You can probably name every manager in the Premier League – but what about their trusty right-hand man who stays in the background despite playing a vital role in the club’s success.
An assistant’s role is a complex and challenging one. He has to be the manager’s right-hand man, and yet he’s got to be the players’ trusted confidante. A good assistant can form the bridge between the team and the manager and they tend to be closer to the players normally after having a successful career in the game.
They tend to be ex pros who performed at the highest level of the game – often in contrast to the manager – for example Pat Rice and Arsène Wenger at Arsenal, Joe Jordan and Harry Redknapp, or the former impressive partnership of José Mourinho and Steve Clarke at Chelsea.
Some of these assistants have had a fling at management but it hasn’t quite worked out. Perhaps they didn’t get along with the intense media scrutiny that being a manager has, or perhaps they weren’t good at making the unpopular decisions. Whatever it is, here is their moment of fame as we show our appreciation for the top henchmen in the Premier League.
Click on Pat Rice to see the selections
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Inter Milan climbed to third place in Serie A on Thursday with a 3-0 win over bottom side Bari at the Stadio San Nicola.
The result makes it six wins from seven league games for Inter under new boss Leonardo, and after an indifferent start to the season the defending champions are now just seven points behind league leaders AC Milan with a game in hand.
Inter would have been expecting a victory against lowly Bari, but had to wait until the 70th minute to break the deadlock, when Moroccan midfielder Houssine Kharja played a neat one-two with Samuel Eto’o before beating Bari goalkeeper Jean Francis Gillet with a low shot from an acute angle.
That was where the scoreline stayed until the fourth minute of injury time when a through ball from Thiago Motta played Giampaolo Pazzini into space and the striker cut inside his marker before firing a low shot past Gillet.
A minute later it was 3-0 when a Javier Zanetti cross was chested down by Thiago Motta into the path of Dutch midfielder Wesley Sneijder who blasted home from close range with the last kick of the game.
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The loss leaves Bari five points adrift of Brescia – their next opponents – at the bottom of the table, while Inter welcome fifth-placed Roma to the San Siro on Sunday.
Manchester City defender Gael Clichy is thought to have been the subject of racism in a pre-season friendly in Ireland, The Telegraph report.
The Premier League champions were playing against Limerick on Sunday, and the France international has since claimed that he was targeted, with a banana thrown onto the pitch.
“How sad to see bananas thrown on the pitch … knowing people around the world need food,” Clichy commented on his Twitter page.
The Irish authorities have pledged to check CCTV cameras to try and ascertain the identity of the guilty parties.
“The Gardai and stadium officials are reviewing the CCTV recordings to attempt to identify an individual involved in the throwing of an offensive object onto the playing field,” a statement reads.
“Any individual identified as being involved in an incident of this nature will be banned from future attendance and the matter will be handed over to the Gardai. All those involved with the friendly game fully condemn all forms of unacceptable behaviour of this nature.”
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Paul Lake was the biggest “what if” in Manchester City’s recent history. What if he had stayed fit for most of his career? What if he had continued his progress as a player? What if he had become an England regular? What if City could have had him in their defence or midfield for a good ten years? What if? What if? What if?
We will never know. Serious injuries treated badly ensured that. What we fans who prayed for the day he might return did not know was the turmoil that the injuries had caused, and the effects that having your career extinguished can have on a young man’s life.
In his new autobiography, I’m Not Really Here: A Life of Two Halves, written with his wide Joanne, Lake describes the enormous highs and lows of playing for his beloved club.
Lake was born in 1968, just after Manchester City’s last league title. His love of Manchester City was almost instant, and he grew up obsessed with football. At a young age, he realised he had a natural talent for football – he didn’t know why, but things came easily. He made his way from the Denton Youth U12 side (aged just 8), through City’s youth sides, under the tutelage of the legendary Tony Book, to a YTS traineeship in 1985, and glory with the youth team, winning the FA Youth Cup against Manchester United in 1986. Inevitably, he was soon in the senior squad, making his first team debut in January 1987. This being City, relegation followed soon after, and Lake was to experience the first of many bitter disappointments. The versatile Lake was soon holding down a permanent 1st team place though, his proficiency across the pitch seeing him wear 8 different shirt numbers in one season.
