In our exclusive interview, the former Premier League manager discusses the upcoming season and praises Phil Parkinson for the job he’s done at Wrexham.
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Who will win the Premier League title this season?
In the title race you have to look at the quality that Manchester City have got, the consistency they’ve had and how they have dealt with everything that has been thrown at them.
They’re used to the pressure and have come through that both before and after Pep Guardiola arrived. He is an outstanding manager.
Arsenal have come close since they allowed Mikel Arteta to manage the football club as a whole and they have a strong connection there so they will still be the top contenders.
Liverpool have had an outstanding pre-season, which doesn’t always mean they will contend for the title but I think they will be the closest after Arsenal.
Who will sneak into fourth place after Manchester City, Arsenal and Liverpool?
After Manchester City, Arsenal and Liverpool, I think we could see Newcastle.
Eddie Howe is staying despite the speculation regarding England and showing that loyalty to the staff and the supporters, they could have a really good season.
I think Newcastle will be really strong this year.
Who could just miss out on the Champions League?
I think it being Aston Villa’s first time in the Champions League since the 1980s when it was the European Cup will impact them. Players will look forward to those games slightly more than the Premier League games which is only natural.
Fans will be the same but they will embrace that, a new opportunity, but that might take a little bit off them in the league. Villa are a very good side but I think Newcastle will have a run at the top four.
Why will Manchester United miss out on the top four this season?
First of all, I don’t think Erik ten Hag knows his best team and I don’t think he ever gets his best team on the pitch. I don’t know what’s going on there when it comes to fitness and the work done behind the scenes to keep players fit.
That’s what they need to do in order to give Ten Hag a squad full of players so he can pick his best team that can get him consistent results.
I don’t think he even knows which team will get him the most consistent results because of their injury record, he’s still searching for that after two years.
As a manager, you need to know your best team going into a season. Maybe one or two changes every week, but you have to know your best seven or eight players that are going to play all season.
Were you even in Ten Hag’s situation of injuries preventing you from playing the way you liked?
I was never in Erik ten Hag’s situation because we kept our players fit. We would make sure we have a good pre-season. Pre-season isn’t about winning football matches, it’s about getting your players fit and ready to play.
People sometimes criticise the fact that certain managers work the players really hard, but we’re actually giving them the best opportunity they possibly can to retain their fitness.
That’s so they don’t get injured and they’re allowed to play the games that they want to play and the manager wants them to play.
Were Man Utd taking a risk with a big pre-season given their injury woes?
Manchester United were taking a risk with a big pre-season but it’s all about the money these days, chasing the money.
Clubs do that because it’s important to them and it’s important to pay for wages and the outlays that get bigger and bigger every year.
They need to put as much money in the pot as they can so they can retain their players and status as being one of the top clubs in the world.
Who can compete with Erling Haaland for the Golden Boot this season?
In terms of the Golden Boot it’s only Erling Haaland. He’s the one. If you were a betting man you’d lump a lot of money on Haaland being the top scorer.
If anyone is going to compete it could be Ollie Watkins and Alexander Isak like last season, it’s all down to who gets off to a good start.
Who could be the surprise package in the Premier League this season?
My surprise package would be West Ham. David Moyes has left them in a really, really solid position.
They’ve brought in a few players to give them a bit more upfront and who knows how well they could do, David left them in a very good position.
West Ham could well be competing for European football and now it’s down to the manager and how the club let him work.
Do Premier League owners have too much power?
There can be so much interference between coaches and owners that things get lost in translation.
I think the people at the top of football clubs have got to realise and recognise that the most important person is the head coach or the manager. He’s the one who sorts everything out.
You employ him to put a team together to win games. You employ him to pick players who suit the way he wants to play and the system he wants to play.
I get very, very frustrated. It’s almost becoming endemic in the game where you’ve got so many people deciding on so many things that really and truthfully the coach should be doing or the manager should be doing.
If they put their noses into it and it goes well, they shout from the highest rooftops. If it doesn’t go so well, the manager or the coach gets a sack and those people are somewhere in the distance.
Look at Manchester City, the way they’ve organised things. Look at Liverpool when Jurgen Klopp was in charge. He had total control of that football club and ran that football club.
Pep’s got the same at Man City, Arteta has got the same at Arsenal.
