Where have all the player managers gone?
This title is inspired by me falling asleep to a nineties station on Pandora a couple nights ago, and that Paula Cole song “Where have all the Cowboys Gone” was on.
She is the same lady who did the ‘Dawsons Creek’ theme (I’m a country fan by the way). But it got me thinking about why we don’t see player managers anymore. It wasn’t too long ago a manager would be sacked or placed on ‘gardening leave’ and some player toward the end of his career would take over.
Howard Kendall was a player manager at the start of his managerial career and he had a heck of a career before he went off to Spain. Then there was Peter Reid at Manchester City when they didn’t have any money. Of course there was Kenny Dalglish at Liverpool and the second choice was Phil Neal, another former player . We will also mention Ruud Guilt at both Newcastle and Chelsea but neither were a smashing success either.
Why haven’t we seen much of the player manager since the turn of the century?
There are many good to great players out there who could take over a team for a year or two. Think of it this way, how many times have the pundits (all former players) talked about John Terry basically running Chelsea when they were going through more managers than most people go through trainers? John Terry, is obviously at the end of his career. Why not give him the job and give him the chance to ease into the next phase of his life.
As is right now it’s going to be painful for Chelsea fans to see John Terry being bad out there.
Think of it this way, Keith Millen and Kevin Phillips were there when Ian Halloway left. Why not give the job to Kevin? He’s really not playing as much as he was and could teach this young team a thing or two about being the Premier League. Sadly, Tony Pulis came in (not knocking the hire, it’s just a boring hire). Plus with making Kevin a player/manager you can keep him in the side and get the knowledge of the Premier League from an attacking point of view. Maybe train the players a bit.
We did just see Alex Ferguson retire, (I don’t call him Sir because sport doesn’t deserve titles like that, save it for someone who actually does something worth a damn). Why didn’t they turn to one of his former players on the squad like Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs? While Giggs is still playing (he’s 40 folks) time to let the young ones take his spot. Considering he’s a player of the ‘Class of 92’ he could lend a lot of advice. Meanwhile Scholes came out of retirement to play last year while being a coach.
Then we wouldn’t have to see Moyes leave Everton but you could argue that this has worked out well for the Toffees so far.
Fulham just fired Martin Jol but has a ‘head coach’ in there. What if Damien Duff wanted a shot? They never have a chance to get the job. So if he wants to manage he has to take the lower leagues and wait many, many years while foreign coaches come in and fail. Are these owners too afraid to take the leap that their predecessors did? There’s probably something to this in that there’s so much more money in the game, and the patience of the fans is at an all time low.
They are thinking globally instead of domestically and that ruins the sport.
We see why the England National team keeps failing. Not enough of the next generation of managers are being made. Maybe the next England manager is Bob Bradley, the ex-USA manager. Granted that most of the problem hasn’t been the newer managers but lack of player development. Hence the reason why we need player managers back. People just off the field know what it’s like and can relate.
Who can say that Roy Hodgson knows what he’s is doing? I’m not knocking him, and his credentials, but he’s older than sin.
Article written by Stephen Brandt
