Kay: Like Guardiola, we should take the new wave of English coaches seriously (2024)

It was one of those outbursts that, coming from Sam Allardyce, was portrayed in a certain unforgiving light. Not for the first time, he was banging the drum for English managers, saying they had become an endangered species and warning that, the way things were going, there would soon be none left in the Premier League.

On the final day of the 2014-15 season, there were nine English managers in the Premier League. A year later there were just three: Allardyce at Sunderland, Alan Pardew at Crystal Palace and Eddie Howe at Bournemouth. Speaking in May 2016, Allardyce lamented owners’ predilections for “sexier” names from overseas, but the struggles of John Carver at Newcastle United, Chris Ramsey at Queens Park Rangers, Tim Sherwood at Aston Villa and Steve McClaren at Newcastle United had not exactly done wonders for his argument. If anything, a lot of homegrown managers seemed out of their depth in the modern Premier League.

Paul Clement came and went from Swansea City. Mike Phelan likewise at Hull City, Craig Shakespeare at Leicester City. Pardew was sacked by Crystal Palace and West Bromwich Albion. Howe and Sean Dyche earned plaudits at Bournemouth and Burnley respectively, but Allardyce was correct in expressing doubts whether a bigger club would ever take a chance on them, let alone on any of the English coaches trying to prove their worth in the Sky Bet Championship or the leagues below. The problem, Allardyce said, was that English managers were “almost deemed second-class citizens” in their own country.

The statistics are pretty stark:

• No English manager has led a team to the Premier League title. Indeed the only living Englishman to have won the league is Howard Wilkinson, who did so with Leeds United in 1991-92, the final season before the Premier League era. None has even come within 10 points of winning the title since Roy Evans with Liverpool in 1997.
• Since the turn of the century, only three English managers have taken a team to a top-four finish (Sir Bobby Robson with Newcastle United, Harry Redknapp with Tottenham Hotspur and Frank Lampard with Chelsea). Extend that to the top six and, since the turn of the century, you can only add Pardew with Newcastle, Sherwood with Tottenham and Allardyce with Bolton Wanderers.
• Since Brian Little won the League Cup with Aston Villa in 1996, only two English managers have won any of the major domestic trophies — McClaren the League Cup with Middlesbrough in 2004 and Redknapp the FA Cup with Portsmouth four years later. In other words, of the past 74 major trophies available in English football, just two of them have been won by English managers. That will become 75 when either Pep Guardiola or Jose Mourinho wins the Carabao Cup on April 25.
• Only eight English managers have led a team in the Champions League (Wilkinson with Leeds, Ray Harford with Blackburn Rovers, Robson with Porto, PSV and Newcastle, Phil Thompson as caretaker manager of Liverpool, Redknapp with Tottenham, Gary Neville with Valencia, Shakespeare with Leicester and Lampard with Chelsea). Only Robson and Lampard have had more than one Champions League campaign — and Lampard, replaced by Thomas Tuchel last month, will not get a second tilt at the knockout stage this season. Knockout stage victories: one apiece for Redknapp and Shakespeare.

It is, therefore, with a certain amount of caution and a bucketload of historical context that the following statement is made: the stock of English coaches seems to be rising. This season began with no fewer than eight in charge of Premier League teams. That figure briefly rose to nine after Allardyce’s appointment at West Brom and although it dropped back down again when Lampard was sacked by Chelsea, the presence of eight English managers comes as a surprise — contrary to the bleak scenario that Allardyce and others proposed previously.

One of Allardyce’s statements back then was that younger English managers, trying to make their way from the lower divisions as he did with Blackpool, Notts County and Bolton a generation earlier, were being left with “nowhere to go”. He cited Dean Smith at Brentford and Chris Wilder at Sheffield United as perfect examples of English managers whose career prospects appeared limited by owners’ preference for looking overseas. When he left Palace in May 2017, he recommended Wilder as his successor. Palace appointed Frank de Boer and then sacked him after he lost his first four Premier League games in charge (though they did replace him with a far more experienced English manager in Hodgson).

