There are lots of reasons why an interview is important when deciding which candidate should get the job.

A smart appearance is indicative of a fastidious approach. A personable style can suggest a warm and engaging individual capable of motivating others.

It is also a chance to find out more about a person’s career beyond the bland statistics of a written CV.

Anybody can find a couple of references. It is far trickier, when put on the spot, for a person to explain how their ideas were received and how they interacted with colleagues.

But none of these factors should be quite so significant in the world of football management.

A football manager’s record is there for all to see.

While the sales figures at Wernham Hogg’s paper company in Slough might not be common knowledge, it takes about 10 seconds to google the win-percentage record of a football manager.

Their tactics will have been endlessly evaluated in minute detail by a plethora of pundits and bloggers.

The world will have watched on as they battled through hundreds of press conferences and media interviews. Daily assessments will have been made of their ability to handle pressure.

In short, a football manager’s CV does not require a reference.

There are literally hundreds of thousands only too willing to provide that reference – even if, for many, it may involve just two words with one of them being of the four-letter variety.

And yet, despite all this, the indications are that this week a Premier League manager will be selected on the basis of a seven day job search and a 45 minute interview.

Some employers recruit temporary admin staff more thoroughly.

So while Wolverhampton Wanderers insist they had nobody lined up when sacking Mick McCarthy on Monday, chief executive Jez Moxey will place his faith in the interview process.

“There has to be chemistry and you never really know until you get it,” said Moxey.

As a result, the manager – arguably the most important figure at a football club, capable of shaping fortunes for decades to come – will not be decided on the basis of their CV, but over a quick chat and a coffee.

The irony, of course, is that you can learn how to perform well in an interview. These skills can be picked up. And one of the reasons for having lots of successful interviews is due to jumping ship a lot. Or, heaven forbid, sacked.

The very qualities a football club does not want in a manager.

So while Steve Bruce flounced from Sheffield United to Huddersfield, and from Wigan via Crystal Palace and Birmingham then back again, Alan Curbishley stayed put at Charlton. For 15 years.

Curbishley was learning how to guide his club to the dizzy heights of seventh in the Premier League.

But Steve Bruce was learning how to give a damn good interview.

Perhaps it should come as little surprise then, that Curbishley’s son Michael took to Twitter to confirm that that his father “wants it but didn’t feel very confident after the meeting!”

In football, as in any other walk of life, a good interview can be the difference between success and failure.

But when a football manager’s career can be pored over in greater detail than could ever be explained away in an interview, doesn’t that just feel wrong?

To put Mick McCarthy’s Wolverhampton Wanderers reign into perspective you need to go much further back than its beginning in 2006. You need to go back to 1989 – the year that Wolves won the old Division Three title.

Until McCarthy’s arrival at the club that was not only the last team to win a league title but it was also the last team that had a meaningful connection with the club’s supporters. It was the team of Steve Bull and a collection of other hard-working souls determined to give their all for the club despite being forced to train on the stadium car park because there was no training ground.

The facilities changed for the better when Sir Jack Hayward took the reins at Molineux in 1990 but somewhere along the way something more vital was lost. Wolves became a byword for big spending and bigger failures as the club became a victim of its own hubris.

Graham Taylor was indulged with the seven-figure signings of players such as Dean Richards, Steve Froggatt, Tony Daley, Don Goodman and Mark Atkins as Molineux heaved with expectation once more. In the 1994-95 season, Wolves’ average attendances were over 10,000 more than those at Sunderland, Derby, West Brom, Stoke or Bolton – but promotion did not come.

Mark McGhee followed and blew millions more before the spending reached an inglorious crescendo when Dave Jones splashed more than £13million in 2001 alone – only to see the disconnect between players and fans reach its nadir as the team collapsed in the run-in to allow rivals West Brom to claim promotion instead. The infamous ‘You’ve let us down again’ banner said it all.

By the time promotion finally came twelve months on, Hayward was spent-out and relegation was inevitable. Suddenly Wolves were saddled with an owner who’d lost interest and so it seemed strangely appropriate to go the whole hog and appoint a manager with little interest in the shape of Glenn Hoddle.

When the diffident Hoddle left the club in the lurch by quitting in the summer of 2006, Wolves were left with just nine fit players to report for pre-season training. Things appeared to have hit rock bottom.

