Behind every great manager...

/ Mike Norman / 12 June 2008 / Leave a Comment

It's not all putting out cones and collecting bibs on rainswept parks- the modern assistant football manager is a combination of futurist visionary, bootroom insider and new internationalist. Mike Norman investigates...

The league title is in the bag and it's time for an open-top bus ride around the city that has just been made so proud. The star player and his glamorous wife will be snapped more than most, the manager will take the plaudits as he gives his speech, and the chairman will be heralded for supporting the club through his wallet.

But what about the poor old assistant manager? Perhaps he gets first refusal on the old bibs and cones that he set out each morning, or a framed picture of him standing proudly next to the top goalscorer after he has just been used for target practice.

You see, the role of an assistant manager has varying degrees of perception attached to it. The one above is the one I had 20 years ago, with the assistant's job involving a few one-twos with the players during a training session and being seen, arms crossed, agreeing with his manager. This perception was completely wrong of course, and I now understand that the role of the assistant is one of the most important cogs in the managerial wheel - and what's more, the English Premiership has some extremely talented right-hand men currently showcasing their talents.

Duties differ dramatically from club to club and doubtless they still do organise training sessions, but what is very evident is the impact they now have on the success of a football club. Sir Alex Ferguson recently heaped praise on his assistant Carlos Queiroz, and when talking about the fitness of his players said: "The entire medical side is fantastic. I don't think there is anywhere better in the world now. This is all down to Carlos' vision of the future which I would not have had."

Not many assistant managers have previously held jobs as a manager in Asia, Africa, America and Europe, but Carlos has, meaning his knowledge of world football is second to none. Along with his futuristic insights, his coaching ability, and the ease at which he speaks with the media adds up to Queiroz being a perfect assistant to one of the world's greatest managers.

If Carlos Queiroz is the chalk then Arsenal's Pat Rice is most definitely the cheese and, for me, epitomises the type of background an assistant manager should have.

When you join a club in a foreign country (as Arsene Wenger did in 1996) then you should look to employ someone who knows that club inside out amongst your backroom staff. Pat Rice was that man. He had spent 16 years at the Gunners as a player before becoming Arsenal's youth team coach in 1984, a role he held for a dozen years. Wenger promptly made Rice his right-hand man and admitted just a few years ago: "One of the good decisions I made in my 10 years was to make Pat Rice my assistant. There is no success for a manager without having a united and quality staff".

Pat Rice rarely talks to the media, he has no experience of being a permanent manager, and he has never been involved with a football team outside London. But spending forty years at one club means he will have an angle on everything - from the tearoom to the training pitch, the boot room to the boardroom, no stone is left unturned when employing an assistant like Pat Rice.

It's interesting that relatively new managers like Gareth Southgate and Phil Brown employ experienced ex-managers as their assistant in Malcolm Crosby and Brian Horton respectively, whereas on the flipside, experienced managers like Harry Redknapp use an ex-player just starting out in the managerial world (Tony Adams) to assist them. Adams will no doubt still have designs on being a manager himself one day, but as proved with Rice, the role of an assistant isn't just a stepping stone to bigger and better things - it's a damned good job in its own right.

Whether it be worldwide experience, decades at one club, or just a reliable ex-player, the one rule appears to be that there isn't a set rule when deciding what type of person will mould into the perfect right-hand man. You'll either be good at it, or you won't!

One thing is certain though - that setting out bibs and cones isn't the only requisite for becoming a good assistant manager these days.