It's their Careers that Need Management 
PK's PREMIERSHIP/Patrick Kinmartin

Paul Jewell has always been easy to like because he can so casually be mistaken for a guy who one time poured you a Fosters at the Crown & Anchor in Vegas, while in actuality he is better certified to serve hundreds of thousands adoring fans a clutch Premiership payday.

That wouldn't make even the easiest to romance out there conceive of Jewell in uber-yeomen form — couch-stricken in a pizza-stained V-neck shirt, sweat bottoms and socks while waiting for an employment offer to ring his phone over the crows of a restless wife — before Derby called with its open managing gig last week.

He resurfaced at Pride Park like a daisy, not a petal appearing out of place. His time away from the league, according to several sources close to the investigation, brought dramatically improved yardage off the tee.

Still, there's no mistaking Jewell needed this comeback to happen. It's always fun to beat the pants off the boys in a full game of 18, but the sizzle on his resume crackles to the tune of his wondrous work at Wigan, not PGA Tour potential. And that sizzle is starting to slow.

Jewell is no different than his mates in the coaching class of December 2007. Steve Bruce and Alex McLeish, who also made debuts with their new sides Saturday and Sunday, are in need of a career kickstart.
 
(Yes, this is the part to look away Derby, Wigan and Birminghan readers thoroughly convinced the archangel Gabriel handpicked your new boss during a Midnight appearance to your chairman's bedside.)

That there are three new hires in midseason isn't news. This trio now means 15 of the current 20 managers in the league were installed into their positions at the moment in-season, including Arsenal's Arsene Wenger and Manchester United's Sir Alex Ferguson. Granted, eight of them were pre-November hires, but it's surprising anyone fusses anymore about franchises switching gears mid-drift.

Besides, a Premiership manager, similar to a politician, can't simply sit back and do his job when personal touch is part of the assignment. What you've done previously can get you in the running, but how you've done it can earn you the actual selection.

McLeish, among the three, needs the most help in that department. He was a beastly defender in the Scottish Premier League and one of the country's prominent internationals during his time before carving out his accomplished coaching career with Hibernian and Rangers, two of the nation's highest-profile clubs. And over the last year as Scotland manager, McLeish darn near became the anti-McLaren with the way he thrust his smallish side into a Euro 2008 qualifying brawl with France and Italy.

Then he comes to the Premiership last week and he's ... um ... let's see ... something sexy ... maybe the next Ferguson! This racial profiling in its most harmless state might as well be the reason McLeish jumped out at the Birmingham offer in the first place. As seen with countless other figures in the game throughout history, being the king in Scotland barely gets you a seat in the back row of the international senate.
 
Bruce's legacy is a bit more settled at this point -- precisely why many feel he made his move away from Birmingham to Wigan. He risked being booted down from the Prem with Birmingham a second time and knew this one would be more a result of the Carson Yeung fiasco standing in the way of acquiring much-needed transfer window talent.
 
He gets a fresh(er) start under Wigan owner Dave Whelan, who seems committed to helping Bruce succeed within the club's humble means. Bruce can not only render Jewell's survival sensation story last year as merely the last chapter so five pages ago, he can also boost his own credentials in the process by showcasing how getting unshackled from the Birmingham burden was all he needed to flourish.
 
As for Jewell, he has something in his view of Derby not many others have. That sense of grace was a major weapon in the way he handled all the gruff that comes with engineering an organization like Wigan. The weeds at Derby heading into the winter period look a lot more untenable.
 
The last-place Rams have one win. Their goal differential is minus-29. No one in management has stepped forward amid ticket holders' outright concern to guarantee sizable measures will be taken during January's transfer window.
 
Yet it all makes up an equation Jewell can approach as professor. He has taken Derby-sized budgets at Bradford and Wigan into the Premiership and, perhaps more impressively, kept them there in the face of heavy relegation tides in the seasons that followed.
 
If he's looking at it like his vacation away on the course, he knows this is the part of the round to really grip and rip it.
 
Wrapping up the rest the Premiership weekend...

OWED DRINKS: Arsenal-Aston Villa match referee Chris Foy. The way he lashed back at William Gallas' vehement vocal protest of a foul with a yellow card needs to be protocol if the league truly is tired of the insufferable post-call theatrics from players. More on referees and cards issued later.

OWES DRINKS: Stadium disc jockeys throughout the league. When will they step out of the booth for a second, unite and take action against the Prem mandate that the league's bland new theme song be played before kickoff? You hate to see some of those washy excuses for jock jams ( i.e. Gwen Stefani's "The Sweet Escape") continue to tarnish these unrivaled live atmospheres, but if you're going to serve peas for dinner, apply some sort of butter please.

GOAL FULFILLED: Sebastian Larsson's laser lifting Birmingham over Tottenham at White Hart Lane. On the DAPP (the confluence of distance, accuracy, pace, purpose) scale, points weren't as high as similar scores this year because it almost had the appearance of an innocent flick-on, but the timing and immensity of the thing may be unrivaled in the grand picture.

SAY IT IS SO: That what began as Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich's personal ploy to rid the league of Jose Mourinho has led to setting up an international management situation for the ages. Should Mourinho take the England gig, someone's ego will undergo some serious humbling -- Mourinho's if he doesn't live up to being "the Special One" that solved the now-perpetual England problem; England's if a cold, cocksure Portugese boss is what it took to get this mess cleaned up.
 
LET IT BE: This year's red-card storm that kicked up once again to claim Robbie Keane and Mario Melchiot as new victims. Melchiot probably has more to gripe about with referee Mike Riley than Keane with Phil Dowd, but officiating on impulse can't continue to take heavy scrutinization until drastic measures are taken by the league to put referees in better position for correct judgement, specifically with better-defined standards formulating a clearer line between red and yellow infractions.

3-POINT FINISH: Arsenal has to have cinched next season's Champions League bid with such a strong effort, considering the circumstances, in the win at Villa Park. The Gunners are still a bit of a tough call for the league championship -- let's not forget United was also able to run riot at Villa already this year -- but have shown the power to easily separate themselves from the bottom 3/4 of the table. ... An interesting move by Roy Keane to keep big-money dynamo Ben Gordon out of Sunderland's 1-0 win over Jewell and Derby. It didn't backfire. Should Darren Ward find himself a more frequent starter in net for the Black Cats, it would present a complete bucking of the hot current trend for younger, flashier names to supplant veteran counterparts. ... NFL insiders like to point out how much potential the uncaged agent industry has in ruining playing careers. It's tough to pin down exactly who is at the heart of the most recent "bung" concern brought to light, but it has to be remembered agents are at the heart of every player negotiation, legal or illegal.

Patrick Kinmartin covers the English Premier League for 101soccer.com, you can contact him at PK@101soccer.com