Enter Mick

This was the environment into which McCarthy walked and immediately set about scaling back ambitions by declaring he was no magician. Fans feared the worst but with a young and hungry agenda and a fierce work ethic, McCarthy went to work.

Karl Henry was his first signing – a £100k capture from Stoke’s reserves. Stephen Ward arrived from Bohemians for £150k and Michael Kightly was snapped up for just £25k from non-league Grays Athletic.

Of course, some of the freebies weren’t up to scratch but it was refreshing to see a Wolves team battling against the odds for the first time in a generation. An extraordinary 6-0 home defeat to Southampton summed up the mood at Molineux as the fans supported the players – not because of some lame gallows humour – but out of a genuine belief that the players were giving it everything.

Two years later, McCarthy took Wolves to the title in brilliant fashion. His young team – only two of the first XI were older than 24 – played with enthusiasm and gusto as Wolves’ wingers Kightly and Matt Jarvis tore defences apart on a regular basis. It was a team to bring pride back to a city.

Going backwards

That McCarthy should find himself sacked three years on, having twice kept the club in the Premier League, may seem strange to some. But for all the accusations that can be thrown at Wolves owner Steve Morgan, the claim of the Daily Mail’s Des Kelly that the club has shown “no loyalty” to McCarthy must be particularly galling.

Premier League table as it stood in November 2010 (taken from the BBC website)

There were difficult days in McCarthy’s second season at the club, after which the manager himself admitted that if the fans had been given the choice between keeping him or keeping misfit striker Freddy Eastwood – a divisive figure at the club, who had become a champion for disenchanted fans – it would have been the manager to go.

But Morgan backed his man. He did so again when McCarthy was labelled a disgrace to the Premier League for making 10 changes for a trip to Manchester United. And the owner still remained calm throughout Wolves’ second season in the top flight, despite Wolves picking up just nine points from the opening 14 games and eventually being just three minutes away from relegation on a traumatic final day.

Morgan and the fans have watched on as arch-rivals West Brom have prospered. Albion were supposed to be the neighbours with the tight budget; the epitome of the yo-yo club. And yet, while McCarthy trudged on against the backdrop of ludicrously ambitious stadium expansion plans, it was the Baggies who acted so ruthlessly in ditching Roberto di Matteo in favour of Roy Hodgson just months after the former had taken the club to promotion.

For McCarthy it has been a death by a thousand cuts. There have been the bizarre selection decisions, the limited tactics and the nonsensical formation changes. The nagging belief that while the club made big plans off-the-field, on it things were beginning to slide – as evidenced by the fact that despite spending well over £40million since promotion, eight of the Championship team still regularly featured in McCarthy’s starting XI this season.

All that remained was for a knockout blow to be delivered. And a 5-1 derby defeat to your rivals is just about as emphatic as it can get. It was an insipid effort that crystallised feeling as it showcased many of McCarthy’s failings and none of his strengths. The tactical flaws were there for all to see – starting with all three strikers for the first time ever in a game he could not afford to lose. But gone was the fight and commitment so clear to see in all of his finest Molineux moments.

It was a result that changed the debate. No longer could the issue remain about who could do better. It now had to be framed in terms of who could do worse.

That’s a sad way for things to end for Wolves’ most successful manager in a generation. But as Morgan himself put it: “We had little or no choice.”

What a return it has been for Kenny Dalglish. Only Cardiff City now stand in the way of Liverpool lifting the Carling Cup at Wembley later this month and thus securing the club’s first trophy in six years. King Kenny has brought the buzz back to the city. And thankfully, whatever the dramas off the field, everyone at Anfield appears to be pulling in the same direction once again.

It’s a far cry from January of last year when Liverpool were languishing in twelfth place in the Premier League under beleaguered boss Roy Hodgson. The subsequent return of the Messiah saw the team swept forward on a wave of optimism and invention that brought 10 wins in 14 games – a run that took Liverpool to the brink of a fifth place finish.

One might think it would be regarded as something of a disappointment then, that the club currently finds itself seventh in the Premier League. Has progress already reached a plateau? That’s an alarming thought given Liverpool’s 2011 spending spree of £110million. As ESPN’s Michael Cox puts it: “Failing to match last season’s performance after considerable spending on players in the summer would prompt serious questions from outside Liverpool about Kenny Dalglish’s future.”

