Pep’s heir to Fergie’s shadow: Why clubs can't move on - The Sports Agents

0:02Guillem Balague:This is a Global Player original podcast. Before Darren Fletcher took over as Manchester United interim manager, he still felt like he needed to talk to Sir Alex Ferguson.

0:13Mark:I don't like to make any major decisions or things without speaking to Sir Alex, and that's something I've done since I've been at the club and since I've left the club and everything I do. It's probably the first person that phoned, actually, so I wanted to speak to him first.

0:26Guillem Balague:And ultimately, to get his blessing, to be perfectly honest with you. But when everyone is still harping back to Ferguson, who left the club over 12 years ago, you know Manchester United's succession plan has gone wrong. Across the city, the blue half will be taking note. Their own legendary manager Pep Guardiola won't be staying forever. And Chelsea have used their multi-club system to take Liam Rossini from Strasbourg, primed and ready to play in that system, but leaving those connected with Strasbourg angry. So what does a strong succession plan look like? Welcome to The Sports Agents.

1:14Guillem Balague:Just me today, Guillaume Balaguet, football journalist, joins us to talk about succession. Bearing in mind a lot of clubs are going through this at the moment. But having said that, all clubs should really be going through it, shouldn't they?

1:31Mark:Well, first thing, can you imagine a Serie A like Succession, but being just about football clubs? That would be fantastic, wouldn't it? But the good clubs prepare themselves well in advance. I think Manchester City, for instance, have been preparing about the departure of Pep Guardiola for a long time. And I can tell you that so was Chiqui Begiri's time. It's like, right, OK, time to go. I'm about to be 60. I want to retire. But I'll leave when Pep Guardiola leaves. And then if I do, it'll be Urugliana. So they prepare themselves. And then Pep decided to stay a bit longer. And Chiki said, you know what?

2:09Mark:I'm leaving you now. That's it. So there is always the personal side to things. But it's clear that as long as you have a very good idea of who you are, what your purpose is, what your intention as a club, then it becomes a little bit easier to move from one era to the next. But it's clear as well that when you've got somebody like Pep Guardiola to be replaced, you better get a coach that probably is going to crash and then take the pieces and restart. I think that's not a bad strategy, which I think Chelsea, in a way, with Abraham Grant after Jose Mourinho, they kind of did. Whatever happens with Abraham, it'll be fine.

2:50Mark:Actually, he maintained the level for a while. but then it crashed and then they have to rebuild.

2:57Guillem Balague:Yeah, and I suppose there are a lot of pros and cons with a multi-club model depending on where you are within that ranking and Strasbourg fans are furious in particular about what's happened over the last two weeks and Liam Rossini moving from Strasbourg to take over at Chelsea. I suppose what that does do for the biggest club within the group, is it does immediately give them succession ideas, not necessarily, not guaranteed candidates, but it does actually give them access to a shortlist and candidates, doesn't it?

3:35Mark:Yes, it does. And we've seen that it has happened. I can tell you, for instance, Manchester City did consider Mitchell, the Girona manager, part of the City group. And they're keeping an eye on him. Things are not working very well, but it is a possibility. It's just that it's better to do it at the end of a season than in the middle of a season. But that model, what certainly guarantees, is somebody that can get into the job, that has studied what kind of job that is. I'm sure Liam Brissianior has heard for months, the same that we have, that he will end up at Chelsea. So he must wonder why they chose me.

4:15Mark:Why is it that I have to do here at Strasbourg? Why is it that I have to do at Chelsea? And that makes sense. I know strikers fans won't want to hear this, but it makes sense to have somebody that understands the model, that understands the bosses and understands what the limits and the ambition of the group is.

4:34Guillem Balague:How, and this does link with both Chelsea and Manchester City and Enzo Maresco, how difficult do you think succession planning is when apparently nobody's allowed to talk to anybody else? It is the most normal thing in the world, if you are planning a future, that in any walk of life, you try and talk to people, you know, if this happens, would you be interested, so on and so forth. Within football, it is meant to be a massive no-no. Yeah, okay. This is one of those quiet agreements in football.

