Mick McCarthy has expressed his sympathy for ex-Wigan manager Owen Coyle, who was amongst a number of Championship bosses to lose their jobs over the weekend.

“Pity Sky aren’t here, I could rule myself out of that one!” McCarthy joked. “I’m the seventh-longest-serving manager in the Championship now. Actually, I might be sixth or fifth, I don’t know, I haven’t watched the news for about an hour.”

He says the situation Coyle inherited after the Latics’ FA Cup win wasn’t ideal: “It just tells you how bonkers the whole league is.

“He got a really good job at Wigan, I thought, but he got a really good job with the caveat of playing in that Europa League when he’s got as much chance of winning it as we have, and we’re not even in the bleeding competition.

“And you have to go and play on a Thursday night in places I can’t even spell and don’t know where they are. Then they have to come back and play on a Sunday.

“Not only that, you’re coaching one team to play up until Thursday, then you come back on Friday or Saturday and then you’re coaching your team to play on Sunday."

McCarthy says he wouldn’t have fancied being in the same situation: “They said to me at Wolves that we might get in that Europa League from the Fair Play League. I said ‘If we’re getting in it on the last day of the season I’m going to headbutt the referee because I ain’t going into it!’.

“And I wasn’t joking. Well, I probably wouldn’t have headbutted him but I would have done something, sworn at him or something. It’s just nonsense.

“If it was me I’d say ‘What do you want to do, get promoted back to the Premier League or do you want to be in the bloody Europa League?’. I know what the answer would have been.

“So, I feel for Coyley, but I don’t know what’s going on there, I can only talk about football circumstances and I think he’s had a really tough time of it travelling around and having to get results.

“We went up there and we murdered them on the Sunday. We didn’t defend a corner kick, their keeper played out of his skin and then poor old Gerks has one in the 90-something minute.

“They looked like they’d played away on the Thursday and maybe got lucky against us. It’s a tough ask.”

He also has sympathy for David Flitcroft, who was sacked by Barnsley on Saturday: “How does that work? That was probably one of the points we've nicked this season when they were excellent in the second half.

"And they’re bottom of the league and he gets the sack. And Dave Jones at Sheffield Wednesday as well. Strange old league, isn’t it?”

Photo: Action Images

Karlosfandangal added 08:19 - Dec 3 Let hope we keep MM long term as part of our problem is the change round in managers,We have gone from bottom of table playing rubbish to mid table and playing some good football with a compleate new team. A few players in and Jan and over the summer and who knows, need to keep the Cresswells and Smiths and McGoldrick of this world
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honder_ITFC added 08:20 - Dec 3 He's admitted that he didn't want to 'rule himself out' of the Ireland job then, which is fair enough.
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Hegansheroes added 09:19 - Dec 3 Not surprised Coyle went-old school style British coach playing out of date football, reminds me of some one. There are not many decent Britsh coaches, none in the Premiership apart from at Liverpool, does not say much the game in this country.
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essextractorboy93 added 11:18 - Dec 3 Such a shame owners can't see the long term rather than changing managers every few months. The game is crazy. Wigan were doing ok, nothing spectacular but I would expect their form to pick up after Christmas because I don't think they will get through in their Europa League group. Not sure Coyle will get another job in the championship after his failure at Bolton and now this early sacking. I'm just glad we have an owner who seems to consistently have a good relationship with our manager. If that doesn't happen it's very difficult to be successful.

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JWM added 17:06 - Dec 3 @Hegans The ideal christmas present for you must be a new record because the one you currently have definately needs changing!
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