Next England Manager?

[Corky]

42 minutes ago, Miquel The Work Geordie said:

Best part of AFCON is there are always about 3 or 4 French or Belgian coaches who look like mad scientists from Resident Evil or something. If we only made it so you could manage the country you're from we'd lose that, not for me Clive

Good to hear former Jordan national team manager Harry Redknapp moaning about locals not being given the job.

[RumbleFox]

I couldn’t care even half a % what nationality the England manager is. 

[Unabomber]

Everyday it’s another middle aged white bloke moaning about this (Mills etc). It’s so weird if anything these guys should be quiet as the lack of English candidates for the job was embarrassing. 

[Ric Flair]

23 hours ago, Bilo said:

I think you've touched on it.

 

We have an obsession in England that coaches should have played at the highest level before they can be accepted. The players you've cited were serious competitors on the pitch, but it just hasn't happened for them on the touchline.

 

When you look in Europe, there's a whole host of managers who never played at the top level but are extremely successful coaches. Tuchel himself retired at 25 after only playing for two lower league German sides while some like Nagelsmann barely played at all. It's difficult to imagine a top Premier League club taking a chance on a manager who only played 74 matches for Forest Green Rovers and Gateshead, or who started doing his coaching badged after quitting professional football in his early twenties, however good he was.

 

Honestly, we need to start looking at managers who became managers young. Invest in coaching courses for players who, for whatever reason, don't make it as footballers but still have a love for the game. There could be plenty of potential Tuchels and Nagelsmanns in English football who are slipping through the net because of English football's obsession with the idea that top players become top coaches. By the time they retire and start studying for their coaching badges, they're up to a decade behind European coaches who had a UEFA Pro Licence in their late twenties. Perhaps even recruit those who have never actually played but have a real intellect and insight for the game. 

There are a few with unremarkable playing careers like Brendan, Potter, Cooper, Howe, McKenna etc

[Izzy]

If Tuchel does for the national football team what Brendon McCullum has done for the English cricket team, I'm all in.

[jaqo88]

On 17/10/2024 at 08:35, Bilo said:

I think you've touched on it.

 

We have an obsession in England that coaches should have played at the highest level before they can be accepted. The players you've cited were serious competitors on the pitch, but it just hasn't happened for them on the touchline.

 

When you look in Europe, there's a whole host of managers who never played at the top level but are extremely successful coaches. Tuchel himself retired at 25 after only playing for two lower league German sides while some like Nagelsmann barely played at all. It's difficult to imagine a top Premier League club taking a chance on a manager who only played 74 matches for Forest Green Rovers and Gateshead, or who started doing his coaching badged after quitting professional football in his early twenties, however good he was.

 

Honestly, we need to start looking at managers who became managers young. Invest in coaching courses for players who, for whatever reason, don't make it as footballers but still have a love for the game. There could be plenty of potential Tuchels and Nagelsmanns in English football who are slipping through the net because of English football's obsession with the idea that top players become top coaches. By the time they retire and start studying for their coaching badges, they're up to a decade behind European coaches who had a UEFA Pro Licence in their late twenties. Perhaps even recruit those who have never actually played but have a real intellect and insight for the game. 

The same thing happens in business, where somebody will be promoted into a managerial position because they are good at the job (in this case this would be playing football) BUT the skill of managing is a completely different beast and there is no guarantee being good at a job  translates at all to management. Being able to relate to the players is one thing but you don’t have needed to have played extensively at the highest level to understand that I don’t believe. 
 

First and foremost the candidate should be the best MANAGER of people, players, and tactics of which I don’t believe any of the recent English top professionals are at all despite their great careers. The manager doesn’t need to run around and kick a ball

 

[BKLFox]

I would add that any English manager especially new and especially deemed a once elite player do not get time, being up against it from their 1st game.

It’s not even them being thrust into higher profile clubs, I’d wager if say Lampard took a job at Chesterfield he’d be written off if he hadn’t won a game after 5 matches, despite it being Chesterfield.

All the jokes about Rooney after he turned up at Plymouth, again not given a chance, but now quietly going about his business.

It’s social platforms & the media that big these players up only to take great satisfaction in knocking them down.

I will await the same comments on this forum and media platforms when Jack Wilshere takes over at Norwich.

[Dan]

Think it's quite damning how few English managers you see even in other leagues though. This as much as anything points to the lack of depth. Are say... Monza, not giving a job to an English coach because they weren't quite good enough for the top jobs in England? Other than Liam Rosenior and Will Still (who is a bit of a strange case anyway) there's none in the big leagues.

[Wymsey]

Think Eddie Howe is a bit over-hyped.

