Handshakes aren’t always the first thing on your mind

YOU CANNOT imagine the sense of failure and dejection when that final whistle blows and your team have lost. Shaking the hand of the opposition manager is not exactly the first thought that comes into your mind. If you come across each other, you will shake his hand begrudgingly 90 per cent of the time. There are a couple of occasions when a manager hasn’t shaken my hand — usually when my team have beaten theirs unexpectedly or they have been upset with my shenanigans in the technical area. You can probably work out who that was! The time when I upset an opposition manager the most was after my team had beaten his and Neil Warnock was furious with me for not shaking his hand at the end and came out and said so. What he hadn’t worked out was that I had a touchline ban and wasn’t in the dug-out! Look, most managers are taking the emotions they felt as players on to the touchline. You try to behave, but it is the sense of what is right and what is wrong that pulses through your body. The theatre of the technical area, with cameras and photographers watching your every move, is part of the modern game. The referee might have made a bad call and you know your rival manager knows that. You might make a plea to the fourth official. ‘Come on!’ The reply from the other manager? ‘What are you moaning about?’ Then it starts. You might see a challenge like Sadio Mane’s and say out loud: ‘He’s got to go’, to nobody in particular. You are feeling the game. But the other manager might hear you and think you are trying to influence the officials. It’s a natural reaction and a normal emotion. When you look at Mark Hughes and Jose Mourinho on the touchline and it becomes heated you know they are both fiery, they both desperately want their teams to win and neither will take a step back. I’ve not had a single problem with either of them, I should say.