Do Ince and Keane prove that ex-players need to serve an apprenticeship?

Following the sacking of Paul Ince and the resignation of Roy Keane, many people have jumped on the bandwagon of saying that great players do not make great managers, and more particularly, that players need to serve an apprenticeship as a lower league manager or an assistant manager before they can take on a top job.

English problem?

I’ve even seen one very high profile journalist say that the tendency to give the big jobs to former players with little or no managerial experience is purely an English one.

I would take issue with both of these points. Some former top players have gone on to be highly successful managers and the appointment of recently retired great players as manager is certainly not an English issue either.

In common

What do the following people have in common? Roberto Mancini, Jurgen Klinsmann, Paulo Sousa, Didier Deschamps, Laurent Blanc, Diego Maradona, Paul Le Guen, Frank Rijkaard, Pep Guardiola, Johann Cruyff, Franz Beckenbaur and Michel Platini.

Yes, you’ve guessed it. They have all been given high profile jobs with little or no managerial experience. As far as I can see, none of them are English and some of them have been pretty successful!

In the English league you could point to Kenny Dalglish. A fabulous player who then won the League and FA Cup double as Liverpool manager and the Premier League with Blackburn. He served no apprenticeship and actually started at Liverpool as player/manager.

Highest level

Prior to the departures of Keane and Ince, fourteen of the twenty managers in the Premier League had themselves played the game at the highest level of English football. You can add Sir Alex Ferguson to that list as he was a top player in Scotland with Glasgow Rangers amongst others.

OK, it doesn’t seem like the immediate switch from great player to top manager has worked out for these two ex-Manchester United midfield supremos, but their appointments were not bad ones in the first place.

Too quickly

Keane took on a club struggling at the bottom of the Championship. It would have been perfectly acceptable for him to have a couple of years managing at that level before then taking Sunderland into the Premier League to see if he could cut it at the top. Nobody could have known that he would have such a successful first season and take them into the Premier League so that he maybe arrived their too quickly.

Paul Ince had served an apprenticeship of sorts. He did a great job keeping Macclesfield in the football league a couple of seasons ago, although the teams that went down would have been difficult to get underneath! He then went to MK Dons who had nearly achieved promotion the season before, had fantastic facilities, an ambitious young chairman and more money than anyone else in their league. He got them promoted. He could do no more.

Ready

The question is, were either of them ready for the task of managing in the Premier League. The end result would suggest that they weren’t, but for me, that is not because of their past, it is because of them as individuals and the situation they found themselves in.

Several great players have tried to make a career in management by serving an appenticeship and have never made it to the top level because they were not cut out for the role. Look at the England World Cup winning team from 1966. Nobby Stiles, Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst and Bobby Charlton all had ill-fated attempts at management and Alan Ball never really ‘cut the mustard’ as a manager either. They all tried to ‘do it right’ by serving an apprenticeship, but never made it.

Relatively successful

I strongly believe that you are either cut out for management or you are not. Gareth Southgate has done OK at Middlesbrough and Mark Hughes was a great success at Wales and Blackburn. Steve Bruce has been relatively successful without too much experience as an assistant or in the lower leagues.

You can also look at Martin O’Neill who did start his managerial career in the non-league and lower league arena. He has gome on to be one of our top managers, but he may well have done so even if he had gone straight into one of the top jobs. He is just cut out to be a manager.

Right club, right time

Much of success or failure boils down to being at the right club at the right time. Gareth Southgate was at a club where the fans loved him and the Chairman, Steve Gibson, is one of the very best. He has been given time and money to try to get it right and he is doing it pretty well.

Paul Ince took over at a club that has been over-achieving and whose fans were upset that the previous manager had left. He took over when one of his best players, David Bentley, and his excellent goalkeeper, Brad Friedel, were being sold.

Once the season started, his guaranteed goalscorer, Roque Santa Cruz, stopped scoring goals. Paul Ince was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Flying high

You only have to look over to Spain and see Pep Guardiola flying high with Barcelona. He has less experience in management than Paul Ince but has made a great start to his career. Once again it is a case of right time, right place.

Being an ex great player is no guarantee that you will be a great manager. Equally, however, it is no guarantee that you won’t be, either.