[Guest Bilo]

7 hours ago, jaqo88 said:

The same thing happens in business, where somebody will be promoted into a managerial position because they are good at the job (in this case this would be playing football) BUT the skill of managing is a completely different beast and there is no guarantee being good at a job  translates at all to management. Being able to relate to the players is one thing but you don’t have needed to have played extensively at the highest level to understand that I don’t believe. 
 

First and foremost the candidate should be the best MANAGER of people, players, and tactics of which I don’t believe any of the recent English top professionals are at all despite their great careers. The manager doesn’t need to run around and kick a ball

 

It happens in teaching as well. The thought process that the best teachers always make the best leaders is a fallacy in my experience. I've seen brilliant classroom practitioners go to pieces when asked to run a department. 

[Guest Bilo]

30 minutes ago, Dan LCFC said:

Think it's quite damning how few English managers you see even in other leagues though. This as much as anything points to the lack of depth. Are say... Monza, not giving a job to an English coach because they weren't quite good enough for the top jobs in England? Other than Liam Rosenior and Will Still (who is a bit of a strange case anyway) there's none in the big leagues.

As I've said before, plenty of other countries have managers who've been at it since their twenties. If a player were to stop playing, or in the case of people like Nagelsmann who never played professional football and started coaching at the age of 25, they've already got at least a decade on professional players who coach after their retirement. 

Reduce the price of coaching badges in England, offer released or injured youth players the opportunity to study and work at the club who releases them and promote more coaches from within. 

 

 

Edited 18 October 2024 by Bilo

[Leicesterpool]

1 hour ago, Wymsey said:

Think Eddie Howe is a bit over-hyped.

Done okay at Newcastle certainly overachieved their, Bournemouth was some huge project and im not sure youll find managers that ive guided a team league 2 to the Premier league.  But for me he needs to win a domestic cup to prove himself in a knockout competition.

 

Press love him as hes a southerner. No doubt a northern coach would get less the hype. Look back at Steve McClaren and Big Sam the press hated both from day one.

Edited 18 October 2024 by Leicesterpool

[Super_horns]

47 minutes ago, Leicesterpool said:

Done okay at Newcastle certainly overachieved their, Bournemouth was some huge project and im not sure youll find managers that ive guided a team league 2 to the Premier league.  But for me he needs to win a domestic cup to prove himself in a knockout competition.

 

Press love him as hes a southerner. No doubt a northern coach would get less the hype. Look back at Steve McClaren and Big Sam the press hated both from day one.

Well think some liked Big Sam but others didn't as he found out!

 

I wonder if Howe wasn't approached as the FA were put off by having to pay big compensation to Newcastle?

[bovril]

On 16/10/2024 at 17:57, Bilo said:

Only on social media so far, apart from the Daily Heil losing its shit.

 

You just know The Sun will weigh in the morning after a disappointing 0-0 draw with Poland as well.

Jacobites, 1714

[Corky]

The press in this country do not hate Sam Allardyce. They adore him.

[sharpylcfc]

6 hours ago, Bilo said:

As I've said before, plenty of other countries have managers who've been at it since their twenties. If a player were to stop playing, or in the case of people like Nagelsmann who never played professional football and started coaching at the age of 25, they've already got at least a decade on professional players who coach after their retirement. 

Reduce the price of coaching badges in England, offer released or injured youth players the opportunity to study and work at the club who releases them and promote more coaches from within. 

 

 

Funny you suggest this I couldn't play football cause of my disability but was always interested in the coaching side but I had to stop at a certain point because I couldn't afford coaching badges from a certain point.

[purpleronnie]

Thomas Tuchel and the awkward truth about English managers (msn.com)

Had the Football Association opted for Eddie Howe as manager, in the way that many wanted due to his nationality, there would have been an awkward truth. The Newcastle United manager isn’t strictly a product of the English system. Howe did his coaching badges with the Irish Football Association.

 

It is an issue that has come up a lot this week, as the FA opted for a product of the German system, in Thomas Tuchel. And how couldn’t they? As one senior football figure observed on seeing the job description, the requirement of trophies essentially ruled out anyone English, despite Mark Bullingham revealing that they spoke to 10 candidates. Howe has confirmed he was not even contacted.

The hard numbers are even more concerning. Howe is one of just three English managers in the Premier League right now, and one of just seven over the last decade to have finished in the top half of the table. Even the Championship is moving towards a majority of foreign coaches. You don’t even have to get into debates over whether an Englishman should manage England to find something curious here. The numbers don’t really make sense.

England is a wealthy country that has a population of almost 60 million, with one of the strongest football cultures in the world, as well as a huge football infrastructure that also hosts the most popular domestic league in the world. All of those factors have resulted in St George’s Park and a complete overhaul of the FA’s ideology over a decade. The federation has rightly been lauded for their work after repeatedly reaching major finals.