A new generation has emerged, though — and one of the most encouraging things is the variety of their backgrounds and experiences. On one hand, there are high-profile former players such as Steven Gerrard (who has put Rangers firmly on course for their first Scottish league title in a traumatic decade), Fulham’s Scott Parker, Lampard and Wayne Rooney (who recently took over at Derby County), who have delighted many within the game by forgoing the comfort and security of the television studio and opting instead to roll their sleeves up and get stuck into coaching.

On the other hand, some have made their way up through the divisions like Smith (from Walsall to Brentford to Villa) and Wilder (from Alfreton Town to Halifax Town to Oxford United to Northampton Town to Sheffield United), offering hope to those further down the leagues such as Gareth Ainsworth at Wycombe Wanderers and Michael Appleton at Lincoln City, to name but two.

And then some have taken a different route entirely. Potter, after an unspectacular playing career, graduated from the Open University with a degree in social sciences, and worked with universities and women’s teams before spending seven years as an integral part of the success story that saw Ostersunds rise from obscurity to win the Swedish Cup in 2017 and reach the Europa League knockout stage the following season. That brought him to the attention of Swansea City, where, after an impressive first season, he was appointed by Brighton & Hove Albion in 2019. He was replaced at Swansea by a highly-rated Welsh coach in Steve Cooper, 41, who coached Liverpool’s youth teams before doing likewise with England.

The obvious question, really, is whether they have the qualities to survive and thrive as Premier League managers in a way that, for example, Garry Monk, Phelan, Ramsey, Sherwood, Shakespeare never threatened to. And for now, the answer is that, while the biggest jobs are likely to keep going to those coaches who have proved themselves on the biggest stages, notably in the Champions League, there is plenty of reason to feel that Smith, Potter, Wilder, Dyche, Gerrard, Lampard and others — including Howe, who is continuing to wait for his next opportunity after resigning at Bournemouth after their relegation at the end of last season — have their best years ahead of them.

It cannot be ignored that the highest-placed of the eight English-managed teams is Smith’s Villa, who are eighth, albeit with at least one game in hand on most of the teams above them. Beyond that, there is Hodgson’s Palace in 13th, Potter’s Brighton in 15th, Bruce’s Newcastle in 16th, Dyche’s Burnley in 17th, Parker’s Fulham in 18th, Allardyce’s West Brom in 19th and Wilder’s Sheffield United in 20th. In other words, seven of the bottom eight places are occupied by English-managed teams, which means it is almost certain that three English-managed teams will be relegated. Norwich City and Brentford, the top two teams in the Championship, are coached — extremely well-coached — by Germany’s Daniel Farke and Denmark’s Thomas Frank respectively, so it seems unlikely that the number of English managers will stay long at the current level.

But while Newcastle’s supporters are entitled to bemoan the quality of the football under Bruce and West Brom’s fans will debate the decision to replace Slaven Bilic (0.54 points per game) with Allardyce (0.55 points per game), the newer wave of English managers are doing well. Fulham have a far clearer identity — and are getting far better results — under Parker than they did in their previous spell in the Premier League two years ago. Burnley’s playing style under Dyche is not to every taste, but it is certainly effective and his achievement in putting them on course for a sixth successive season of top-flight football (having taken them as high as seventh and 10th with one of the league’s small budgets) deserves great credit.

The question of style is an interesting one. Of the eight teams with the lowest average share of possession in the Premier League, going into Sunday’s matches, six (in descending order, Fulham, Sheffield United, Palace, Burnley, Newcastle, West Brom) have English managers and a seventh, West Ham United, are managed by a Scot in David Moyes. For the record, West Brom’s has fallen under Allardyce, but it was already among the lowest under Bilic.

It does seem notable, though, that Fulham are averaging 48.4 per cent possession per game under Parker — marginally higher than Wolverhampton Wanderers (48.2 per cent) under Nuno Espirito Santo, and just below Tottenham Hotspur (48.8 per cent) and Everton (48.4 per cent) under Jose Mourinho and Carlo Ancelotti. When it comes to expected goals (xG) per 90 minutes, a measure of the quality of chances a team creates, Fulham are 13th, just below Everton, Tottenham and Arsenal. Brighton are eighth in that particular category and, most strikingly of all, Villa are fourth behind Liverpool, Manchester City and Manchester United — all of which might make you wonder what Smith, Parker and Potter might be able to achieve with higher quality players at their disposal.

