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When Ashley Young pulls on a Manchester United shirt it will be a proud moment for the mentor who stood by him when his career was in jeopardy - and not just because he has moved on from the battered green Ford Fiesta that was once his ramshackle transport to training.

was the voice that spoke up for teenager Young when Watford were on the verge of casting him aside amid fears that his slight frame was not designed for the rigours of the professional game.

Cummins - now working with youngsters at Reading - had guided Young since he arrived at Vicarage Road as an eight-year old and insisted he had the ability and footballing intelligence to make up for lack of stature.

, who brought Cummins in as youth development officer, credits him with the show of faith that set Young on the path to England honours and Old Trafford .

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Andre Villas-Boas will have Roman Abramovich's millions at his disposal to cement his reputation at European coaching's rising star - but the new Chelsea manager's most precious commodity at Stamford Bridge may be something even the Russian cannot buy.

and given the traditional mission of every Blues manager - to fulfil Abramovich's fantasy of winning the Champions League.

And the 33-year-old Portuguese will know that the shelf life of Abramovich's chosen ones shortens considerably if they fail to deliver the owner's required silverware.

Jose Mourinho's list of successes meant under Abramovich, ending up at Stamford Bridge for more than three years.

But World Cup winner and only 12 months after winning the domestic double.

Abramovich's patience is notoriously short but, having invested more than £13m to prise his latest manager out of Porto, even he may now accept the wisdom of stability and give his surprise choice to succeed Ancelotti years rather than months to make his impact.

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alone as the club's hierarchy left their new manager on his own to face the fall-out from the close season's most contentious managerial move.

In a subdued affair stripped of the fanfare and relentlessly upbeat messages associated with such occasions, McLeish cut the figure of a man relieved to get the introductions out of the way rather than revel in .

And he did it without the presence of and chief executive Paul Faulkner at his side as they kept their distance from the formalities rather than provide support for the besieged Scot.

Lerner is notoriously publicity-shy but if there was one occasion for either the American or Faulkner to front up and put the case for appointing McLeish to a suspicious, and in some cases and explain the tortuous process to uncovering then this was surely it.

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West Ham United co-owner David Gold likened the mood around Upton Park after relegation to "a death in the family" - now.

Allardyce returns from holiday to get behind his desk at West Ham's Chadwell Heath training headquarters on Monday but Gold is convinced the road to recovery from the drop into the Championship has already begun.

The and Gold revealed the hard work started after a short period of reflection.

Now he believes West Ham have put "a stake in the sand" by appointing Allardyce and following up the manager's arrival by persuading starting in Green Street.

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In a moment that will define his Aston Villa reign, Randy Lerner has ignored the protests and turned back a tidal wave of discontent to appoint .

Lerner's gamble on the man who took fiercest rivals - and brought Villa supporters on to the streets in protest at his impending move to Villa Park - will not come to rest on the middle ground.

If McLeish turns out to be a success, his appointment will be regarded as an inspirational move by an owner willing to fly in the face of public opinion. If the Scot is a failure, it is almost impossible to see how Lerner can retain the faith of Villa's fans.

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Nottingham

The sun shone on Steve McClaren as he walked into the City Ground as Nottingham Forest manager. It was his first small victory on the road to rehabilitation in English football.

A defining image of McClaren's tenure with England was the sight of the coach sheltered from a Wembley downpour by an umbrella as .

So McClaren, 50, might have regarded it as symbolic and a happy omen that he was bathed in sunlight and spared any unwanted wisecracks as he walked across the car park and into the Robin Hood Suite with Forest chief executive Mark Arthur.

Arthur, after the briefest of introductions, left the talking to McClaren - who mixed defiance with confidence as he insisted his mission at the City Ground was to shape Forest into a Premier League club rather than rebuild his own reputation.

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When Steve McClaren entered the swirl of speculation surrounding Aston Villa's next manager,

Message boards went into meltdown at the mere mention of McClaren, his successes at club level with and in Holland overshadowed by a nightmare 16-month spell as England coach.

fashioned by his decision to seek protection under an umbrella as

As the sound of mounting discontent reached the Villa Park boardroom, McClaren's name was struck from list of potential successors to Gerard Houllier.

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The journey took in 72 matches and almost 22,000 miles, concluding with in a Euro 2012 qualifier at Wembley.

From Blackpool to Basle, it was an unpredictable mixture, throwing up the and the thrills of that final "Survival Sunday" as five clubs fought to stay in the top tier of English football.

As we look back on this season, through what will be a highly eventful close season and ahead to the next campaign, what condition has your club been left in? Here's my review:

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When Jordan Henderson and Phil Jones joined England's Under-21 squad for training in the Danish town of Fredericia on Thursday in preparation for the forthcoming European Championship, their lives had been transformed by the events of the previous 24 hours.

They had gone from simply being two precious commodities in Stuart Pearce's talented group to two shining symbols of the future of English football after being targeted as summer signings by Liverpool and Manchester United respectively.

while Blackburn Rovers defender Jones, 19, is still waiting to confirm his switch to United after ignoring the advances of Liverpool, Arsenal and Tottenham.

and be

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Wembley

Pep Guardiola's Barcelona . Seven days later, Fabio Capello's follow-up act was a journey with England into the chamber of horrors.

Capello was on familiar territory as England's inadequacies i in the Euro 2012 qualifier were explained away by tiredness at the end of a long season.

As Capello wandered out with friends to survey a deserted Wembley an hour after the final whistle and contemplate the hazardous route England still have to negotiate to reach next summer's showpiece in Poland and Ukraine, he should have looked closer to home to explain those failings.

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Mark Hughes was the victim of Manchester City chief executive Garry Cook's infamous "trajectory of results" when he was .

Hughes nursed an acute sense of injustice, shared by many observers inside and outside City, and public humiliation when he took charge of the 4-3 win against Sunderland in December 2009 with .

with that same trajectory on an upward curve after a season in which he before a strong conclusion rebuilt his reputation and earned a place in the Europa League via the Fair Play standings.

Hughes, in a statement met with heavy cynicism, insisted his decision to activate a break clause in his two-year contract had not been prompted by the intervention of "an outside party" after Gerard Houllier left Aston Villa on health grounds only 24 hours earlier.

It may well be, though, that hardened his belief that it is every man for himself in Premier League management and if a faster train is about to pull up at the platform, he will jump aboard.

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Darren Bent was marking the anniversary of one of the darkest days of his career as he mapped out his journey from England's nearly man to the marksman Fabio Capello has learned to trust.

It was a exactly year ago that . Bent's frustrating 45-minute appearance in the final warm-up friendly against Japan in Graz had convinced Capello that Emile Heskey and Peter Crouch represented the better bet.

Bent, prolific for his club after scoring 24 goals at Sunderland, seemed destined to linger forever on England's margins, unable to make the final leap into international football.

Fast forward 12 months and Bent talks and plays with the confidence of a striker who has fully justified and scored in three successive England games to win the faith of Capello for Saturday's Euro 2012 qualifier against Switzerland at Wembley.

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