 

It is consequently baffling that none of this is producing coaches that the FA feel they can pick from. It really isn't normal for a football country of this size. Howe and Graham Potter are good but they’re nowhere near making you take notice, like Tuchel. An obvious question is why?

The answer cuts across a lot of modern debates, from how you approach tournaments to the issue of an independent football regulator. Some would argue that it’s unfair to expect the infrastructural overhaul to produce such coaches after a mere decade. Tuchel himself is proof to the contrary. He was one of a huge generation of modern German coaches that started to be produced less than five years after the country’s own infrastructural overhaul around 2002. It has been the same in Spain and Portugal.

A common theme of this week has similarly been that coaching courses are much cheaper in those countries.

 

That isn’t really a factor as regards to the numbers, though. The reality is the opposite. Despite the price, there are huge waiting lists. Many coaches, like Howe, go to other countries because it’s cheaper and easier. The Spanish-born Mikel Arteta, who at one point said he would consider a call-up for England, was one of a number of big names to do his badges in Wales.

Senior development staff in Uefa would contend that such interest is because the FA’s coaching is “definitely among the top five in Europe” when it comes to providing education for the whole game rather than just the elite. This can directly be seen in the number of quality players produced by England; a group that is now the envy of the football world. It has produced star after star, which is what made the job so attractive to someone like Tuchel.

 

That is also where the FA's vaunted plan has come to a crux.

England has coaching that produces elite players but not, ironically, elite coaches themselves.

Figures from other countries are more critical about that. The comment in Italian football is “what English coaching?” The last two European Championships finals emphasise the array of flaws.

 

England had the talent and the wider managerial outlook, but not the fine details or the grander tactical vision. In the Euro 2020 final, the Italian side felt that a better coach would not have allowed them into the game. They were particularly critical of the use and timing of subs, especially as regards what it said about England and Gareth Southgate’s reading of the game. That isn’t to disparage Southgate specifically, since he brought other qualities. It’s that those shortcomings are part of a trend.

In Euro 2024, Spain could appoint a relative managerial unknown in Luis de la Fuente – a Spanish Lee Carsley, if you like – and still win. That was because they had this core national tactical ideology, that both underpins everything and amplifies everyone.

 

It’s why there is a global demand for Spanish, German and Portuguese coaches but not English ones.

“If you are looking for elite coaches,” one executive says, “England isn’t a key market.”

That difference also points to a cultural issue beyond the FA, that further inhibits its coaching products. “England has loads of qualified coaches,” the same executive confides. “But it’s not about the qualification, it’s about how the football culture you grow up with melds with that coaching education. It’s the details and what you’re immersed in.”

 

The very articulation of a Spanish or German football idea comes from environments where it is more natural to discuss the game in depth, which also has a multiplying effect. Portugal is meanwhile on its second coaching revolution. It has already moved on from the Jose Mourinho era, which admirably introduced the idea of coaching as an educational degree, but resulted in defensive football. Managers like Ruben Amorim have now come out of that system to practice more progressive modern approaches, particularly taking notes from German pressing. It is the development of a totally new ideology in what has been quite a short time. That can be a lesson for the FA.

Qualifying for Uefa A and Pro licenses in Portugal is even more competitive, too, and their federation insists on a high number of hours of coaching – much more than England – before you can even apply.

 

There is an obvious irony in how Portugal is arguably the next biggest football country after England to have appointed a foreign coach, but many say that was down to something simple – and political. Roberto Martinez had a plan for Cristiano Ronaldo in the way other potential appointments like Mourinho didn’t.

 

There’s an argument that Portugal's own coaches were unwilling to go down that road. While finances also played a part: two (Marco Silva and Nuno Espirito Santo) are in better-paid jobs in the Premier League.

The FA also suffers because the country’s main football competition is not really an English league but a global league that happens to be in England. Its ownership is international and their interest is in commercially growing clubs to international size, which means they just want the best coaches – no matter where they’re from. Hence its managerial make-up is four Spanish, three English, two Dutch, two Portuguese, one Australian, one Austrian, one Danish, one German, one Italian, one Northern Irish, one Scottish and one Welsh.

 

The issue mirrors the Premier League’s role as regards regulation. It is the most powerful entity in England due to its financial size alone, but has little interest in regulating the wider game. By the same token, it has little obligation to appoint English coaches and improve them. That effect has inevitably bled into the Championship.

Some now wonder whether the top two divisions could impose a similar programme to the Elite Player Performance Plan, but for coaches.

For now, it means few English managers are getting chances to even test their abilities at the top level. It gives the FA little choice.

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[ajthefox]

The point in the last two paragraph is one I was thinking about earlier but struggling to articulate as eloquently.

