Dowie Cleans Up

The sudden arrival of three new signings at the Valley has left many fans pondering the all-important question, "Who will be in the starting eleven against West Ham?"

Ignoring the possibility that some players can operate in more than one position, by my reckoning we now have 2 goalkeepers, 2 right-backs, 3 left-backs, 5 centre-backs, 2 left-midfielders, 7 central-midfielders, 2 right-midfielders and 5 forwards.

Assuming Dowie plans to use a 4-4-2 formation, by my calculation this requires him to choose one starting line-up from a potential 100,800 possible line-ups. Just selecting 2 central midfielders from 7 for example, requires our new head coach to weigh up fully 21 options.

Now I don't know how much Dowie is being paid, but I'm willing to hazard a guess it's in the region of £500,000 pa. Overpaid? Not in my book. If you look at it my way, he is earning just below £4.96 per possible team selection. The UK minimum wage is £5.05. It's no wonder he is having to work at Charlton instead of joining his family up North....he can't afford the train fare.

Alternatively, just before I left the UK, we had a cleaning lady visit our house once per week. As guilty as I feel about it now, we paid her just £6 per hour. She only came for two hours, and the first hour was typically taken up with standard cleaning fare eg. dusting, vacuuming. During the second hour however, we encouraged her to either a) do some ironing, or b) tidy up our small garden (but not both).

You can probably see where I'm headed here. My cleaner had to make just one decision per week (at a rate of £6 per decision), whilst poor old Iain Dowie bless him has to make 100,800 decisions (at a paltry rate of £4.96 per decision), yet we claim that cleaners are underpaid and football managers grossly overpaid!

(The use of names and photos are used fictitiously for the purpose of illustrating examples only. Any resemblance to actual cleaners is entirely coincidental.)