5:17Mark:And as you say, it's illegal to actually tap anybody in. And one of the quiet agreements was not to mention that a manager had called a player before a negotiation started between clubs or before his contract finished. But more and more people are coming out with it because it's a fact. It happens. And with managers, it's exactly the same. The best clubs will have perhaps conversations or interviews. It's something very British or very English, if you like. But certainly we'll have reports and somebody would have talked to potential candidates for the job. well in advance of the manager going.

5:52Mark:You need to know what the market is like. You need to flirt. You need to seduce people. The interview process becomes a little bit more official because then at that point you can do the interviews and perhaps even put a post somewhere to say we are after candidates. And then, yes, that becomes official. But before that, things have definitely happened. And generally the case is that the club contacts the agent and then plants the seed and then conversation starts happening. But generally it's better if there is a succession plan than if you just look for a little bit of improvisation or you like that guy because of the way he moves or the way he talks and then just let's see if he works at our club.

6:35Mark:You have to have, in today's football, a lot of information and a lot of, as I say, a lot of clarity in what you are and what exactly it is that you need.

6:45Guillem Balague:You know Pep Guardiola well. Why do you think his future is always discussed around December and January of every year? And when I say every year, maybe the last, well, you tell me, haven't they? Four or five?

7:00Mark:There's two things. One, he's never been so long in a football club. And because it's him taking the decision, he won't be sacked, bully. So it's him taking the decision about his future. Well, it's an automatic choice of the media to go and say, would it be this year that he leaves? Then there is a contractual situation. Now he's got two years left in the contract. But it's fair to say that first there was a doubt that he wanted to continue. So he leaves the conversations about his own contract right at the end or at a time when it requires to be done because there's too much pressure for him to decide or because the club is in a bad place and he wants to show commitment, whatever it is.

7:42Mark:But he leaves it quite late. And that obviously provokes conversation, as it happened just before he signed the last two-year deal. Before he signed the last deal, he had the FA waiting for his decision about his future for two months. He was offered the job to be England national manager. And he was like, I'll give you a call in a minute or two or a day or two. It became two months. And then, of course, the speculation grows on the back of that. And literally how he functions is that he decided on a Friday that he was going to stay at Manchester City, perhaps for a month. The kind of ambiguous answers he was giving to City suggested to the club that maybe he was going to stay.

8:18Mark:But then he literally decided on a Friday and on the Sunday they announced it. So they're depending on him. And it happens again. It's two years in his deal. He's actually started a new adventure with Manchester City, a new generation, a new team he's rebuilding. Would it be enough to convince him to stay until the end or not? would he actually leave this summer is that a possibility and nobody denies it yes it's a

8:45Guillem Balague:possibility we'll see another manager that you obviously know well and i say obviously because you've you've written the the rise of the villains book is Unai Emery and on tuesday's podcast we were talking about a bit like what comes first chicken and egg sporting director or head coach how these roles work together. Ideally, do you want them both in place to start at the same time? What is Unai Emery's relationship with the Villa sporting director? And did he actually get to choose the sporting director, which actually puts him in charge of the whole clock? If you let me just explain what I think it is,

9:23Mark:the three models that you have in England, and then we'll go to Villa. One is the presidential model, clearly followed by Chelsea. where Begda de Valle has his hand in the CEO's job, in the coach's job, in the sporting director's job. He wants to run the club, and the sporting directors just follow his lead. That's not very common. It used to be more common before, especially in Europe, when you had the chairman and the coach, and that was it. That's not very common these days, but he puts the money into the club. So he wants to make sure that there is a return, and that the money is well used, and it's used in a way that he wants because he thinks in the medium long term that will bring not only dividends but success to Chelsea.

10:11Mark:That is one model. The other one is the sporting director chosen by the property, by the ownership, and then they chose a coach. That's the Liverpool model, if you like, which is the more common one in Europe and functions really well as long as everybody knows the roles and there are no red lines crossed. And then there is the one that in England everybody seems to be in favour of because it represents what has happened for a long time, the managerial model. The likes of Mikel Arteta started as a head coach, has become a manager and everybody seems to be more comfortable with it, even though I feel that the problem is how do you replace that.