Soon, Malcolm Allison was calling him “the big talent at Maine Road”. And later after a call up to an England training session, Bobby Robson reported back to Lake’s favourite manager Howard Kendall that he had earmarked Lake as a future England captain. Naturally fans love a home-grown player, a local lad, and Lake was no different, idolised by all City supporters.
But having missed out on the Italia ‘90 England squad, it wasn’t long into his career the following season as City captain that it all started to go wrong, against Aston Villa. One false move, and his cruciate ligament had snapped.
Not that he knew for some time. City’s treatment involved an ice pack for days until the swelling reduced, an X-ray, and running up and down the concrete steps of the Kippax stand. Only when he collapsed in his first proper training session did he see a specialist and learn the truth. The damage had been done.
The following years were painful on many levels, a depressing cycle of rehabilitation, hope, and false dawns as he went on to rupture the ligament a further two times as soon as he returned to competitive football. He spent more time recuperating at Lilleshall than any other player in history. All this changed Lake as a man – the young lively, eager player that lived life to the full spiralled into depression, and withdrew from public life, going to extreme lengths to shun contact with others. As Daniel Taylor’s review in the Guardian described it, he was a tormented soul.
It is commendable that Lake came out the other side intact, and rebuilt his life. It is even more commendable that he retained the love for his football club despite the way some at the club treated him – mostly Peter Swales, the only person Lake shows bitterness towards in the book, after he shunned him throughout his fight for fitness and fought sending Lake to America for superior treatment.
That treatment was too late, and at the age of 27, Lake was forced to accept that there was no way back, and retired.
For City fans the book is an eye opener, shedding light on the way the club was run under Peter Swales’ stewardship. This was a club that allowed drunks to shout abuse from behind a wire fence during training every morning. That had players doing comedy routines at Junior Blues meetings, and had Eddie Large delivering half-time team talks using a variety of celebrity impressions when City were on the cusp of promotion.
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This is not just a book for City fans though. Whilst it also beautifully illustrates the life of a footballer, and such things growing up as Manchester ruled the music world, it is less about playing in football matches and more about what the game means to us all, and the despair and multiple lows when your dreams are snatched from your grasp. It also provides an insight into many other people in the game at that time, such as Bobby Robson, John Barnes, Paul Gascoigne and others.
Paul Lake is 42 now. After retirement he studied physiotherapy and worked on the medical staff of various clubs, even running his own practice too, until in March 2010, when he was appointed Ambassador for Manchester City in the Community.
There will always be curiosity over what could have been, what Lake could have achieved if he had avoided injury, and Lake had plenty of time to mull such things over during those fraught years on the treatment table. He came out the other side, and his account is one of the great sporting books of recent years. The final word can go to The Metro newspaper, who said: “The greatest football autobiography ever written? Unquestionably.”
Roberto Martinez believes young striker Callum McManaman can help Wigan Athletic away from the English Premier League danger zone.
The Latics manager has resisted the temptation to spend out big money in the transfer market for a new forward, despite off-loading six-million-pound man Mauro Boselli to Genoa at the start of January.
That was partly because of the emergence of McManaman, who was again excellent at Bolton in the FA Cup on Saturday and is a player Martinez believes has a huge future at the club.
“He’s ready,” Martinez said.
“We’ve also got Hugo (Rodallega), Charles (N’Zogbia), Franco (di Santo), Victor (Moses) and Tom (Cleverley) at the club, so the forward line is very good here.”
“But Callum’s ready for whatever role we will give him. It’s not a case of relying on Callum to stay in the Premier League.”
“But rather than bringing in a player without any Premier League experience, to be an extra member of the squad, I feel Callum deserves that role in the squad.”