It is never good to succumb to the flavour-of-the-month talk that has previously seen Pardew and Monk proposed as future England managers, butSmith’s performance at Villa looked more impressive than ever after a controlled 1-0 victory over Arsenal on Saturday took his team into eighth place and there does seem to be an impressive depth to Potter’s work at Brighton.

The difficult decision to replace Chris Hughton with Potter was based on a belief that, to become an established top-flight team, they needed to replace cautious football with a more enterprising, high-risk, possession-based approach. To make that type of transition is far from easy, and Potter faced criticism during a run of nine Premier League games without a win, but a sense of purpose, identity and direction has always been clear. After months of defying the xG analysts by taking far fewer points than their performances seemingly deserved, Brighton have taken 10 points from their last five matches, including a treasured victory over Liverpool at Anfield on Wednesday evening.

The mention of Liverpool seems relevant here. Much has been made of the champions’ struggles against the struggling teams this season, but perhaps opposition managers deserve more praise for stifling their attacking threat. Over the Christmas period, Allardyce and Bruce kept Jurgen Klopp’s team at arm’s length with disciplined defensive performances. Dyche followed that by becoming the first visiting manager to win at Anfield in the Premier League in almost four years — a feat matched by Potter and his Brighton team a fortnight later. Yes, going to Anfield looks a lot less daunting right now, but part of that comes down to the way the organised, intelligent gameplans of West Brom, Burnley and Brighton have helped to break that aura.

Whatever the traditional accusations that are thrown at English managers — that they are tactically naive or that they lack the ability to coach their teams to play modern, progressive football — perceptions slowly seem to be changing. This generation have not gone into management as an afterthought. They don’t regard the UEFA coaching courses as simply a matter of “doing my badges”. They are studious and hard-working with a sense of how they want their teams to play and how to get their message across. Daft as it sound, not every English manager in previous generations went into the job with such a grounding.

Guardiola raves about Potter, just as he has done about Howe in the past. “We were in front of the best English manager right now,” he said after Manchester City’s hard-fought 1-0 win over Brighton last month. “You have to be a top side to play that way. Every pass makes sense. Their movement between the lines up front makes sense. Every player is in his position to get the ball and be free. As a spectator, I like to watch these teams. I like watching Brighton play. I recognise it. When I was a football player, I would love to play in this team.”

It is doubtful whether Guardiola would extend that compliment to Dyche — never mind to Bruce or Allardyce — but coaching has always been a broad church. Getafe finished fifth in La Liga two seasons ago with a pass completion rate of 63.7 per cent under Jose Bordalas. Last season it was 61.9 per cent. For context, the lowest such figure in the Premier League this season is Burnley’s 70.6 per cent. There will always be managers who treasure possession and others who focus more on staying compact without the ball. Burnley’s style might be the most direct in the Premier League, but it is hardly knuckle-dragging stuff.

Even if Wilder and Sheffield United seem to be afflicted with the ultimate case of second-season syndrome, the younger English managers are performing well. And of course, if they keep doing well, a time will come when they feel they are entitled to at least be considered when bigger jobs come up. Allardyce felt it outrageous that nobody offered him the chance to manage at a more high-profile Premier League club. “I was always told if I was called Allardicio, I could have managed Man United,” he told Talksport in 2017 before slipping into a cod-Franco-Italian accent.

There always seemed rather more to it than that — and the likelihood is that, when Moyes struggled so badly at Manchester United after being given the opportunity to follow Sir Alex Ferguson, and when Hodgson lasted even less time at Liverpool, it didn’t do wonders for the reputation of British managers. There were mitigating circ*mstances, but both appointments went terribly. Lampard’s time at Chelsea should be regarded more positively, given that they were top of the Premier League two months ago and have sailed through two Champions League group stages, but it seems unlikely that Roman Abramovich, having taken 16 years to appoint an English manager, will do so again in a hurry.

If one of the bigger clubs were to turn to a British manager, then Brendan Rodgers, from Carnlough in Northern Ireland, would surely have the strongest case, given that his post-Liverpool reputation has been enhanced by his success at Celtic and by the way he has transformed Leicester’s players, individually and collectively, since taking over from Claude Puel two years ago this month. Unless it was Liverpool going down the Lampard route with Gerrard, or perhaps Tottenham likewise with Parker, it is not easy to imagine a “big six” club appointing an English coach in the immediate future.