 

The money in the PL is to the detriment of our coaching. It's not the only issue but it is certainly a contributory factor.

 

[Guest Bilo]

16 hours ago, sharpylcfc said:

Funny you suggest this I couldn't play football cause of my disability but was always interested in the coaching side but I had to stop at a certain point because I couldn't afford coaching badges from a certain point.

It's crazy that a football mad nation just doesn't produce quality coaches. We weren't producing world class players either until around 10-15 years ago, but ultimately altered our approaches to ensure that English football didn't get completely left behind.

 

We've since gone from a team that would be lucky to make the quarter-finals to one that regularly competes at the business end of tournaments and would see anything less than a semi-final in WC2026 as a disappointment. 

 

Whatever the FA has done with player development now needs to be done with coaches. No English manager winning our own domestic league in 33 years is a disgrace. 

[sharpylcfc]

12 minutes ago, Bilo said:

It's crazy that a football mad nation just doesn't produce quality coaches. We weren't producing world class players either until around 10-15 years ago, but ultimately altered our approaches to ensure that English football didn't get completely left behind.

 

We've since gone from a team that would be lucky to make the quarter-finals to one that regularly competes at the business end of tournaments and would see anything less than a semi-final in WC2026 as a disappointment. 

 

Whatever the FA has done with player development now needs to be done with coaches. No English manager winning our own domestic league in 33 years is a disgrace. 

The pricing for rising up the levels of coaching badges doesn't help either, I just think when it comes to coaching badges they should do what they do with university and do as like a coaching loan then when you hit a certain threshold you pay it back like with a student loan. I had to stop my coaching badges cause of not being able to afford it. Do you think the price side is what is affecting young English coming through? Or is it that most clubs want instant success now so aren't willing to give young coaches a chance?

[BKLFox]

Whilst none of us have warmed to Russell Martin I would imagine he’s someone on the list earmarked by the FA for future potential coaching of the national side.

He has a team identity which is currently mocked by our fans despite in the next breath asking what’s Coopers team identity? 
There’s an assumption that because he’s struggling with STH currently then he’s shite, but do we not think he could walk into Man C training ground and not produce with that identity?

 

Whilst Martin will be on that list Personally I think that the FA will be looking at McKenna for the future role, he’s only just signed a new contract with Ipswich which would have been costly to breakout of + he probably feels he’s wants a crack at the Premier now he’s there but in 2yrs time who knows?

 

Howe and Potter are the obvious names that spring to mind due to the clubs they have been at/with but if neither were on the list and FA were looking at 10 other candidates then McKenna and Martin might have been in the thinking if not actually on the list this time round.

 

Whilst the pool is currently shallow for elite English coaching talent the likes of McKenna, Martin, Rosenior & Still are all fairly new in their coaching careers throw in the elite players Rooney, Gerrard, Lampard & Carrick again new in terms of coaching + Howe and Potter that’s 10 i can think of without googling those abroad then you have the churn of Smith, Dyche, Moyes etc 

Who’s to say those 1st 10 won’t go on to achieve success, like playing careers they need to learn and then catch a break with certain clubs, which as already mentioned in other posts is hard to get because top jobs are few and far + the same coaches are currently on the merry-go-round.

 

So whilst it’s thin now if we didn’t want to go down the churn route, in 4,5,6yrs time there might be a few more names to pick from, if precious about being homegrown that is.

[Leicesterpool]

10 interviewed, be interesting to know. Apparently neither Potter or Howe were considered 

 

I can imagine all 10 were candidates were out of work

 

 

Tuchel

Carsley

Lampard 🙄😒 you just know. Maybe explains why uncle Arry was so bitter

Moyes 🫣

Benitez

Klinsmann 

Low 

Klopp 😯 bet he was first choice but declined

Pardew 🤨 based that hes worked abroad

Steve Holland

 

[Ian Nacho]

Not sure how I feel about this. Surely you should be employed based on merit, not on the box that you tick. Surely that is racist in itself?

[bovril]

36 minutes ago, Ian Nacho said:

Not sure how I feel about this. Surely you should be employed based on merit, not on the box that you tick. Surely that is racist in itself?

Non English coach in England is not 'minority-ethnic'? lmao

[Super_horns]

England on tour in the summer again.

 

https://www.itv.com/news/central/2025-02-19/nottingham-forest-to-host-england-mens-team-for-first-time-in-84-years?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR232C20y4gWkKK7twbXmE4gwpPYkCH5W4bQAsGbtkvZt-IC0LmnREYzCPQ_aem_CvHdd80B-ybokfCnpyUWVw

 

This time to your good friends up the road.

 

 

Seems it was announced last week - missed that news has to be said.

 

Edited 26 February 2025 by Super_horns