowned upon or, if the referee is getting on a bit himself, banned outright.

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Mark Brophy questions club influence when so many players are caught bending the rules of the game

A lucky viewer watching Sky’s Goals on Sunday show a few weeks ago will have seen the star pairing, Ian Wright and Jermain Defoe, being quizzed on that weekend’s horror tackle furore. Have you, the question went, ever witnessed a manager telling his players to hurt the opposition deliberately? Jermain and Ian agreed that would never happen, though Wright then offered the caveat that no one needed to tell some of his ex-team-mates to do that – they were naturals at it.

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Ian Farrell reflects on the career of the extrovert and often underrated manager Malcolm Allison, who died on October 14, 2010

To those unfamiliar with the man, the tributes to Malcolm Allison must have made confusing reading. The grandiose quotes about his talents would leave them in no doubt that this was a giant of the British game, and yet sifting through the boasts and anecdotes for actual managerial achievements turns up surprisingly little.

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