10:49Mark:And then in a way Aston Villa is the same. Unai Emery had a meeting with the owners, one of the owners, Nacef Sawaris, and Nacef basically said, this is a blank page, do whatever you want with the club. And Unai, who had learned from what had happened at PSG, at Arsenal, he said, OK, well, I've got to bring my people. And my people is the CEO, even though that's not his official role, which is Tamiya Bigadane, his guy, the director of football, Monchi in the past, or Roberto Olave now, is his guy, technical secretaries, advisors, they are all his people. What's important here, I think, for Aston Villa in terms of succession is that they put the systemize the process.

11:34Mark:OK, that's fine. You want to have a guy that does all this protected. He actually spends most of the time, obviously, on the pitch, but has got his people doing the other stuff. To actually replace him, you've got to make sure that there is a system in place by which you take the person, but the system continues. That's what Aston Villa is trying to do for when Unai Emery goes. I think Arsenal is exactly the same. But it won't be easy because it's a figure that is at the top of absolutely everything.

12:02Guillem Balague:Do you think what he has managed to put in place then at Villa means he is less susceptible to offers from elsewhere? Because he is surrounded by his people.

12:16Mark:When he was at Arsenal, he realised very quickly that that was seen by so many as a failure. And, you know, you look back and you think it was post-Arsenwenga, it was the Europa League final, etc. So it wasn't so much of a failure, but many people saw that and they still say, oh, he doesn't belong to that level. He belongs to a lower level. He goes to Villarreal and succeeds. But he goes to Villarreal, takes them to the semifinals of the Champions League, wins the Europa League. And Bayern Munich, Manchester United, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Chelsea, they didn't come for him. So now I think he's pleased by the fact that he's linked to the Manchester United job.

13:00Mark:And he will be linked, in my eyes, with the job he's done at Aston Villa, which is there for everybody to see or read. It's not a great job. It could go anywhere in the world. But as you say, he's done this thing consciously or unconsciously. But he's planted roots, emotional roots at Aston Villa now. And he's got all these people wherever he walks, in whatever office he walks, it's his people, most of the offices. So for him to go and say, right, okay, bye, no, it's not his personality. Not only go and say bye, but then if it was, as you say, you mentioned Manchester United, I'm not sure given the current,

13:42Guillem Balague:I won't put an adjective in, I'll just say the current state. He wouldn't be able to do what he's implemented at Villa, at United, with his people. I'd be gobsmacked if they would be able to facilitate that for him, wouldn't you? How do you know that? How do you know what they're doing? Well, I don't. Anybody knows what they're doing? No, exactly. Exactly. Well, no, exactly. I don't know that at all. At all. Nobody knows. But very in mind they have their own people in place and they've put their own people in place, would they allow him to then come in and put executives in place? That's what I'm certain.

14:16Mark:Yeah, possibly not. But in theory, in theory, what Manchester United are doing with Omar Berrada there is Manchester City. They're trying to do the CEO that looks after the money kind of things and the organisation of the club, the director of football, the Chiqui Brigitte Stein and the Pep Guardiola. So he would he would suit if the two people, Sir Wilkos and Berrada, that were with him and they understood each other. If that was the case, fine. But he's already been in a place at Arsenal where, even though he brought the director of football, Edu, I don't think there was enough synergy there eventually or protection for him to actually do his job and stop that toxic atmosphere that was created.

15:02Mark:So it is a difficult club to go to. And certainly he won't find the harmony, the happiness and the names and people that works around him that makes his target. He always says this is to create memories. He's doing it in a very good place. He'll have much more money at Manchester United. But the structure is not right for him, I don't think. But in any case, there's no argument. He has plans for Aston Villa.

