Southgate’s standing flags up bigger issue
THE era of the Scottish super-manager is over.
With just one remaining Scots boss, David Moyes, hanging by a thread in the Premier League, that much is clear.
But while the glory days of five, six, or even seven Scottish managers in England’s top flight becomes an increasingly distant memory, at least it’s a memory we have in the bank. England don’t. And the bad news for all of my English pals is that their game is not about to start pumping out truly inspiring coaches any time soon.
Want proof? Just look at the man in the top job.
Gareth Southgate is a really pleasant guy, with lots of experience around England’s national team set-up.
But if he’s the best candidate to lead his country to the next World Cup, that tells the whole story.
The doom-mongers have used the current lack of Scots bosses in the Premier League as a stick with which to beat our game.
England are even worse off than we are – and have been for years
To an extent, that’s fair enough. But England are even worse off than we are, and have been for years.
Despite being their native competition, the Premier League is currently home to only four English managers – Eddie Howe, Sean Dyche, Alan Pardew and Mike Phelan.
Only one – Burnley boss Dyche – is in the top half of the table.
With the greatest of respect to all of those guys, there isn’t a Sir Alex Ferguson, a Sir Matt Busby, a Bill Shankly, a Walter Smith, a George Graham or a Kenny Dalglish amongst them – or at least not yet.
At the height of the Scottish invasion, Sir Alex used to jokingly call his compatriot bosses “the master race”.
Meanwhile, the only thing their English equivalents mastered was lagging behind. Look at the history. No English manager has won their own
league title since Howard Wilkinson did it with Leeds United in 1992.
By the end of this season – and assuming none of the current four pull off something incredible – that will mean a quarter of a century has passed since an Englishman masterminded a top league title tilt.
Even worse, in the Premier League era – that’s since the 1992/ 93 season – only two home- grown managers have managed to even finish second.
Ron Atkinson did it first when his Aston Villa side finished runners-up to Manchester United in that inaugural season, then Kevin Keegan followed suit with Newcastle United in 1996.
In the 20 years since, no English boss
has emulated them, and that’s really shocking.
Of course, there are mitigating factors – foreign ownership of ever more Premier League clubs and the increasing influence of foreign agents chief among them.
They have made opportunities harder to come by for English managers – Scots, too.
The agent side of things is an area I think needs attention, though how that would be handled I’m not sure.
Regardless of excuses, it is hugely sad that we are talking about the “end of an era” for Scots managers in England.
But I reckon the fact that we had one at all, whilst England sat back and watched, speaks volumes for Scottish football.