I SPENT Christmas week in a real football madhouse - Istanbul in Turkey.

The city's two main clubs, Galatasaray and Fenerbahce, are renowned for many things in the game.

Managers tend not to last long there due to fickle owners. Their fans are also extremely passionate. And, in recent years, there has been widespread corruption.

But even a few days in Istanbul did not prepare me for the insanity I encountered on my return to this country.

Like so many football fans, I find it impossible to fathom that Cardiff City have sacked Malky Mackay. Vincent Tan, their Malaysian owner, would appear to have pressed the self-destruct button.

Football club owners, chairmen and presidents tend to live vicariously through their managers.

In Mackay, Tan had an excellent one. He took Cardiff into the top flight of English football against all the odds.

He achieved something no City manager before him had succeeded in doing for over 50 years.

What is more, the Bluebirds were making a decent fist of things in the Barclays Premier League under him this season. People in the English game, to a man, like and respect Malky.

He is widely perceived to be a young manager who is going places. But clearly none of that counted for anything with Mr Tan.

I think he is another example of the kind of owner we have seen a lot of in English football in the last few years.

He has vast personal wealth and is not used to anybody saying no to him.

What he says goes. Malky had had reservations about the structure of the club, about the scouting department and other key areas, under Tan for some time.

I think this episode boils down to the owner being unable to accept that traditionally the manager wields a great deal of power in how a football club is run.

Mr Tan has obviously been used to getting his own way in his business dealings. But I would not say he has won this power struggle and Malky Mackay has lost it.

Cardiff have lost a very good manager. They will do well to stay up in the English top flight without him.

Whoever comes in to take over as boss will have a tough job co-existing with the colourful Cardiff owner.

Malky will, too, be greatly in demand from clubs in the Championship.

Any manager who has got a club promoted to the top flight will be of massive interest to clubs in the second tier trying to achieve that goal.

He can walk away from Cardiff City with his head held high. He conducted himself professionally and had the backing of the fans, the media and the football world in general.

He is not the first manager of a Championship club who has won promotion to the Premier League to be sacked.

Indeed, both Southampton and Reading did so last season. Generally speaking, it doesn't work. Malky has got the same attributes as all the great Scottish managers.

The former Celtic player is tough when he has to be. But he also has another way of handling things when he needs to. His work on the training pitch is highly regarded in the game as well.

He is also young enough, and played himself recently enough, to be able to empathise with the modern footballer.

I have no doubt Malky Mackay will be stepping back into the technical area at a club at a decent level very soon indeed.