It is hard enough for Smith, Potter, Dyche, Parker and the rest to demonstrate that they deserve to manage in the Premier League. It is not, as Allardyce once put it, “a foreign league played in England”, but it is an international league — a majority of overseas owners, overseas players and, more often than not, overseas coaches. There are 17 Italian coaches in Serie A and 14 Spanish coaches in La Liga, but most Premier League owners are inclined to look abroad to find the most attractive option, in many cases with spectacular results. Even for those homegrown managers who have managed to buck the trend, there has long been a feeling that a glass ceiling would mean that even upper-mid-table jobs are out of reach, particularly for the younger ones.

That could well change over the coming years. Potter looks capable of making his mark at a bigger club (though good lucking finding one with a vision as clear as that at Brighton). Smith already has Villa in contention for European qualification this season, which might help the Midlands club to reassert themselves at a level more in keeping with their rich history. Dyche’s playing style and gruff demeanour might well scare off a few owners, but he is known to be admired by the hierarchy at Palace as they turn their minds towards life beyond Hodgson. And then there is Howe, whose success in taking Bournemouth all the way to the Premier League and keeping them there for five years attracted admiration in high places, as it should have done.

There is still that concern about managers being left with “nowhere to go”, as Allardyce put it, but this generation of English coaches seems a little more worldly, a little more willing to look beyond the Premier League and Championship, as Potter has already demonstrated in Sweden. That, too, is encouraging.

The attraction of the Premier League is powerful, though, and not just for homegrown managers. The clamour for Premier League jobs vastly exceeds the limited supply, which is what Allardyce was talking about when he warned of English managers being neglected or lost further down the system. At least if there is a bottleneck right now, it is happening higher up the league than it did before. In any case, supporters of Villa, Brighton, Burnley, Fulham and Sheffield United will tell their managers there is no need for them to “go” anywhere.

Some of Newcastle’s fans might well have a more pointed message for Bruce, but his uninspiring record has to be seen in the context of an ownership regime that sucked the ambition out of the club long before he arrived in the summer of 2019. His record at St James’ Park is reasonable. Less so some of his recent digs at his more popular predecessor Rafael Benitez (“the mighty Rafa” — his CV is pretty impressive you know, Steve) and, indeed, his disparaging response to mentions of Howe (“the fella from Bournemouth”) as a potential replacement, but the 60-year-old’s desire to fight his corner is understandable.

Looking into the middle distance, the England job will come up again. Gareth Southgate is under contract until after the 2022 World Cup and perhaps, after six years, there will be a desire on both sides to move on to something new.

The England job has often been about being in the right place at the right time, but it seems reasonable to suggest that the field of homegrown candidates will be stronger than it was in 2016 when they appointed Allardyce, a decade on from overlooking him when he was at his peak at Bolton, and then, after his tenure unravelled so quickly, turned to Southgate, who by that stage seemed to be almost the last English manager standing.

It is easy to imagine the FA turning to Gerrard or Lampard or Parker or whichever former England player seemed to have the best CV at that particular time, but equally, it is tempting to wonder whether a less glamorous figure such as Smith, Potter, Wilder, Dyche or even Cooper, a Welshman who has worked for the FA before, might fit the bill. It is a job for any English coach to aspire to, but so too, with the bar raised higher and higher by the calibre of coaches coming from abroad, is just about every job in the Premier League.

It was not easy, a few years ago, to imagine that a new group of English managers might be able to hold their own in the Premier League, telling their teams to go toe-to-toe with Ralph Hasenhuttl’s Southampton, or Ancelotti’s Everton, urging them to pass Nuno’s Wolves or Mourinho’s Tottenham off the park, never mind earning ringing endorsem*nts from Guardiola or cracking the code to beat Klopp’s Liverpool at Anfield. To survive in that company takes a certain level of competence and expertise. To thrive, as several of them are doing, takes even more. Even if the bigger prizes and the bigger jobs remain out of reach, the progress of the new wave of English coaches really should not be sniffed at.

(Photo: Getty Images/Design: Sam Richardson)