Of course, those questions are unlikely to come from within. Liverpool fans will point to the money recouped from the sales of Fernando Torres and Raul Meireles. Others maintain this level of spending should not bring with it unattainable expectations of glory. Tony Evans, chief football writer for the Times and Liverpool fan, explains: “Spending £100 million should bring instant top-four success, goes the logic, as if it were that simple. Some cannot see that … Tottenham Hotspur have leapfrogged the five-times European champions.”

Evans is quite correct to say that some could not see this. It has certainly proved news to the notoriously unsentimental bookmakers who considered Liverpool 10/1 shots for the title, while making Tottenham the 66/1 sixth favourites. Meanwhile, the assessment of the experts at the BBC could scarcely have been more emphatic in backing Liverpool’s chances of cracking the top four.

In the BBC’s summer predictions for the season, 23 of 31 pundits tipped Liverpool for a top four finish. Mark Bright, seemingly convinced by the Merseyside club’s oft-cited advantage of not facing European distractions, even went so far as to predict Liverpool would be champions come May. “The Reds have four players who could grace any team in the Premier League: Pepe Reina, Steven Gerrard, Luis Suarez and Andy Carroll,” claimed Bright.

Oh Carroll. Some supporters sought solace in the ‘Torres less £15million’mind-trick. That remains a theory from the same school of thought that if someone pays £5 for your bag of Maltesers then you’ll happily cough up £3.50 for a Curly Wurly. In truth, he is a one-man conundrum – the catalyst for countless theories searching for some kind of Moneyball method behind Liverpool’s spending madness. After all, there had to be something we were missing when more than £50million was thrown at Andy Carroll and Jordan Henderson, right?

Time will tell. And there is plenty to be said for a happy fan base. But, from the outside at least, Evans’ claim that Dalglish’s potential Carling Cup success may “come to be seen as his greatest achievement,” appears rooted as much in wish fulfilment as anything approaching the reality of Liverpool’s season so far.

Having even the remotest interest in Shanghai Shenhua should probably come with a health warning. When I die a decade prematurely, blame it on the side from the Hongkou stadium for weakening my heart and badly damaging my sanity. Shenhua is a dangerous interest to have. Believe me, its lots of fun but if you can, enjoy it in moderation.

The Chinese Super League (CSL) has recently been thrust into the spotlight via the big money arrivals of Nicolas Anelka and Jean Tigana at my ‘local’ club, who having not won a title in almost a decade, have now exploded into relevance once again. No-one is entirely sure where the money has come from for these signings but equally, no one really cares – Shanghai is a brash, loud city where success is expected and demanded. As long as the new arrivals help the club win, everyone’s happy.

For the hardcore fans, the ones who transform the north and south ends of the club’s otherwise sparsely filled stadium into swaying, swearing, boisterous carnivals of noise, the signings are a mixed blessing.  Anelka is still a very good player and Tigana, despite being a big fan of resigning without warning, is a proven top level coach. For a success starved club, this is exactly the sort of bold investment that the fans wanted.

However, one can only imagine that there will be more than a little frustration at the sudden influx of new supporters who have been enticed by the hype of Anelka. Ticket prices will go up, not only to fund the wages of the new arrivals but also because there will be more demand, certainly for the first half of the season.

There is also the problem of our chairman, Zhu Jun, who frankly is about as likeable as small pox. This is a man who recently made Shenhua play their ‘home’ games for the Chinese FA Cup in Wuhu, a city in the neighbouring Anhui province over two-hundred miles away from Shanghai. Last season, he sold off all Shenhua’s best players midway through the season, sparking a spectacular nosedive from the top-half of the table and into a relegation dogfight. There are more unicorns in the city then there are people with nice things to say about Mr Zhu.

However, the Anelka singing has given the eccentric videogames mogul a new platform in which to shamelessly promote himself to anyone who’ll listen, much to the delight of rumour mongers everywhere. You’ll probably be reading about Shenhua’s interest in Didier Drogba, which is highly unlikely to go through as the club already have two foreign strikers (Anelka and former Australian international, Joel Griffiths) and need to get an overseas defender or two to strengthen their backline. Fans of Brazilian club, Internacional will be equally curious about the fate of their Argentine playmaker, Andres D’Alessandro, who is also rumoured to be moving to Shanghai. Basically, if you have played in a big European league in the last five years, chances are you’ve been mentioned in the same sentence as Shenhua.  Guti and Michael Ballack are among the names that have been recently mentioned and with Zhu reluctant to deny almost any rumour, the pick-a-name reporting shows no sign of slowing down.