McManaman is expected to drop to the bench for Tuesday’s clash at West Brom, with both sides in desperate need of the points at the foot of the table.
Only three points separate 18th-placed Wigan and West Brom in 16th, with Latics hoping to complete a league double over the Baggies following the 1-0 victory at the DW Stadium in November.
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Back will come the likes of Rodallega, N’Zogbia and goalkeeper Ali Al Habsi, while James McCarthy and Di Santo will be pushing for starts after recovering from long-term injuries.
Antolin Alcaraz, however, will not be fit, although his soft tissue problem will hopefully have cleared in time to face Blackburn on Saturday.
After a season of disappointment in the league, the boardroom at Anfield was reminiscent of the final scene of The Godfather, where Michael Corleone orders a hit on the heads of each of the Five Families and Moe Green. Each person working at the club that was deemed surplus to requirements was given the boot in a toned-down Merseyside version of The Knight of the Long Knives, only with less, you know, purging and book burning. Prime among was Damien Comolli, the club’s Director of Football, who paid the price for a season of underachivement back in April. However since the unveiling of new manager Brendan Rodgers, an element of confusion still persists about the issue, do the club still want a Director of Football or not?
Comolli became Director of Football in March 2011, effectively taking on many aspects of a chief executive’s role, though focused solely on the business of the football side of the club and was heavily involved in bringing the likes of big-money buys Luis Suarez, Andy Carroll and Jordan Henderson to the club.
He was originally brought to the club in November 2012 under the title Director of Football Strategy and was tasked with the recruitment side of the club, before latterly moving into the aforementioned role. Straight away, it appears as if his role was never clearly defined, which points to a lack of clarity and leadership from above on FSG’s part. Rumours persisted after his sacking that FSG felt they had rushed his initial appointment in the first place upon taking control of the club back in October 2010, which is hardly a ringing endorsement for any prospective future employers of the Frenchman.
Liverpool chairman Tom Werner had this to say back in April after Comolli’s sacking: “We’ve had a strategy that we have agreed on. There was some disconnect on the implementation of that. That strategy is a strong one and it will continue. We’re still confident the structure we’ve discussed is the right structure. That doesn’t mean we won’t look at tweaking it, but we feel a collective group of people making football decisions is healthy. The debate is healthy. Part of the reason we made this decision now is because we want to start the process of finding an excellent replacement.”
This would appear to indicate a preference for a Director of Football still at the club, and that the idea hadn’t yet been abandoned entirely, but that they were open to adjusting the parameters of the post. FSG were thought to want to pioneer a new system dividing Comolli’s role into three – one executive to oversee statistics, another whose role would be to conduct negotiations and a third ‘football man’ with contacts within the game, with the new boss also operating under managing director Ian Ayre. It seemed a hugely bloated, contrived and overly fussy system from the ouset.
Txiki Begiristain, formerly Director of Football at Barcelona, is one name that has been linked with a senior role, while Pep Segura, currently technical manager of the club’s academy is widely expected to be promoted, with Louis van Gaal for a time in the frame for a position. FSG clearly want to spread the workload out and implement a new system that allows the manager to focus solely on footballing matters, but whether the manager wants that is another point entirely.
Confusion still reigns and I can’t help but thinking that the issue has been glossed over for the sake of happy families for the time being, like sweeping a fight under the carpet with the missus for the sake of an easy life in the short-term and it has the potential to go seriously wrong further down the road. At Brendan Rodgers unveiling during his first press conference as Liverpool boss, the situation still looked muddled at best.
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Rodgers stated he wouldn’t have taken the role if he had been made to work with a Director of Football: “That was one of the items I brought up when I was speaking with the club, that I wouldn’t work directly with a Director of football. I work best around a group of people. You come to a big club or any club, you can’t do it on your own. There’s not one of us who’s better than all of us. Of course there has to be leadership, but if it was a Sporting Director that was something that I made quite clear that I couldn’t work with. What you need at a football club is an outstanding recruitment team, an outstanding medical team, an outstanding sports science team and player liaison team and these are all people who will come into the group and we will form a little technical board. There will be four or five people around that group who will decide the way forward.”
