El-Hadji Diouf, Pascal Chimbonda, Carl Ikeme, Herita Ilunga and Habib Beye. What do these footballers have in common? They all now ply their trade at the Keepmoat Stadium as part of the somewhat bizarre revolution happening at Doncaster Rovers. When it was announced that football agent Willie McKay would come in and have a lot of power relating to future transfer dealings in response to the clubs poor start to the Championship campaign a lot of eyebrows were raised. This change in transfer policy also coincided with a management change as Dean Saunders replaced Sean O’Driscoll.
Saunders was an interesting appointment given the direction the club is going in. His only previous management experience was as the top man at Wrexham whom he was in charge of for three years. Although he did a good job in Wales a move to a Championship club clearly illustrated a huge step up the ladder. Personally I’m not sure this was the right appointment or indeed the right move for Saunders given what was to come; names like El-Hadji Diouf and Pascal Chimbonda don’t exactly scream easy to manage and so bringing in somebody like Saunders (who admittedly had a brilliant playing career at the likes of Liverpool, Aston Villa and Galatasary) may not have been wise on the part of Doncaster chairman John Ryan. Any manager taking the Doncaster job was going to have to contend with this unique situation, Chimbonda, Ikeme, Diouf, Ilunga and now Beye will all be expecting to start every single match they are available for, this could spell problems for the new management team if they fail to perform to the standards which have seen all of these players perform consistently in the premier league in the past. Agent McKay pointed out upon taking this role that the wage bill at Doncaster was massive in comparison to another of the smaller sides in the Championship, Peterborough, he said that bringing in these players on low wages so that they are able to show to Premier League teams what they can do will help the club survive in the Championship but he did note that they will be paying these players some wages; surely with the wage bill already being so high the idea of bringing in these players isn’t as good as McKay wants people to think.
Diouf joined on a deal until January as did Chimbonda while Wolves ‘keeper Ikeme, West Ham’s Ilunga and most recently Aston Villa’s Beye joined the club on short-term loan deals. These deals have all been done with a view to the players moving on in January; this will hardly breed confidence amongst the Donny fans. The other names linked with the club have undoubtedly been more appealing to the fans – Robert Pires and Mahamadou Diarra are names recognisable to the more knowledgeable football fans and would have undoubtedly added a touch of class to the Yorkshire outfit. With El-Hadji Diouf lining up a touch of class wouldn’t have gone a miss. As it was these two big-name deals never came to fruition.
Whether or not McKay’s involvement at Doncaster leads to Championship survival or not is yet to be seen but with Dean Saunders record in charge so far seeing 3 wins 2 draws and 5 defeats from his first ten matches Donny fans can feel rightly uninspired. Add into that equation the very real possibility of the star names who have recently joined the club departing in January the omens don’t exactly look great for McKay, Saunders and Doncaster Rovers Football Club.
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