As someone who likes to spend his Saturdays encamped with the Blue Devils, one of the supporters groups in the Hongkou’s north stand, I can’t wait for the season to begin. The all-standing atmosphere in that part of the ground is a joy to behold, especially when tickets plus a beer can be as little as a fiver. I desperately want this season to be a success, not only as a writer who likes the romantic story of a once great club returning to its former glory but also as a resident of Shanghai who wants to see his club do well. Some fans would like a title run but for me, a decent league finish with a couple of wins over rivals Hangzhou and Beijing would be just fine. And the less Zhu, the better, obviously.

You can follow Shenhua’s fortunes by following Andrew on Twitter @ShouldersGalore

Carlos Tevez’s move to AC Milan may yet happen. It may not. But the mere fact it is being discussed would indicate Filippo Inzaghi’s hopes of winning back his place in Milan’s Champions League squad let alone the first team are fading. Unless Super Pippo can prove people wrong one more time, the 38-year-old poacher may need to seek a new home before the transfer window closes.

Of course, Inzaghi has been defying the odds for most of his career. Witness his resilience in bouncing back from a cruciate knee injury in November 2010. On the field he has successfully fought off the challenges of men more technically and physically blessed – the Brazilian trio of Ronaldo, Rivaldo and Ronaldinho have come and gone while Andriy Shevchenko, Hernan Crespo, Christian Vieri, Alberto Gilardino and Marco Borriello have all been outlasted too.

He has achieved this feat against a backdrop of whispers and doubts from some of the most respected figures in the game. The quotes are well known. There are the insults – Sir Alex Ferguson claiming Inzaghi was “born offside”. Then there are the backhanded compliments. Roberto Carlos said: “He is the man who sorts everything out – even though it’s difficult to lay your finger on what it is exactly that he’s got!”

Johan Cruyff was blunter, famously saying: “Look, the thing about Inzaghi is he can’t actually play football at all, he’s just always in the right position.” Indeed, complimenting Inzaghi is so rare within the game that when Jose Mourinho said earlier this season that he would prefer it if Pippo did not play against Real Madrid, the comment was still interpreted as just ‘mind games’.

All this talk might lead you to conclude that Inzaghi’s time at the top is some sort of fluke. The reality is that it has been anything but. After all, this is a man who has been at the top of the game for the best part of fifteen years.

It all began for the young Filippo Inzaghi at his home town club of Piacenza. Scrawny in his pomp, back then he cut an even less impressive physical figure and had to use nous beyond his years in order to succeed. After successful loan spells at both Leffe and Verona, he finally forced his way into the Piacenza side in 1994 – promptly helping the team gain promotion from Serie B.

A move to Parma in 1995 was a big step up and represented an early hiccup for the young forward. Nevio Scala’s expensively assembled squad contained more experienced competition in the form of Gianfranco Zola, Faustino Asprilla and Hristo Stoichkov. Just two goals in 15 Serie A games and fast approaching his 23rd birthday, Inzaghi was at a crossroads in his career. Fortunately, a move to Emiliano Mondonico’s Atalanta proved to be the right club at the right time.

Anyone who believes Inzaghi owes his success to the world class service of his colleagues should examine his performances that season with Atalanta. There were all sorts of goals: headers, volleys, left-foot, right-foot, penalties both won and converted – and even a free-kick into the top corner! Sure, he benefited from some good crosses but it was Inzaghi’s movement that demanded the ball. He finished that season as Italy’s Young Player of the Year and Capocannoniere with 24 goals.

Inzaghi’s move to Juventus in the summer of 1997 then allowed the striker to prove what we all now know – that he can score goals at any level. Aided by the service of Zinedine Zidane, he immediately forged a devastating partnership with fellow young forward Alessandro Del Piero and fired Juve to the Scudetto.

But perhaps it was his time with La Vecchia Signora that also gave rise to some of the negative clichés surrounding Inzaghi. After Pippo had flourished in the injury-enforced absence of Del Piero, it led to tension upon the return of his erstwhile strike partner. The much-debated difficulties came to a head on the final day of the 1999-2000 season in Perugia when Juve threw away the title – and Inzaghi spurned several opportunities where he could have passed the ball to Del Piero. Never had Pippo’s single-mindedness proven so costly. David Trezeguet was signed that summer and Inzaghi was shipped out to Milan the following year.