But Ian Ayre sounded less convinced stating: “The structure is a more continental Director of Football structure where you have got a collaborative group of people working around the football area. We don’t envisage, at this moment in time, having a Director of Football per se, but having a group of people that will work collaboratively with Brendan to deliver the football side of things. It’s not signing by committee, it’s analysis by committee. Certainly not a structure where we would force any player on the manager.”
The key part to take from that was the fact that Ian Ayre refused to rule out moving for or appointing a Director of Football in the future and with Rodgers looking to build a long-term legacy at Anfield, after signing a three-year deal to replace Kenny Dalglish as boss, that could cause problems further down the line.
Since taking over the club, FSG have benefited hugely from lazy comparisons to Tom Hicks and George Gillett simply because of the nature of their passport, with both sets of owners coming from the USA. This in turn has meant that the same in-depth, minute scrutiny that was applied to the previously chaotic and shambolic administration hasn’t yet been applied to the current one. They benefit from a degree of goodwill simply because they are not Hicks and Gillett, quite possibly the worst Premier League owners of all-time.
They clearly didn’t want a hugely hands-on role with the day-to-day running of the club, which has meant that the club has lacked direction at times, none more so than during the whole Luis Suarez and Patrice Evra racism affair, with the now infamously ill-advised t-shirts and cringeworthy press statement after another. FSG only stepped in when rumours of unrest from the club’s commercial sponsors started looking more serious than previously thought, but since then, they should be applauded on how cut-throat they have been, taking decisions without a hint of sentimentality surrounding their thought-proccess.
But as Wolves showed last season with the sacking of Mick McCarthy and subsequent botched appointment of his assistant Terry Connor in his place, it’s not that sacking someone is necessarily always a bad idea, but you have to have an idea of who you want to replace them with, otherwise it was all for nothing and a pointless move. The owners must have felt that in Ian Ayre and Damien Comolli, they had two people they could trust to run the club for them, but Ayre was known to be overawed by Dalglish, unwilling to stand up to him and question his wisdom, while Comolli’s role simply wasn’t clearly defined enough, so things began to slip through the net.
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A management structure is the next logical step in response to the ramshackle set-up that came before, but you still get the feeling that despite their increased involvement, the whole plan still lacks cohesion and clarity.
The lack of an agreed, defined and concrete system still troubles me. If the club underperforms again next season, where is the finger of blame to be pointed to? Is it the collaborative panel that will help Rodgers liable? Is it Rodgers himself? Nobody wants to get into a blame game further down the line as nobody emerges from a round of mud-slinging with a clean shirt, but there still looks to be a lack of accountability and leadership from above. It remains to be seen whether this new, somewhat revolutionary structure can work, for Rodgers sake at least, I hope it does.
Minas Gerais state secretary Sergio Barroso believes England should be invited to play the opening match in the region’s World Cup stadium.Barroso has extended an olive branch to England following Brazilian Football Association President Ricardo Teixeira’s open hostility toward the country.
Teixeira, the subject of bribery and corruption allegations dating back to the 1990s, was named in a UK parliamentary enquiry accused of seeking favours in exchange for supporting England’s bid for the 2018 World Cup.
Last week he launched a scathing attack on the English FA and promised to obstruct the England team, media and fans during the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
But Barroso does not share the views of his countryman, and wishes to see England take on Brazil in the US$442 million-dollar Mineirao World Cup Stadium, set to be completed in December 2012 with a capacity of 65,000.
“We want England to play Brazil in a friendly in the opening match of the new stadium on February 8, 2013 on the recognised date for FIFA friendlies,” Barroso told Reuters.
“We know what Ricardo Teixeira has said about the English, but the opening of the new stadium is more than just what he has said and his view of England. I am speaking to him and I am going to ask him to invite England to play here.
