Famously, Len Shackleton devoted a blank page in his 1956 autobiography to the subject ‘The Average Director’s Knowledge Of Football,’ and recent events at Bolton Wanderers suggest that nothing much has changed in the past half-century. The news that the Trotters chairman Phil Gartside is trying to prise Gary Megson from his position in the manager’s chair at Leicester City as a replacement for poor, sacked little Sammy Lee has provoked howls and guffaws around the OPEN GOAL office over the last 24 hours.

Megson, who failed at West Bromwich Albion and then took Nottingham Forest down into the third tier of the English league, has a habit of rubbing his chairmen up the wrong way and falling out with his players. To bring him into a club as directionless as Bolton is right now would be tantamount to suicide.

We all watched through our fingers at the end of last season when Little Sam was unveiled by Gartside as Big Sam’s successor, as ill-judged an appointment as you could get. As Lee stumbled and blundered his way through his first bunch of post-match interviews, it was obvious that he was out of his depth from day one; a highly regarded coach sure, but never ever a manager.

Now that Little Sam has gone so soon into the season, there’s a whiffiness surrounding Wanderers that stinks as bad as things at Charlton Athletic did last season when Iain Dowie and then Les Reed laid the foundations for relegation after Alan Curbishley had effed off. Having the moody Nicolas Anelka and the barking mad El Hadj Diouf around as they plummet certainly isn’t going to lead to anything positive at the Reebok Stadium either.

Bringing in the mooted Paul Jewell might give Bolton a chance although there would certainly be doubts over him after he confessed to Wigan’s relegation battle making him ill last season. But an ill Paul Jewell would have to be preferable to a fit Gary Megson, unless Bolton are already building for promotion from the Championship in 2008/09.

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