You rarely find a poor bookie and so when the odds on Neil McDonald becoming the next Blackpool manager fell to 4/6 on Saturday morning, you get the impression that we have a very likely candidate to take over football's poisoned chalice. What makes it even more likely is that he's out of work and has only ever been a full time manager at Carlisle 8 years ago. The perfect candidate for a job it seems no one wants!
So can we give you any seeds of hope? Well the fact he's a former Nobber won't sit well having played at Deepdale also Bolton, Oldham, Everton and Newcastle in a career spanning 10 years during which he racked up over a million pounds in transfer fees. Having finished his playing career at Deepdung, the best way to describe McDonald's career is as Sam Allardyce's bitch having worked as his assistant at both Bolton, Blackburn and West Ham - where Allardyce has been sacked, so has McDonald! Interesting, bearing in mind Allardyce's loathing for the Oyston's, that he is even in the running for the manager's job. When he was sacked at Carlisle after a season, a statement on the club's website read "The board of Carlisle United regret to say that they have lost confidence in Neil McDonald and are terminating his contract forthwith." So not many crumbs of comfort there!
So what could McDonald bring to the job? Well, he seems to have many contacts in the world of football having worked and played with many in the game and more recently will have dealt with those at the highest level whilst at West Ham. That will undoubtedly be high on the list of qualities Oyston will be looking for. Working with Sam Allardyce, he'll know how to win games but similarly he'll know the Allardyce ways to win games which involves long, dull, high, hoof it football. At 49 he'll know that he needs to take a position as a manager sooner or later and with no baggage (or job!) he could start straight away.
In terms of appointments, it would hardly raise an eyebrow. A boring, safe, unimaginative, unambitious appointment which will hardly get fans rushing back to Bloomfield Road. On the one hand McDonald will have few expectations which means he could surprise us, on the other with such an average record as a manager and being thrown in to an environment where he would have to stand up to his Chairman, it's unlikely he'll seek any more than the bare minimum when it comes to recruitment. The gut instinct says McDonald would be a dull, mid-table (if we're lucky), short term appointment, however judgment can't really be made until we see who'd be on his players list and how he approaches the opening games, but a bit like Lee Clark he'd have an uphill struggle from the start.