“FIFA says it is all about fair play and the good of the game so let’s see what Mr Teixeira will do about it.”
“England was the birthplace of football and Brazil developed the game and there are very strong links between our two footballing countries.”
“Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” – The immortal words of Mark Twain – Author, humorist, philanthropist, skeptic and renowned wit. Not the person you’d immediately associate with David Beckham. In fact I’d be mightily impressed if our Dave could identify a picture Twain and not feel perplexed as to why he wasn’t on a bucket of Chicken. Yet this saying, and more accurately it’s often misquoted version – mistaken from an influenced song title – “Rumours of my demise have been greatly exaggerated” is as apt as any to describe the later career of England’s flagship sportsman.
Beckham was being written off when Wayne Rooney was still suckling at the breast of a middle-aged scouser. So about 2003. Sir Alex Ferguson pulled off a masterstroke by replacing him with an unknown Portuguese, but owed this far more to luck than judgment, as the decision was made well after Beckham had left. In fact were it not for the kind hand of fate striking in a pre-Season friendly with Sporting Lisbon, Ferguson may been left to rue the day he considered Beckham surplus, because the player was far from through, winning plaudits and fans in Spain despite the relative failure of the Galactico project. When Madrid finally did prize back La Liga from Barcelona, it was the re-call of Beckham that many considered the crucial play.
Twice now he’s been dropped form the England set up, and twice he’s fought his way back in, often proving influential in the process, much to the eternal chagrin of Alan Green.
People even wrote him off in ‘98 after his (massively exaggerated) crime against Argentina, believing he’d never play in England again, let alone captain the side. Even yours truly sat uncomfortably on Sky News less than a year ago on behalf of this very site proudly proclaiming that Becks’ “career at the top level was over” after his Achilles injury playing for Milan in March. And yet here he stands, on the brink of a move back to the Premier League, still one of – if not the – best deliverers of a football in the world.
The man has made a career out of proving people wrong, and people have made their careers off the back of slating him.
And because of this there’s still a deficit in the accurate appraisal of his talent. Like so many who are over hyped at one point or another, the back-lash of underrating is inevitable, but for Beckham this constant tussle has seemed to go on forever, without ever settling on an accurate assessment.
Because he was once overrated, and famously, the idea that he’s not actually, and never has been anywhere near as good as his legend suggests is common place. And it’s utter rubbish. He was twice voted runner up for World Player of the Year, not by the English press but by the managers and captains of actual football teams.
While it’s popular legend at Manchester United to claim Beckham’s seizing of Ryan Giggs’ pin up mantle was due to the latter’s modesty and the former’s love of fame, the real reason is ever so slightly closer to the truth that Beckham was better than Giggs for most of the eight years they shared in the first team – Something the Welshman’s Indian summer has all but glossed over in United lore.
When he retired from the captaincy of England after World Cup 2006, his reputation took a bettering, yet he scored or created half of all of England’s goals at that tournament. Even though it seemed an off form Beckham was still more influential than the rest of the side, he was still made the scapegoat (once the tabloids had stopped throwing jingoistic puns the way of the very unknown Portuguese who’d replaced him.)
I once read an article by Alan Hansen (No I’m not sure why either) that suggested Beckham would never be a “great” player because he’d never influenced the very biggest games, a belief which contradicts not only his World Cup Record (he’s scored in three tournaments) but also that both United’s winning goals in their 1999 Champions League Final triumph came from Beckham corners. Hansen – the very first to doubt and be proven wrong by Beckham when he claimed “you never win anything with kids” – should’ve know this, but with Beckham people have their opinions (either way) and stick to them, the facts are irrelevant.
His SPOTY Lifetime achievement Award was a mistake. No player should receive one whilst they’re still playing, and there were many who deserved it more than Beckham, but once again the bitterness and re-writing that often accompanies any Beckham appraisal was in full force amongst those only too happy to point this out.
So now that we’ve established that I like David Beckham, where does this leave us, and him, now? If he were to sign for Spurs how good a move would it transpire to be for both?
