It was no surprise to hear Erik ten Hag, the former Manchester United manager, bemoan that the modern player can no longer take criticism.
He’s right. A combination of factors is to blame. The wokeism that exists in everyday life and permeates through society. Money. Media exposure. And the power of their asset value to a football club. All of those elements make it extremely difficult to manage the modern footballer.
If I even pulled a face at something a coach said to me in my time, even as a senior player and captain at Liverpool, I’d be met with a torrent of what today’s player would call abuse. It would be along the lines of ‘Who do you think you are?’ and ‘What have you ever achieved to warrant an opinion?’
Today, the relentless media coverage, means the man on the street puts these players on a pedestal before they have ever made a proper impact on the game. They are little more than the kids from next door who have won the lottery.
And, like me, many leave school without a tremendous education behind them and in many cases, because of the money they earn, they attract parasites who lead them down the wrong path. Many will never achieve the potential they have as a result.
Some of it can be down to luck on who you meet during your football journey.
Erik ten Hag called out modern day players for being unable to take criticism earlier this week
Ten Hag fell out with several players during his time at Man United, including Jadon Sancho
Alejandro Garnacho sulked off down the tunnel when he was substituted against Ipswich
I was lucky. Jack Charlton, my manager at Middlesbrough, assessed me quite brutally. He said I had a bit of talent, but I was liable to waste it. I had two doors to choose from: behind one was the chance to work hard and make a career while behind the other was the chance to throw it all away. I took heed of what he was telling me.
The second bit of luck I had was meeting the collective that was Liverpool’s dressing room. Walking into that environment as a 24-year-old was a shock and made me realise I was now truly with the big boys, serial winners from whom I had so much to learn.
Look at these young Manchester United pups like Alejandro Garnacho, Jadon Sancho or Marcus Rashford. Who have they been listening to? Are we really surprised that in the week Ten Hag makes his comments, Garnacho still sulks off down the tunnel when he is substituted and we hear Ruben Amorim saying he will speak to him? No, challenging the manager is what we’ve come to expect. The tail is wagging the dog.
You have to be super successful like Arne Slot this season or Pep Guardiola and Sir Alex Ferguson before him. These managers had teams that were winning nearly every week and that prevents the kind of behaviour we are seeing from these upstarts. The petulance they show.
I do think Manchester United suffer from it more than most. The players get too much adulation too soon at that club, always put on a pedestal from an early age. As a player at Liverpool, if we lost, I wouldn’t want to go out in town on a Saturday night.
Manchester is only 30 miles down the road from Liverpool, but I sense the attitude is different to players there. It’s more ‘showbiz’. You don’t have to do much to be treated like a star there.
The big mistake United made recently, and Ten Hag was culpable, was falling out with Cristiano Ronaldo. The consummate professional, one demanding of standards. He is one senior player the others would look up to, to see the example he set every day.
Yet, even he, after leaving United, said: ‘They live in a different era. Their mentality, they are not the same. They don’t suffer. They don’t care. I don’t only mean Manchester United but all the teams in the world. They are not the same as my generation.’
By falling out with Cristiano Ronaldo, Ten Hag lost someone to set standards for team-mates
Manchester United suffer from players being petulant more than other clubs seem to
Management has never been more difficult and your senior players have to step up and lead
I bang on about it but that’s the importance of your senior players. Generally, as a manager you have players for four days a week, two hours a day, not counting matchdays. But you may have 25 of them, so how do you keep a check on what’s going on in their lives? Senior pros. Players you can rely on who take pride in their group and exert the standards for others to adhere to. They take the responsibility to look after the dressing room and tell these kids straight before they become an issue for the manager. Who are those men for Manchester United today?
The great Celtic and Scotland manager Jock Stein used to say, ‘Don’t go looking for problems as they’ll find you’. You have to ignore a lot of what you hear but that was always easier when you had men you could trust in your dressing room.
I get asked whether I walked away from management because of the modern character but it wasn’t because of that. After I got sacked at Newcastle United, I chucked it because I didn’t want to be answerable to the kind of people who ran football clubs any more. People question whether it was over the time I had with Craig Bellamy. He was difficult but he had fabulous talent and always wanted to improve. He was just daft in how he went about it and I’m sure he would say the same himself now.
Management today has never been more difficult. At the highest level, the demands are enormous. Dealing with some of these personalities, the managers deserve every penny they get. But from my perspective, you can keep it!
Liverpool’s unsung hero who surpasses Salah
I’m told the last time the FA Cup fifth round didn’t have Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea or Spurs in it was 1984 and if you like your omens, Liverpool won the league that year. They also went on to win the League Cup and European Cup, wore a pin-striped shirt and their main striker had scored 30 goals by February.
But omens or portents aren’t for me. I put it down to coincidence and how fabulous this current Liverpool side are.
It is easy to pinpoint Mo Salah for his creativity and goals, to hail Luis Diaz for his pace and energy or to laud Virgil van Dijk for his elegance and composure, but the one Liverpool player that I’d pick, even above those this year, would be Alexis Mac Allister.
Mohamed Salah might be getting most of the plaudits, but I prefer another Liverpool player
Alexis Mac Allister has been the Reds’ star man and he looks like he has the best of attitudes
I’ve long believed that the best footballers come from Argentina. Maybe it’s something to do with the migration of so many Italians there, combined with the natural Latin flair and aggression but, whatever the ingredients, they make for excellent footballers and this guy is my current favourite.
It’s no wonder his teammates used to rib him about being Jurgen Klopp’s ‘son’. It would be difficult for any manager not to favour him.
He looks like he has the best of attitudes. Even when Bruno Guimaraes left one on him at Anfield the other night, his unruffled reaction says everything about him.
I bet the manager never has to speak to him. He is brave, full of endeavour and has a fantastic appetite for doing the hard yards. I like him best when he is pushing further forward making mischief. I’m an enormous fan.
The £35million plus add-ons that Liverpool paid Brighton for him looks like the bargain of recent times. Whatever the bonuses, just sign the cheque now because he’s worth every penny.
My only disappointment, is that he looks Scottish, has a wonderful Scottish name but he doesn’t wear a Scotland jersey. Saying that, it must have been a hard choice: Scotland or Argentina…
Why Palmer’s critics should leave him alone
I’ve got one message for the critics of Cole Palmer: back off!
Cole Palmer’s critics need to back off, despite the Chelsea star failing to score in seven games
Palmer is still totally focused despite the dip and he is a victim of setting the bar so high
Just because he has gone seven games without scoring people are now questioning his body language. He still looks dangerous to me. I don’t see any downing of tools in effort – as seven shots against Southampton should testify.
We see this with creative players, they have dips and start wandering deep looking to get on the ball.
But that’s just frustration, he knows how good he is and how important he is to the team and just wants to affect the game.
You look at a player’s body language throughout the 90 minutes and I just see a totally focused young player.
With Chelsea not winning games recently, people are pointing the finger at Palmer and I’m afraid, young man, you set that bar yourself. He is going through a quieter period, but we will see him scoring goals again. He oozes class.
Manchester City, with all the money they have spent lately and more to come, will still be thinking he is the one that got away. They’ve certainly not bought anyone as good as him.
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