It is remarkable, given the player’s achievements at Juventus, that Inzaghi is likely to be remembered chiefly for his successes at Milan. However, the reason is simple – trophies. Not only have the Rossoneri picked up two Champions League wins in his time there, as well as the subsequent UEFA Super Cups and a FIFA Club World Cup, but Inzaghi has also been instrumental in these triumphs.

Involvement in the 2003 Champions League win over his former club must have been particularly sweet. But there was more to come. The 2003-04 season brought a Super Cup success over Porto before Milan romped to the Serie A title. On the international front, Inzaghi played his part in Italy’s 2006 World Cup victory – despite being given just 30 minutes of game time in the whole tournament, he still got his goal against the Czech Republic. No matter. It was 2007 that would be his annus mirabilis. In particular, the two goals on a balmy night in Athens – where Liverpool were Milan’s Champions League Final opponents and revenge was in the air.

It is perhaps appropriate that even in his finest hour, Inzaghi’s opening goal should be deemed to have an element of fortune to it. At first glance, Andrea Pirlo’s free-kick appeared to be deflected in by an opponent in the wall. As Pirlo’s teammates rushed to congratulate him, the unmistakeable sight of Inzaghi rushing off into the distance at full pelt left nobody in any doubt who had got the touch. It was vintage Inzaghi.

If the first was somewhat comical, the second goal that night typified all that is great about Filippo Inzaghi – breaking the offside trap, pouncing onto Kaka’s through-ball and rounding Pepe Reina. The man himself rates it as his finest moment: “When I think of all my goals, there is none better than that. It has to be my second in Athens.”

In truth, the world should have expected it. Down the years Inzaghi has so often saved his best for those glittering European nights. Incredibly, there are five different seasons in which he has scored as many goals in Europe as he has in Serie A. The result is that Inzaghi now ranks second only to Raul as the highest goalscorer in the history of European competition.

That European record, of course, hints at the fact that Inzaghi has long reserved his finest interventions for the grandest of stages. Pippo is no flat-track bully – a criticism often levelled at out-and-out goalscorers who plunder against the weaker sides but go missing on the big occasion. His brace against Liverpool was followed up by another goal in the subsequent Super Cup and then two more to defeat Boca Juniors in the World Club Cup.

So surely, at this late stage in his career, it is time Inzaghi received the respect and admiration that he deserves? The Italian press seem to have worked it out. Following Milan’s elimination from Europe at the hands of Tottenham Hotspur last season, Gazzetta’s Luigi Garlando immediately opined that: “With Pippo Inzaghi healthy today Milan would be in the quarter finals of the Champions League.” Maybe it’s a classic case of not knowing what you’ve got until it’s gone.

Even those now famous criticisms seem ill-judged. Cruyff, as the creator-in-chief of Total Football – with its unique appreciation of the importance of space – knows better than anyone that being “always in the right position” is one of the finest gifts a footballer can possess.

Likewise, Ferguson’s flippant remark about being “born offside” betrays the fact that life on the shoulder of the last defender is one of small margins. Pippo has used all his guile and cunning to outwit that offside trap on countless occasions down the years and he has the goal tally to prove it.

And what a goal tally it is. With Inzaghi it all comes back to that. It is his trump card. The ace he can play in any debate regarding his worth as a footballer. Goals scored at the highest level and all of them celebrated with the kind of boyish enthusiasm so rarely seen at the top of the game. Because above all, the man just loves scoring goals. In the past, Inzaghi has likened the ball hitting the net to “a mystical experience”. It has occasionally got him into trouble. Opponents have not taken kindly to his wild-eyed celebrations when scoring in the final stages of games long since won.

But it is this sheer love of scoring goals that may well see Pippo Inzaghi bounce back from his latest setback. It may not. Whatever lies ahead, it is too much to hope that his eventual retirement will be greeted with the reverence that will come the way of his great rival Del Piero when the Juventus star finally walks away from the Bianconeri. But we are at least entitled to expect those eulogies to be free of the kind of backhanded compliments Inzaghi has faced throughout his career. After all, as Pippo himself brilliantly put it: “If they are calling me into question, why, that’s the end of football.”

*A version of this article appeared in the May 2011 issue of Calcio Italia magazine.