You look at those models and other clubs are going to look at them and go realise that instead of having all these people getting in each other’s way, they need to give the manager some responsibility.
Yes they need information and stats and the new technology is absolutely brilliant.
But I don’t think there’s anything better than a person putting two or three players in front of you and then making decisions with your own eyes in terms of which players suit you best for your team, for your system to win football matches.
Is it going to take something really special for the promoted sides to stay in the top flight?
In terms of the promoted clubs in Leicester, Southampton and Ipswich, you can’t really see any clubs in the Premier League that are weaker than them going into the season.
Ipswich, I think out of the three clubs, Ipswich are the most fashionable at the moment. I watched Ipswich quite a bit last year and they had great energy in a very well balanced team.
They had a system in which they were always looking and playing forward and I really enjoyed watching them. Kieran McKenna is a young manager and they will need a good start because it’s a different world to the Championship.
The Championship is relentless. An absolutely relentless league, in the Premier League you have more time to prepare your team for the next game and I enjoyed that because I liked being out on the grass – even though maybe some players were bored to death.
For Leicester, Southampton and Ipswich, they are really going to have to go a lot to make sure they keep their places in the Premier League.
What does Steve Cooper need to do at Leicester City this season?
I like Steve Cooper and he’s going to need to forge a siege mentality at Leicester. I think he’s got to understand and recognise the position they’re in including what they’ve got, and what they haven’t got.
You have really, really got to make sure that you batten down the hatches, get the supporters behind you and sell that style to your supporters who need to buy into it.
You’ve got to work for every single point that you possibly can get and if they get a run together, in the same way for Southampton and Ipswich, the home games will be vital.
They won’t pick up many points away from home so they need to make sure they treat every home game like an FA Cup semi-final.
I did that over 10 years and you can never ever relax. When you’re outside that top six, you can never relax because everybody is so close in respect of getting results.
I’ve started the season off with three or four defeats in the past you think the world’s gonna fall in, but you’ve got to believe, the important thing as a manager and a coach is that people believe in what you’re doing and they’ll follow you when things are going well.
But more importantly, you need to make sure that when things are not going so well, people still work and follow you.
What have you made of Wrexham’s progress and good start to life in League One?
Phil Parkinson and the coaching staff at Wrexham have been fantastic because it’s been like a circus at times with everything that has gone on off the pitch.
What they’ve done and the way they’ve conducted themselves in respect of winning football matches has been fantastic and Phil deserves a lot of credit alongside his coaching staff who have so much experience.
They deserve hell of a lot of credit for keeping all the players focused on those results, that’s everything. It’s a new challenge for them, it’s another step up, it’ll be interesting to see how they cope with it.
What will also be interesting, it’ll be interesting to see what the owners are like when they lose a few games and they might do that this year with the level of opposition going up.
Will Wrexham challenge Cardiff and Swansea to be the biggest club in Wales?
I spent time at Wrexham when Joey Jones was playing and Brian Flynn and Kevin Reeves were there and they would get 15,000 to 20,000 in the Championship.
The great thing about Wrexham doing so well at the moment is it being in North Wales and doing it for that part of the country with Cardiff and Swansea being in the south.
I was very, very close to Cardiff as a young boy. Cardiff have always been my team but being born in Newport, I’d go and watch Newport and I’d go and watch Cardiff the following week if I wasn’t playing myself.
So those two teams were close to me. Swansea was a little bit further away and Wrexham obviously up in North Wales, but I just want them all to do well.
Newport were unfortunate to get beat last minute on Saturday, had a poor start but they’ve brought in some good players and the atmosphere around the place is better than it’s been for a long time.
So I just hope the four clubs do amazingly well.
What have you made of Wayne Rooney’s time in management so far?
My grandson is in an academy and recently played on the same day as Wayne Rooney’s son. My son-in-law said afterwards about how lovely Wayne is and how polite he was with everyone.
I think Wayne’s a decent kid, I think he’s got his demons as we all have now and then. Many young managers ring me up and ask for my advice and I always say you should bring in someone with experience away from the training ground who can help deal with all the noise behind the scenes.
I think that has to happen for younger managers to thrive. Wayne has obviously got people around him that he trusts around the football pitch, but he also needs someone in between who can actually steady everybody down when it does get tough.
