Managers & Pundits

I was just thinking tonight about the large amount of ex-Liverpool players who have turned to punditry - eg Lawrenson, Hansen, Houghton, Whelan, Beglin, - all would've played together and very few went into management - Dalglish the main one who did (probably cos no-one would know what he was saying if he was a pundit.

On the other hand not many United players go into TV but a lot go into management - Bruce, Keane, Ince, Robson, Robins, Hughes. Bit strange isn't it - though Brucie hasn't a face for TV god love him. Is it the bully's influence that they all go into management? And why didn't the Pool lads? Answers on a postcard ....

I suppose the United lads were inspired serving under one of the all time great managers, Solskjaer is in management now too..

No idea why the Liverpool lads wanted to go on and become terrible pundits though..

Jonsmith wrote:I suppose the United lads were inspired serving under one of the all time great managers

Not so JS - all those lads were AFTER Sir Matt .....

Jayo Cluxton wrote:

Jonsmith wrote:I suppose the United lads were inspired serving under one of the all time great managers

Not so JS - all those lads were AFTER Sir Matt .....

& Keane aside none of them played under Clough I believe

Ince played for Liverpool

Aside from that fair point - Jamie Redknapp being another example and Phil Tompson being a hybrid -

Though picking up on JS's train of thought - I might borrow an analogy from the Irisih Building boom
maybe its a case of "IF that Gimp can do it so can I"

Jayo Cluxton wrote:I was just thinking tonight about the large amount of ex-Liverpool players who have turned to punditry - eg Lawrenson, Hansen, Houghton, Whelan, Beglin, - all would've played together and very few went into management - Dalglish the main one who did (probably cos no-one would know what he was saying if he was a pundit.

I don't know about that Jayo, as Liverpool have had their fair share of managers too.

Thompson, Souness, Barnes, Sammy Lee, Aldridge, Staunton, Kevin MacDonald, Keegan, Whelan, Steve Nicol have all managed teams, some at a higher level than others. Ray Clemence and Terry McDermott have coached for years.

I'm sure there are a couple more, but those are the ones that come to mind.

Thomas Clarke wrote:

Jayo Cluxton wrote:I was just thinking tonight about the large amount of ex-Liverpool players who have turned to punditry - eg Lawrenson, Hansen, Houghton, Whelan, Beglin, - all would've played together and very few went into management - Dalglish the main one who did (probably cos no-one would know what he was saying if he was a pundit.

I don't know about that Jayo, as Liverpool have had their fair share of managers too.

Thompson, Souness, Barnes, Sammy Lee, Aldridge, Staunton, Kevin MacDonald, Keegan, Whelan, Steve Nicol have all managed teams, some at a higher level than others. Ray Clemence and Terry McDermott have coached for years.

I'm sure there are a couple more, but those are the ones that come to mind.

Well maybe thats the the whole point - The players that Jayo listed and the players you have listed have all in the main won numerous league titles between them - Liverpool in the seventies/eighties - United in the Nineties/Noughties - Years of being involved in winning teams icertainly gives someone a head start in management. The pressures of the job also mean that careers can be volatile and tenures short - Uniteds success has come more recently therefore - It is natural that they will currently have more ex-players in the spotlight.

The other obvious factor is the "home counties" side of things the Liverpools teams of the 70's and 80's and the United team of the nineties included significant numbers of players that were from the British Isles and who were likely to remain in England post retirement. If you look at the current batch I'm not so sure that we will see Tevez,Drogba,Fabergas managing Bolton or Wigan in future years. - Although maybe the Gerrards and Lampards
will ?

As regards the punditry side of things - Again I think this comes down to the fact that in reality there are five/Six sports channels that we are exposed to for soccer - two of whom are Irish and we also listen to 2 or 3 Irish radio stations so naturally our exposure to punditry will have an Irish weighting. Over the last thirty years Liverpool have had more that their fair share of "leading Irish players" - Staunton, Heighway,Lawrenson, Whelan, Aldridge, Houghton, Babb so in that regard we are more likley to have a Liverpool pundit than other clubs