At first glance it doesn’t seem that encouraging for Spurs fans. With City splashing big again on rising stars like Edin Dzeko, Tottenham look a little off the pace going for Beckham and (if reports are true) Everton’s dodgy haired World Cup flop Steven Pienaar. Pienaar is a Spurs of old signing, not a Spurs of new one and Beckham seems a nostalgia target, especially for a man like Redknapp who so coverts the England job.
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But on closer inspection it seems less foolhardy. Tottenham aren’t really competing with City anymore. As unfair as it may be, despite losing their Battle Royal last season the Manchester outfit have leapfrogged Spurs, missing a turn and passing Go straight into the title race (though Harry may well think he’s in there too). As unlikely as it may have seemed a few months ago, Tottenham’s battle to stay in the top four is being fought (right now at least) with Chelsea. And what Chelsea have over Spurs is experience (well, and a truly world class striker.)
What the Lilywhites don’t need is more squad players. They have a good, strong, already rather large squad, but what they don’t have in it are truly exceptional players with experience. For this reason Pienaar is perplexing, for he’s simply more of what they already have, but Beckham – despite being a fair few years off exceptional now – is undoubtedly experienced, and revered enough to be respected. So even if the move never transpires (and as we speak it seems anything but certain) Beckham simply training in North London could be just what Tottenham need to bolster the confidence, consistency and motivation within the squad. Because this is what Tottenham really need (Well, and truly world class striker.)
And if he does get the chance to play, then write him off as a crocked has been at your peril. I did, and he’s still bloody here!
You can follow Oscar on Twitter here; http://twitter.com/oscarpyejeary where you can witness his exasperated attempts to think of funny things to say.
Wayne Rooney could well be in line to become England’s vice-captain, according to Roy Hodgson.
The Manchester United forward has missed the first two games of Euro 2012 due to being suspended, but will return to the Three Lions fold against Ukraine on Tuesday.
Hodgson opted for Steven Gerrard as the national skipper, and has confessed that Rooney is in the running to be his deputy.
“We haven’t designated one yet but he is very much a candidate,” Hodgson told reporters, published by Sky Sports.
“Quite frankly, with him not being available we haven’t really felt the necessity before now to decide on that.
“But we are very much considering him for that position, yes.”
Hodgson went on to praise the squad’s integration, and does not feel that club rivalries are apparent.
“It feels more like a club team now, rather than an international team.
“Everyone gets on with each other and there’s a lot of trust between the players and the coaching staff, and everyone’s happy.
“You only have to go to the hotel to see the lads. You’ve got (Manchester) City players playing snooker with United players, Chelsea players playing Liverpool.
“Everyone’s mixing, everyone’s getting on well and there’s a good chemistry between the lads.
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“At the minute, it’s certainly the most comfortable I think the team have been off the pitch since I’ve been in the squad,” he concluded.
Newcastle United are still seeking the signature of PSG striker Melvut Erdinc as they look to strengthen their front line according to the Sun.
Magpies boss Alan Pardew had seemingly given up on bringing the Turkish international to St James’ Park after a £7 million move for him broke down at the last minute.
That was two weeks ago and Pardew appeared to turn his attentions towards Chelsea striker Daniel Sturridge.
But he is still keen on the striker and it is understood that the deal for the 25-yea-old isn’t dead.
Pardew is keen to build a dynamic squad around the likes of Hatem Ben Arfa, Dan Gosling, Sylvain Marveaux and Yohan Cabaye.
The signing of Erdinc would be a major coup with Pardew looking to use his experience of working with young players to mould a squad capable of challenging at the top end of the Premier League
He told The Sun: “I have always worked well with young sides. The one at Reading was full of exuberance. That is something we missed last year.
“But guys like Demba Ba, Marveaux and Cabaye have great pace and energy.”
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It would prove a massive boost to the club who have yet to replace Andy Carroll and Pardew wants him in before the transfer window closes.