Blackpool's Neil Critchley: 'I wouldn’t have left Liverpool unless it was for something special'
It is almost five months since Neil Critchley swapped Liverpool for League One but, by now, he envisaged having more than two matches and a handful of training sessions under his belt. His Blackpool reign was 11 days old when the music stopped on their season in March. “It has been incredibly bizarre,” says Critchley, who had worked in Liverpool’s academy for seven years, developing a reputation as one of the most respected coaches in the game after being headhunted by Brendan Rodgers.
Leaving Liverpool, Critchley says, was a difficult decision, one he mulled over with the academy director, Alex Inglethorpe, but he felt it was time to test himself as a manager, an ambition that has grown since he started coaching in his late teens, going on to work at Crewe under Steve Holland, now England’s assistant manager, before joining Liverpool. Critchley compares his education to a “Harvard degree in coaching” and there is audible excitement about the task at hand.
“I wouldn’t have left Liverpool unless it was for something special,” he says. “I’m excited by what we have got in front of us here at Blackpool. I want to build a team the people of Blackpool and this area can be proud of. The people in this town, the football club means so much to them; you just sense it. My ambition is to give them a team, a group of players that mirror them. If we can do that, I’m confident with the work we can do that we can be successful.”
Those at Bloomfield Road consider his appointment a coup and Critchley has been keen to get his hands dirty, helping to kickstart the redevelopment of Blackpool’s training facility last month. “I had a bad back for a few days after,” he says, laughing. “If things need doing, we get on with it. That’s what we do. We want to try and make the club better in any way we can. Hopefully, we’ll reap the benefits of that work.
“We want to make that our home on a daily basis; somewhere we can be proud of going to every day and working from. The environment is so important – I’ve seen that at Liverpool – and I want us to be proud of turning up and enjoying the environment we’re in.”
Critchley was Liverpool’s under-18s manager before progressing to take charge of the under-23s and he stepped into Jürgen Klopp’s role this season, taking charge of a 5-0 EFL Cup quarterfinal defeat at Aston Villa, when Klopp and the senior players were at the Club World Cup, and an FA Cup fourthround replay victory against Shrewsbury, which clashed with the Premier League’s winter break. In the latter match, Liverpool fielded their youngest starting lineup, with an average age of 19 years and 102 days. Put to him that, according to Wikipedia, those results translate into him having the 13thhighest win ratio in Liverpool history, and he breaks into laughter. “Prior to the Shrewsbury game, I probably had the worst. I might make a pub quiz question somewhere down the line.”
Did those matches whet his appetite for management? “Those games were special evenings. The supporters travelled in great numbers to Villa Park knowing the type of team that would take to the pitch. They stayed right until the end of the game to applaud the efforts of the players and that is something that will live with me for ever, as will being on the pitch at Anfield after the game when we beat Shrewsbury 1-0.
“Everyone was well aware of the team that was going to take to the field in the replay against Shrewsbury but, again, people sort of said it devalued the competition. Well, 50,000 fans at Anfield that night and the players on the pitch would beg to differ.”
Given his association with Liverpool, Critchley is understandably delighted they ended their 30-year wait to be crowned champions of England and he knows Klopp and co will not rest on their laurels. “That’s what is so special about that group. They deserve that moment because I know the work they put into creating that group, their identity, the process they follow on a daily basis, from the boss down; it’s a special place. But as you saw recently, the boss doesn’t like losing and they will be back and firing for next season.”
For Critchley, Klopp’s commitment to giving young players a chance helped to smooth a pathway to the first team,
with Neco Williams, Curtis Jones and Harvey Elliott handed league debuts this season, and Trent Alexander-Arnold having excelled on his watch. “The younger players have to feel like they have an opportunity and the boss was fantastic at giving those younger players an opportunity. He believed in them and you can see from the way they play, they sense there is an opportunity there.
“That was my role and is the academy’s role, to prepare players as best as you can, so [they do] not to go to Melwood [for first-team training] and be a tourist, not to go and make the numbers but go and get yourself noticed but also be respectful as well, be humble while you’re doing it, and I’d like to think we provided some players of interest and potential for him.”
Critchley has witnessed AlexanderArnold’s rise first hand and was influential in shifting him from winger to marauding full-back. “He played centreback, in midfield as No 6 and rightmidfield sometimes in the under-18s, and then he moved to right-back, which is where he started to play on a regular basis. Playing in different positions helped his understanding of the game and also helped him have an appreciation of what is required in different positions and you can see that when he gets forward.”
Critchley is speaking from Bloomfield Road, where it is full steam ahead in terms of next season, with Oliver Sarkic, Marvin Ekpiteta and Keshi Anderson signed. Last month Mike Garrity, who worked alongside Critchley at Liverpool, joined as his assistant, but the former first-team coach David Dunn has departed to take charge of Barrow. The lockdown enabled Critchley to review footage from matches, analyse players and hold conversations with staff, in between home-schooling his son, Ted.
“I’ve found I can teach footballers slightly easier than I can teach maths and spellings,” Critchley says, chuckling. “He came to the Liverpool game against Shrewsbury but he’s not yet been to a Blackpool game. He does point at the television if Jürgen comes on and says: ‘That’s Daddy’s boss,’ so I’m trying to educate him that I’ve left Liverpool and I’m Blackpool now.”