In Henry Winter’s book Fifty Years of Hurt, which examines the reasons for England’s repeated failure at major tournaments (it was published in 2016), he recounts a conversation with Michael Owen about a training session before England faced Colombia at World Cup 98.
“It was hilarious,” says Owen. “Beckham and Scholes were doing this free kick. Glenn wanted them to put one foot on the other side of the ball. So when the other player comes and smacks the ball, it hits the top of their foot, gets a huge amount of top spin up and over the wall, goes massively quick and comes down. Beckham tried it. Scholes tried it – it was going everywhere. Glenn couldn’t understand it. He walked to Beckham and said: ‘I thought someone of your ability would be able to do it’.”
It presents an illuminating image of the former elite player as coach, particularly in cases such as Hoddle’s where playing success depended largely upon innate natural talent. Hoddle simply could not fathom that an international player (and two of England’s best passers) might not be able to replicate what he would – and probably still did – find so simple. That inability to find shared ground hampered Hoddle’s communication. It created a divide.
Over the last fortnight, Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard, those two pillars of late-noughties English football pub debate, have expressed their exasperation at all that confronts them from the touchline. After Everton’s 4-0 defeat to Crystal Palace, Lampard resorted to a distinctly Sitton-ian rant during which he asked them publicly: “Have you got the bollocks to play?”.
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Both come from the same chapter in the motivational textbook. These conversations are commonplace in private, but a public shaming is intent upon demanding – and letting supporters know that they are demanding – more. The warning is clear: stop making us all look bad.
Gerrard will not be able to buy a new team (nine of the 14 players Villa used on Saturday arrived at the club in June 2020 or later), but they are both – even inadvertently – suggesting that the problem lies on the pitch rather than the touchline. Both managers have been bestowed with new players. Villa and Everton signed nine first-teamers between them in January; only Newcastle can rival that.
This strategy is interesting because of who Gerrard and Lampard were as players. Both set standards that others were asked to follow at clubs with high-end aspirations. They competed in four Champions League finals and won 11 domestic cup finals. If they cannot fathom why their current players cannot match either their technical ability, their composure or their determination, their playing careers shaped that perplexity. They also largely played for clubs who demanded those same standards and had the revenue to replace those who didn’t match up.
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Both can use that experience as tools in their current predicaments. Playing experience, particularly at the top level, can loosely relate to coaching aptitude, particularly the technical and even tactical aspects of the game. Or, to be colloquial, having been there and done that allows you to pass on experience to those who haven’t been there or done that.
But it only takes you partway. To be a good player, you must grasp your own strengths and weaknesses, maximising the former and improving – or hiding – the latter. To be a good coach, you must do the same with others both individually and as a collective. Whereas as a player much of that process was internalised – or in Hoddle’s case – came naturally, as a coach it takes meticulous planning, precise man management and years of study and formative experience. Rather than one job, you suddenly have many.
That process has been made harder for Lampard and Gerrard – although they can expect little sympathy – because football management still contains elements of aristocracy that outweighs meritocracy from which they have benefitted. That is more relevant to Lampard, who got the Chelsea job largely because of who he was as a player than what he had proven he was as a coach. But Gerrard too was appointed by Villa after fewer than 200 matches as a first-team manager. His two immediate predecessors, who were both sacked, had more than 1,000 between them at different clubs in different divisions that presented different challenges. Experience is not everything; it is certainly something.
What Gerrard and Lampard might be experiencing is a psychological powerlessness formed by their playing experience. Gerrard would regularly take control of a match and bend it to his will; Lampard repeatedly contributed to significant moments of significant matches. Both had deep connections with the clubs at which they spent the majority of their careers, either through geographical location or long-term loyalty. To use the classic modern football cliche, they excelled in owning their own narratives.
As managers, the narrative is shared. Players cannot be told what to do; they must be coached. You cannot simply ask for half a new team and hope that strategy to be sustainable. If they have benefitted from shortcuts, that reputation can never count for everything. Gerrard and Lampard are not managing teams of 11 Lampards and Gerrards and they would be foolish to try and recreate one. The sooner they make peace with those truths, the better they will be.
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