The first game against Sheffield Wednesday was a disaster for him because he’d have been hoping and praying he’d get off to a good start.
But Plymouth is a difficult place to go and get results and Wayne’s priority is to win games at Home Park. If he does that on a regular basis he’ll be okay.
They’ve never been great travellers in the Championship so he knows that’s going to be tough but when they play home games he’s got to make sure they win games.
I think he needs an experienced person beside him. Someone who’s local who knows the game and everything else and can work between him and the owners just to make sure everything is settled, everything is understood and that will clear the pathway for him to get results and push on in his career.
Should Eddie Howe reject any advances from England?
In my opinion, I don’t think managers of Eddie Howe’s age and experience should go into international management.
Newcastle are one of the top clubs in the country in respect to supporters and everything else, I don’t think Eddie should be bothered with international football. I think he’s shown his cards straight away. I think the Newcastle supporters will appreciate that.
I really do think they’ll have a good season this year. He’s a good manager, he knows what he wants, he’s clever. He works the media and the press brilliantly. But underneath that nice, cool, calm, collective demeanour, I know Eddie, there’s a streak of steel down his back.
I’m sure he’ll be desperately keen to get Newcastle back up in the top six this year.
What did you make of Michael Owen criticising your training sessions at Stoke?
There was a caveat to Michael coming to Stoke. I had Peter Crouch and people of that ilk at the football club who really enjoyed the training, really enjoyed everything around the football club and the way we trained, the way we worked and the atmosphere and everything else.
Michael didn’t buy into it, fine, not a problem. But like I say, I think there was a bit of a caveat for him joining the football club and you have to speak to Michael about that.
Were you ever left gutted by any big transfers slipping through the net?
Signing players is always taking a chance because you don’t really know them until they walk through the door. It’s a bit like getting married. You court someone for a long period of time, but until they actually come into your house and your domain, you don’t really know them!
So, yeah, it’s always a gamble.
What have you made of Michael Carrick at Middlesbrough so far?
Middlesbrough is one of the nicest clubs I’ve ever been to as a manager. The staff, right from the kit man all the way through to the chief executive, the sporting director and everyone else.
Steve Gibson is a great lad and the club is fantastic. I had someone ring me the other day about a player they were looking at down south, someone said he might find it hard going up to the North East but I said he wouldn’t at Middlesbrough.
It’s such a friendly club. It’s such a warm club. It’s such a welcoming club. It’s a fantastic place to go. The people in the North East are different. They remind me so much of the people in South Wales.
The community spirit is still there. It’s still together, it’s a fantastic football club.
Michael Carrick and his team got off to a great start on Saturday. If he can get momentum going, then the supporters will buy into what he’s doing and I have my fingers crossed because of the feelings I have for the football club,
I hope that they get back where they should be and that’s in the Premier League.
Do you feel for Jonny Evans given the pressure he is under at Manchester United?
Jonny Evans is a great lad who has had an absolutely fantastic career. He was at West Brom with me and the supporters voted him player of the year.
He’s a fantastic player. I played him full -back, I played him in midfield, I played him at centre back. He’s technically such a good player and so down to earth. Nothing flusters Jonny.
He’s had a fabulous career. Am I surprised he’s gone back to Manchester United and done so well? No, I still look at it and he’s as good as any centre-half at Manchester United in my opinion.
Forget about his age, it’s about whether you’re fit enough and strong enough. Missing the penalty, he’ll be alright. He’ll just brush himself down and get on with it.
What are your thoughts on Wales going for Craig Bellamy as their new manager?
I believe the Welsh FA have gone in for a direction of youth over experience in appointing Craig Bellamy which I think is refreshing.
It will be refreshing because Craig is a very, very loyal Welshman. Supporters will feel that with him, with his passion and his commitment.
He’s had the experience over the last three or four years of working with and being at good clubs with promotion and relegation. So he’s had the good and the bad.
I’ve spoken to people back home, they say it’s a good gamble. I don’t think it’s a gamble. I think it’s a great opportunity for Craig to pick up the baton and there’s a lot of good Welsh players coming through who he can resonate with.
So it’s a great opportunity, a great chance for the kid and I hope and pray that he does well.
