MikeTuckerman

JEF United have hired former Rangers star and Liverpool first team coach Alex Miller to take over as coach of the J. League's bottom club.

Presumably United have kept Miller more up-to-date than they did the departed Josip Kuze, who claimed that he was unaware United had sold their five best players before he took over as coach in January.

The Chiba side are already ten points adrift of safety even at this early stage of the season, and they need a drastic change of fortunes if they are to climb out of the J. League basement.

While the question remains as to just how much Miller knows about Japanese football - and why he would even give up a comfortable job with Liverpool to take over an outfit that look destined for the drop, a more pertinent question has been raised over at the always amusing Soilent Green. Just how responsible is the JEF United front office for the Chiba club's current plight? The answer appears to be 'very.'

Verdy fans more than most might question JEF United's hiring policy. Yet more than poor player recruitment, it has been some baffling off-field decisions that have seemingly crippled the 2005 and 2006 League Cup champions.

Tadashi Karai's reward for dragging the once-mightiest club in Japanese football into the depths of J2 in his role as General Manager, was to seal a move from Tokyo Verdy to a JEF United side that was once touted as genuine title challenger.

Yet United's most damaging move was surely installing the inexperienced Amar Osim as coach, following his father Ivica Osim's decision to take over as coach of Japan after the World Cup in 2006. When Osim Jr took United to within an inch of relegation last season, he was stoutly defended by the United back room staff - to the point that defender Ilian Stoyanov was sacked for speaking out against the hapless Bosnian. But after defending Osim Jr for months - and even seeing him keep the Chiba Dogs in the top flight by the skin of their teeth, United then chose to sack Osim Jr after the final game of the season... just two weeks after his father had suffered a life-threatening stroke.

Then came the bizarre post-match interviews after United's most recent 3-0 loss to Urawa Reds, with new coach Josip Kuze insisting that JEF United had pledged their full support to him. Kuze, at least according to his version of events, had even been lining up reinforcements for his struggling side. Yet less than 24 hours later the Croatian was shown the door.

It's a sorry state of affairs for a club that enjoys some of the more passionate support in the league. Unless Alex Miller can pull the proverbial rabbit out of his hat, he could be the next high-profile foreign coach to take the fall for the Chiba Dogs' bumbling bureaucrats behind the scenes.