15:29Guillem Balague:Just a final thing then on all of this, and succession planning in particular, do you think it should be easy to put a system in place no matter where you are within the football pyramid? Or do you think it's easier to do it when there's maybe slightly less circus around your club? Because you look at three Premier League clubs, in Brentford in particular, but Bournemouth and Brighton, who seem to have no problem at all with succession planning, both actually with players and managers.

16:02Mark:You've got a good point there in that there is no pressure. There's no pressure to get success where people consider success. I mean, their stories are successful stories, very clearly. But to get titles, they don't have that pressure. Now, one example of not every model works everywhere is that in a way Chelsea is getting the Brighton model. the Brentford model, and with a limit of the amount of the age of the players and small wages and the conflict that that creates when they start doing well, the lack of consistency because they're too young, they are the Brighton and the Brentford model. But at the same time they need to win things.

16:45Mark:Enzo Maresca comes and wins a couple of titles and it's like, ah, sorted. But we're talking about the next level that the fans expect and the model and the fans are in a different place. So when the model doesn't fulfill the expectations, when that doesn't meet, then it's trouble. I'm actually reading now the Gareth Southgate book on England, and it touches a little bit on that, on the fact that England wasn't so much a failure, say, before he arrived. It's just the expectation was so absolutely absurd and far away from the possibilities that there will be no way to get any kind of harmony. In a club, you have to find that.

17:21Mark:So we have to see in the medium term if Chelsea can go up with their performance to actually get to the Premier League with the model they've got or they will have to adjust it. But it's definitely much easier to experiment and to earn money if you like, if that is your priority. And that's it, earn money and that's it and get a little bit of European football and so on if you are Brentford or Brighton.

17:52Mark:The Sports Agents with Gabby Logan and Mark Chapman.

17:58Guillem Balague:So it's been another busy week on The Sports Agents after Ruben Amrim's sacking showed that there's not much clarity in roles at football clubs. We spoke to the former Manchester City defender Nader Manua and the Athletic's Laurie Whitwell about what people are doing as managers and directors of football. in my opinion so many football clubs give titles to people without really having a job for them to do they've seen somebody have a sporting director or a technical director and then they need to have one and then before you know it there are all these people with different job descriptions but what are their actual roles where is the clarity whereas the qpr our director of football used to like manage people's body fats and stuff like this and i thought come on man this isn't really directing football is it and interesting i worked with gary o 'neill on match of the day on sunday night and he was talking about his role at wolves and kind of the opposite to amram he said there was nobody there like nobody from the ownership nobody that he could defer stuff to he was dealing with players personal issues on a daily basis players wanting to go back to brazil to have babies players wanting to you know not wanting to train because they couldn't sort their con and he was dealing with like literally at one point he was ringing up local hospitals to try and get an obstetrician that the player was happy with.

19:14Guillem Balague:Can you imagine? And after the Ashes ended in a 4-1 loss, we chatted to the Guardians' Barney Ronay and former England bowler Steve Harmison, who said head coach Brendan McCullum was asleep at the wheel. The one for me that's vulnerable, or should be vulnerable, is the coach. He sets the tone, sets the message. He's the one that should have every stone unturned to make sure that the bump in the road that always comes in a five match series we have enough to combat that now i don't think we did have that the captain for me that i can't see a team england team while ben stokes is in the one to eleven where he's not captain and yes he might have made mistakes but for me he should still be captain but the person i think who has possibly fell asleep at the wheel and let the position it's got to is the coach and it's whether we feel as though it's the right thing for him to carry on if he can rectify the mistakes because he's owned up and said we've made mistakes is he is he man enough to go and put them mistakes right or big enough to put them right or good enough as a coach to put them right um that's going to be for the the bosses at the at the top that's it for another week on the sports agents if you've been listening to this on the newsagents feed just search for the sports agents to listen to the episodes in full or you can do that on youtube global player or wherever you get your pods and also subscribe or follow please and keep getting in touch the email the sportsagents at global.com or you can do it on social media or via the link in the show notes and we have new episodes every tuesday thursday and friday thanks for listening the sports agents with gabby logan and mark chapman

21:04Mark:This has been a Global Player original production.