Doubts cast shadow around several grounds

SOCCER ANGLES:Roy Keane is not the only Premier League manager feeling the heat from disappointed fans at this stage of the season, writes Michael Walker

THE CONCEPT of doubt is a troubling one. Maybe it is because like other real emotions such as love and shame and fear, doubts about others and doubts about ourselves rise spontaneously. There is no artifice. That gives doubt a momentum of its own, and at times it can feel unstoppable. That is why we mainly think of doubt as corrosive, why one philosopher described doubt as a poison that separates people.

We understand from where that opinion comes. We all need trust and generally we prefer certainty, even if we are wary of people who believe more than they know. There are a lot of them about - zealots we tend to call them - and sometimes you think they give doubt a good name. In these moments a proverb can be used as a weapon: "Doubt is the beginning not the end of wisdom."

So maybe those fans of Arsenal, Manchester City, Sunderland and West Ham United should take some consolation from their current bout of doubt. The managers of those four clubs - Arsene Wenger, Mark Hughes, Roy Keane and Gianfranco Zola - could do with the benefit.

Certainly Arsenal followers can recommend that perspective to the others, at least that element of Arsenal fans who stood up to Wenger's noisy band of critics as recently as last Saturday morning.

A week is a long time in football politics so perhaps we should recall. Prior to guiding Arsenal to a 2-1 victory over Manchester United in what is regarded as a modern classic of a match, Wenger was being seen, as one writer put it, as the leader of a wacky cult. The Frenchman's stern refusal to see the transfer market as the primary source of solutions to team problems, instead looking within his young squad, was the reason for the scepticism.

The doubt, it seemed, was well-founded. Three days earlier Arsenal drew 0-0 at home to Fenerbahce in the Champions League. Four days before that Arsenal had lost 2-1 at Stoke and three days before that they had let slip a 4-2 lead against Tottenham and drawn 4-4.

United, it was assumed, would go to London, inflict a fourth league defeat upon Wenger's side and thereby eliminate Arsenal from the title race by November 8th.

The analysis was plausible; the reality was different.

Arsenal defied doubt and beat United. Three days later Wenger sent out a team of young shavers and won a League Cup tie against Wigan in exhibition style. Only action ends doubt, someone once said.

Before United Wenger had remarked: "I stick to what I believe is right. I am quite relaxed about that. In any career you have moments that go well and moments that go less well. You are not God when everyone says you are and you are not miserable when everyone says you are. The truth is somewhere in between."

After Wigan he said of his teenage sensations: "All are top class. If you give me time I will bring a few of them through."

If you give me time. It could be the motto of the League Managers' Association. Mark Hughes needs it.

Hughes needs the 45 days between now and the January transfer window to revolve at 78rpm. Then he can start shaping a City squad he inherited only four and a half months ago from Sven-Goran Eriksson, a squad the Swede assembled in quick time the previous summer.

By next June City will be at the end of a two-year cycle that began when Stuart Pearce left and the ownership of the club changed. Hughes though will have had only 12 months at Eastlands during which the club has been sold again. The fact that it has been moved on to some of the richest men on the planet helps Hughes in the obvious way but it also builds expectations. Hughes's work at Blackburn where the club finished 6th, 10th and 7th in his three full seasons (15th in the two before) demands he be given time.

Yet that big picture idea often has someone scrawling graffiti on it. At City it says that they have lost to Tottenham, Bolton and Middlesbrough in the last three league games. Tomorrow's trip to Hull assumes importance therefore. It is Arsenal after that, then United.

Roy Keane, too, has a big picture. It is of Sunderland one day returning to Europe, last achieved in 1973. But this melancholy run of one win in eight complicates viewing. Today Sunderland go to Blackburn, it could be one win in nine.

Keane said on Wednesday night that people forget last season Sunderland won one in 13 between mid-September and late December. But two transfer windows have passed since during which almost €58 million has been spent.

No-one would argue Keane has not made a difference on Wearside but it is also correct to say that of late doubt, a shadow of doubt has fallen across has the Stadium of Light. How good are some of those signings? That is the question.

It is as undermining to those who feel it rise within - be they fans, players or observers - as to those to whom it refers. It stokes an atmosphere where yesterday's "Keane to quit" rumours could even exist.

Keane could do with a point today, then it is West Ham on Sunday week, live on Sky television. By then it could be a bottom-three clash because the Hammers are falling. Gianfranco Zola would be forgiven for doubting his wisdom in moving to Upton Park. He did so four days after Lehmann Brothers went bust.

That sparked this world of uncertainty but on Thursday Zola stood up and said: "You have to believe in what you're doing, and I do."

It was said with sincerity. Without a doubt.

Redknapp deserves recognition

HARRY Redknapp is not everyone's cup of Rosy Lee but even those reluctant to embrace a man who just seems too close to some Ealing comedy stereotype must recognise what he has done at Tottenham Hotspur.

Redknapp unquestionably has a knack. Players respond to him. Their praise for him is more generous than that of outsiders but perhaps it is time to acknowledge Redknapp. Spurs is one thing but it is only six months since he led Portsmouth to the FA Cup and Europe. Portsmouth last won the cup in 1939. They will soon be hosting AC Milan.

Beckham basking in the limelight

THE HAT is cocked, the stubble is designed, the scarf is silk and the ambition of the image is a grand and, one hopes, deliberate cliche: "How he became the iconic man of our time" is the proposal. This is GQ magazine and this is David Beckham.

The 20th anniversary edition of GQ plumped for Beckham as the man of those two decades. You could understand their thinking: Beckham has been as significant in the modern phenomenon of English football as anyone. Beckham has been the game's celebrity representative and has never been off the dance-floor even when injured.

Of course, that does not make him a great footballer, or a great football man. And you can imagine Alex Ferguson staring at the GQ cover and wincing in annoyance. An exclusive interview with him is rated as less to shout about than Beckham. And Kylie.