Chelsea chaos shows era of ‘football manager’ is over

Mauricio Pochettino grew frustrated at Chelsea – and Tottenham before – by a lack of control over club matters - AP/Alastair Grant

The age of the football manager is dead. Or dying. Certainly in the Premier League it is. Last season there were just nine from the 20 clubs who held that title; the first time the balance has shifted to the minority. The rest were called head coaches.

Next season it will be even more with Liverpool replacing a manager, in Jurgen Klopp, with their first head coach in Arne Slot, and Julen Lopetegui taking over from David Moyes at West Ham United. Should Erik ten Hag leave as Manchester United manager then his successor can also expect to be given the title of head coach.

It would just leave Pep Guardiola at Manchester City, Mikel Arteta at Arsenal, Everton’s Sean Dyche and the three promoted clubs – Ipswich Town, Leicester City and either Southampton or Leeds United – with managers. Even then, both Kieran McKenna and Enzo Maresca, of Ipswich and Leicester respectively, are on the radars of clubs who want to appoint a head coach this summer.

What does it matter? It is a very British phenomenon. In Germany they are called ‘trainers’; the rest of Europe call them coaches. Only in this country have we had the tradition of calling them managers and – until recently – expect them to run football clubs from top to bottom, be the leader, the spokesman and the person who stands on the touchline trying to win matches.

Those who still hanker after wanting managers will point to Chelsea making a complete mess of things with Mauricio Pochettino. Their structure, with two sporting directors, Laurence Stewart and Paul Winstanley, and with Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali both calling the shots is all wrong and it is little wonder that Pochettino grew frustrated and also that they seemed happy to move him on for, it appears, someone more malleable.

Arteta and Emery bring success with power

Pochettino is a manager/head coach who craves the first title and the responsibilities he believes it should include. It is partly why many foreign coaches like working in England: because they think they will be afforded more say than on the continent. But that does not mean it is right and it is undoubtedly changing.

Pochettino grew frustrated at Tottenham Hotspur, of course, having been apparently elevated to being the club’s manager only to later complain: “I am not in charge… The club need to change my title and description.”

Interestingly, the two currently most successful clubs in England – City and Arsenal – have managers whose roles go far beyond being first-team coaches who work on the training pitches with the players. Arteta, in fact, successfully lobbied for his title to be changed to recognise he was being given more responsibility in 2020. Chief executive Vinai Venkatesham said Arteta “was doing much more than being our head coach” and would work with technical director Edu on managing all the football operations.

In saying that, one of the most powerful figures at a club at present is the man Arteta succeeded at Arsenal, Unai Emery. He has the title ‘head coach’ at Aston Villa but has a huge amount of input and control into how the club is run and acts like a traditional, pervasive manager bringing his own stamp. And it is working.

Unai Emery wields power at Aston Villa and has taken them into the Champions League - Getty Images

But the shift towards a head coach model is logical – however, as with Chelsea, it can not only go badly wrong but be badly structured. All Premier League clubs now have a sporting director, director of football or technical director – and sometimes all three.

Picking through the reporting lines and areas of responsibility can be a problem. As the saying goes – success has many fathers but failure is an orphan. It is also a frustration for some head coaches that while they get one chance to succeed at a club, a director of football can enjoy two or three.

Such is the scale of clubs nowadays that it is almost impossible to have a Sir Alex Ferguson or Arsene Wenger who appears – and wants – to run everything. The global nature of football, the demands – from sporting to commercial to media – are just too great. Is it healthy for a manager to negotiate multi-million pound transfer deals or player contracts? Surely that has to require a more specialised approach once the right player is identified? It would be financially reckless otherwise.

But the head coach can also become the scapegoat and their power can be diminished too far, as appears to have been part of Pochettino’s frustration at Chelsea. There is a head coach at a Championship club, for example, who sits on a three-man committee when it comes to recruitment and the buying and selling of players. The problem for him is that the other two people on the committee are so close that they always vote together. So, he is constantly outnumbered and often overruled. He may as well not bother.

Slot and Hughes will collaborate

There have also been suggestions that Slot’s power will be diminished at Liverpool where the club is being re-structured following the return of Michael Edwards who has been given the title of chief executive of football for the owners Fenway Sports Group.

But Slot will not have players imposed on him by sporting director Richard Hughes. It will be very much a collaboration between the pair. Slot will have his say and that has to be the way otherwise, as at Chelsea, it will not work. It is an approach, also, that Slot is used to and comfortable with. But it also depends on having good relationships.

The best-run clubs are bespoke. They organise themselves for the way that suits them with sporting directors who provide continuity, long-term thinking and make sure things remain on course.

They also do not want a manager or a head coach to give them direction or an identity. They should set that out themselves and then hire someone who can implement it, who fits, who drives it forward but who can also give it his own stamp. Instead, some managers want a club to bend to their will and some clubs want head coaches who do as they are told and carry the can; who become a human shield. Both are wrong.

But what is certain is that the title of manager is being phased out.

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