WHOEVER would have thought it? Middlesbrough lie third in the Premiership, Sunderland fourth from the bottom.

Actually, the latter was easy to predict at the start of the season, nor did we need a powerful crystal ball to foresee Peter Reid's sacking. But the need for his dismissal was made all the clearer by Boro's success.

The two clubs' reversal of fortunes over the last year can only be attributed to their managers.

A modern, innovative, coach who is a devoted student of the technical side of the game, compared with a stubborn cuss who believes in the old-fashioned values he brought to the game as a player.

If he were not so bloody-minded, Reid would have fallen on his sword rather than wait to be pushed. He should have realised when the rot set in last season that expecting today's pampered players automatically to give total commitment in every match is not the answer.

Nor would Mick McCarthy have had the answer. When the Irish pull on the green shirt they do play with passion, but that has more to do with national pride than the manager's motivational skills.

McCarthy is hewn from a seam of Barnsley anthracite, and there was no reason to believe he has any more chance than Reid of firing up Tore Andre Flo and Stefan Schwarz to bust a gut every week.

There is an argument that the experience of the elder statesmen - Ferguson, Robson, Taylor, Venables - gives their teams a head start. But McClaren is stating an impressive case for the new breed, just as Peter Taylor did at Leicester before his fall from grace.

Which makes it all the more extraordinary that Sunderland should go for Howard Wilkinson.

Taylor was England's caretaker manager less then two years ago, and his decision to appoint David Beckham captain turned out to be not quite so ridiculous as it seemed. Wilkinson's two spells as England caretaker, however, were marked only by boredom.

We can only assume Bob Murray thinks Steve Cotterill can be groomed to do a similar job to McClaren. Quite why he needs to give Wilkinson more than a one-year contract to do the grooming only Murray knows.

Taylor's name was not even mentioned in connection with the vacancy. Can his brief dalliance with Brighton really have cast him on to the scrapheap?

OUR esteemed Sports Minister, Richard Caborn, has apparently said that the Jockey Club are doing a good job, which seems as good a reason as any for believing the opposite.

Everyone knows that the Jockey Club are a bunch of blinkered buffers presiding over a sport involving a fair amount of institutionalised chicanery, so why do we need a Panorama investigation to reveal this less-than-startling situation?

Of course punters are cheated, but it is my understanding that they accept that and simply carry on gambling regardless of race-fixing or whatever because it gives them a buzz.

Match-fixing in cricket is almost certainly still going on, despite the millions spent on funding Sir Paul Condon's anti-corruption unit.

And so it is with racing. Corruption, if it warrants such a serious label, will not be stopped. It's a serious business, of course, if jockeys are involved with drug barons, but how many more of Panorama's allegations really matter?

It could just as easily be argued that the BBC are out of order for pretending to lift the lid when they have done nothing of the kind, and have compounded the felony by basing almost their entire argument on the evidence of unreliable witnesses.

The main one was Roger Buffham, who had an axe to grind after being dismissed in acrimonious circumstances as the Jockey Club's director of security, and the other was former jockey and trainer Dermot Browne.

The entire racing world seems to regard Browne as an unreliable villain, but Panorama made no mention of his dodgy background and Frankie Dettori described the documentary as "absolute rubbish."

HOW tickled I am to hear of Formula One chiefs trying to resurrect some interest in their sport. Like horses, the best cars should have a weight handicap, according to Formula One chief Bernie Ecclestone.

Another suggestion is that drivers should move around between teams. Go for it, I say, and appoint the Jockey Club to oversee the whole caboodle.

IN his contribution to the debate over whether David Seaman should continue in goal for England, Alan Hansen observed: "Seaman is one of the handful of England players I would trust now to win me a match. This goalkeeper knows pressure. He can handle it."

Can this be the same David Seaman whose repetition of previous blunders cost England the chance of winning the World Cup?