ANALYSIS

Exit door Ian Crook after announcing his resignation from Sydney FC just six games into the job. Photo: Ben Rushton

Here we go again. Sydney FC are looking for a new coach, their seventh since the A-League began in 2005. Is there a more unflattering statistic in Australian football?

Yet as much as Sunday's announcement might have taken the football community by surprise, a looming sense of inevitability had taken hold over the past fortnight.

Though his tenure will not be remembered as a success, Ian Crook looked like the most relieved man in the world on Sunday. The pressure of managing Sydney FC is great, perhaps much greater than people understand. The A-League's profile is growing constantly, and Sydney have always been the team everyone wants to beat.

However, the signing of Alessandro Del Piero led to a soar in expectations which, arguably, got out of control. So successful was the splash in the marketplace that many assumed it would seamlessly translate into on-field success.

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That was, after all, how it happened when Crook was the assistant manager to Pierre Littbarski in season one. But the A-League has evolved so much in such a short space of time that one player - unless he is at the absolute peak of his powers - can only have so much of an impact.

The grim reality is that Sydney, for all their bells and whistles, do not possess a team capable of consistently matching it with the best in the league. Crook knew this and was trying to change it. The next coach faces the same dilemma.

Inherent contradictions that pervade the fabric of the club must be addressed. Will the successor be charged with saving the season or mapping out a three-year strategy to have Sydney playing at the highest standard? The decision will say much about the board's vision.

Read the original here:
Sky Blues' coaching carousel turns again