Grezza Sent to Coventry via Bury?

Graham Alexander has been in the news recently following his remarkable achievement of reaching 1000 games for club and country during his career.

That was achieved when he came on as a substitute in our 2-1 home win against new Premier League boys, Swansea City last month.

Grezza is only the second out-player to achieve such a milestone following in the footsteps of Tony Ford.

Of course he has already received many awards and plaudits for this achievement not least from Burnley Football Club and the Football Association.

Now his home town of Coventry have got in on the act. Alexander and his family were in the city on Friday to attend a Civic Reception in his honour as quests of the mayor.

The big question though on all Clarets fans lips is whether he stopped off in Bury on his way to Coventry to be interviewed for the player-mamager vacancy at Gigg Lane.

Vital Burnley have already given you the background to this in our article-

Rumour Mill-Grezza to Boss the Bury Gigg?

Simply click the title of the article above to link to the page

The latest news in the local media though is that Alexander has indeed already been interviewed for the managerial vacancy and appears to be in a short-list of five candidates for the job.

The 39-year-old Burnley captain and player-coach looks open to a move into management and attracted interest from Morecambe earlier this month before they announced that Jim Bentley would be their new manager.

Preston were also thought to be sniffing around and it could be that Grezza might think it is now time to move on following increasingly limited opportunities to play for the Clarets in the Championship.

If he does like the sound of the Bury job, he could face strong opposition from other candidates. Neil McDonald looked a strong candidate a few days ago only for the deal to stall . It has now been suggested that Sam Allardyce could be lining up the former Blackburn Rovers assistant as his number two at West Ham United.

After Bury lost manager Alan Knill to Scunthorpe in March this year, youth team coach, Richie Barker took over as caretaker at the club for the final eight matches of the season.

He won the first six of those games and by the end of the season had steered the Gigg Lane outfit into the second automatic promotion spot in League 2

By all accounts Barker is now the fans` choice to take over but the club might have in mind a dream ticket of a new manager supported by Barker as second-in-command. Alexander's inexperience could count against him although there could be less pressure on him to succeed with promotion not being expected next season. He only may have to ensure their survival in League 1 and then go on to consolidate their position (Did I say only?)

Grezza does have his coaching badges and is due to complete his UEFA Pro Licence next summer. He has also been involved on the coaching side at Turf Moor for the past 18 months as player-coach but that has been limited with Grezza concentrating more it seems on his playing career despite his advancing years.

It is also understood the club would not stand in his way should he wish to leave although he did sign a one-year contract last season with an option for a second season.

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