IT was common knowledge that John Barnes always wanted to get back into club football management – and taking the Tranmere Rovers job proved just how much. Yes, it must have been tempting for him to join his local club and it seemed like the ideal opportunity for him. But he was up against it from day one – and his sacking last week proves it. If a club is going to slash its budget only one thing happens. The team gets worse. Rovers were losing their best players over the summer and having to cut their cloth accordingly in terms of what they could offer replacement players. Any manager would find that difficult because you can’t bring in players of the same quality you’ve lost. But when that manager is Barnesy and he wants to stick by his philosophy of trying to play good football and entertain, then the job becomes almost impossible. For him to be effective at a club like Tranmere, he would have had to compromise too much of what he believes in and that’s why I think the relationship was doomed from the start. It’s a crash, bang, wallop league. Not one that suits the way John Barnes wanted to get his results. However, I still think it is still far too early days to be saying, “thanks lads, see you later.” I know John well and he’s a mate but I think he should have been given a lot longer to see the job through. What’s 11 league games? It’s not even a quarter of the season and it’s certainly not long enough to make a judgement on how a manager working in those circumstances is getting on. I think Peter Johnson might have felt he had no choice given the strength of feeling among Rovers fans about their bad start to the campaign. But then should he not sit back and think long and hard about what sort of club he wants them to be? He might be desperate for the team to win because the club then becomes a much more attractive opposition for potential investors, but there’s no money being thrown at it now. I have no problem with a manager having constraints put on him but you then have to give it until at least Christmas to assess how suited he is to the job. If you slashed the wage bills of Everton and Liverpool by a massive percentage they wouldn’t be challenging for anything either. Too many Coca-Cola League clubs just don’t take time to think rationally about the level they are at and appreciate the limits they have in terms of how much progress they can make. Until they do there will be far more casualties like Barnes. Because like with so many other managerial jobs these days, his time in the Prenton Park hot seat was mainly spent just keeping it warm for someone else. | 
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