Despite former Manchester City manager Mark Hughes's friends and former fellow Manchester United colleagues appearing on television endlessly to say how terrible it was to see him sacked this week, millions of football fans were surprised Hughes hadn't been sacked months ago for being a completely useless manager.
'After being given over £200 million to spend on players and having a fantastic start to the season, City then flopped and achieved next to nothing', one football fan said. 'They even struggled to win Hughes's last game against an anonymous Sunderland side.
Hughes summed up the classic British habit of being glorious losers, no wonder he was fired! When even a talentless plonker like Steve Bruce with no budget can match Hughes's £200 million team quite easily, it's a miracle Hughes wasn't booted out in September. If anything, Sheikh Wossisname was very patient - if Hughes was manager of Rangers or Manchester United the fans would have got rid of him long before he was sacked.'
You're only as good a manager as your last result, and Hughes's former boss Sir Alex Ferguson had no sympathy for someone who was one of his best attacking players, but rubbish as a manager. 'Sparky proved that great managers are almost always dour, miserable, average defenders as players, like me and Jock Stein. Though that traitor Kenny Dalglish just had to be the exception, the wee Tim bastid!'
After the tears of his colleagues have dried up, Mark Hughes is widely expected to become manager of a team that matches his managerial skills - probably Barnet or Kettering Town. Though he is unlikely to make the same mistake he did at City again, which was to give the fans incredibly entertaining attacking football but not always winning results.
Life is a game of two halves, and it is unlikely that Wales's greatest ever player won't bounce back soon one way or the other after this brief half-time. Hughes could always become the next Prime Minister when the current one finally gets the sack - a job that now rewards failure.
