STAN COLLYMORE Lascelles excels as Rafa’s new generation Gerrard
Fwolwloww. Tew. eurk: @peoplesport THE importance of a good captain should never be underestimated and I was fortunate enough to play under several.
Stuart Pearce at Nottingham Forest was arguably the best because he led from the front.
He was a man who would play the ball up to a striker and then chase after it, demanding it back.
He never stood admiring his pass, he took responsibility for what he did on the pitch and, if that didn’t rub off on you, he would take responsibility for you as well.
Stuart would dish out rollockings when one was required, but he would also put an arm round people when situations called for it.
Geoff Thomas, at Crystal Palace, was another big character in a dressing room of very big characters.
Ian Wright, Mark Bright, John Salako, Andy Thorn and Nigel Martyn all knew their own minds, but Geoff would speak up when he needed to and was always heard.
At Liverpool, John Barnes was a very different kind of captain, more of a cajoling figure than a tea cup t hrower who would demand performances from team- mates by grabbing them by the scruff of the neck.
I would liken Gareth Southgate, who was my skipper at Aston Villa, to a cricket captain. I use the cricketing analogy because he grew into the role and he led by consensus rather than ever barracking people or bawling them out.
I mention these men because, in this day and age, so many footballers in their early 20s have been mollycoddled by being in academies since they were nine that they are simply men-children – and there are not too many who stand up to be counted as leaders.
Leadership
That is one of the reasons, if not the main reason, Jamaal Lascelles has impressed so many people – me among them – with the way he conducts himself at Newcastle.
He is happy to call himself out, happy to call out team-mates and his club, if he needs to.
He demands standards, he is not afraid to ask questions and is a reminder that leadership is always an important quality.
Lascelles has recognised that and stepped up – and the Geordie nation will love him for it.
Not only the Geordies, but others will have been impressed, too. And I am specifically thinking Southgate and his England scouts, who will be watching players not just as individual performers leading up to the World Cup, but potential pairings as well.
It is important for managers to have people in their team who will manage not just themselves, but the rest of the players.
And where Lascelles is fortunate is that he has a boss in Rafa Benitez who worked at Liverpool with arguably the best captain in England – and maybe even the world – during the past 20 years.
Undoubtedly, Benitez would have put an arm round Steven Gerrard from time to time at Anfield and said, ‘Keep your eye on so-and-so’, ‘Let me know what’s happening with such-and-such’, ‘He needs a rollocking, give him one so I don’t have to’.
And he will have recognised how Gerrard managed Liverpool dressing rooms, something he can pass on to Lascelles.
If Benitez has found a lite version of Gerrard in the Newcastle skipper, he will be very, very pleased.
The pair of them are up against Benitez’s old club, Liverpool, this afternoon and Lascelles’s qualities as a defender and a leader will be tested to the hilt.
But these are the games where he can further push his case for full representative honours and ask more questions of those in positions of power.