Is the manager’s role up for grabs?

ALEX FERGUSON is a phenomenon. Close to his 12th English title, in his fourth Champions League final, 25 seasons at the same club.

No one else has been in control of a club for so long with such success.

Yet Ferguson’s success as Manchester United supremo masks a key weakness in the English game.

Traditional, English-style management is at a crossroads.

English managers have been failing to win trophies: cups as well as the league.

Harry Redknapp is the only English manager since Terry Venables at Barcelona to take a side to the Champions League quarter-finals.

His limited success, at Portsmouth as well as Spurs, stands out against an overwhelming record of failure.

Christian Lattanzio, one of the new management team at Manchester City, with the job title of Technical Co-ordinator, argues that tradition is holding managers back.

“In Italy a coach is born a coach and remains a coach and performs more or less the same role whether he’s in charge of a youth side or if he goes on to manage a big team,” says Lattanzio.

“In England, by contrast, the role of football coach is usually seen as stepping stone towards the coveted position of manager.”

In Italy, as elsewhere, scouting, recruitment, transfers, contracts etc are mostly the responsibility of the direttore sportivo — the sporting director or football/technical director we’ve seen at a few Premier League clubs.

The football director has had a chequered career so far in England, because the position has sometimes been a device to control the manager or reduce his authority, most obviously with Jose Mourinho at Chelsea.

Experience at clubs such as Tottenham, Newcastle, Portsmouth and West Ham has also been mixed, to say the least.

It is telling that Redknapp, himself football director at Portsmouth, refused to operate that way at Spurs, obliging the club to remove football director Damien Comolli.

Comolli’s sacking in October 2008 was seen by many commentators as “the end of the continental experiment in English football.” Not so.

Last Autumn Liverpool’s new American owners appointed the former Spurs man to a senior position in their new set-up.

Comolli now is director of football strategy rather than the slightly foreign-sounding sporting director, but the role is much the same.

Despite years at foreign clubs, Roy Hodgson lasted just two months under the new regime.

At West Brom he also has a sporting director, although Dan Ashworth says that the manager has the final word on signings.

That could also be the case with Kenny Dalglish at Liverpool, assuming he’s confirmed in the job. John Henry, boss of parent company NESV, says that he sees recruitment as “a group decision.”

“You build consensus. I think that’s a very good model. But they’ll each be in charge of their own areas.”

Chelsea promoted Frank Arnesen to sporting director two years ago, and he leaves shortly to join Hamburg in the same capacity. It’s not clear if they will replace him immediately — but Chelsea already have Mike Forde as performance director, the post he previously occupied at Bolton when Sam Allardyce was there.

The performance director is another piece of the changing managerial jigsaw. It is more an American idea than a continental one, with a focus on innovation and the use of new technology, and we may see a similar appointment before long at Anfield.

To some extent it’s about names. “I have been called trainer, coach, mister, manager and leader,” says Hodgson. “I’ve got the job I’ve always done since 1976.”

Yet the way football is evolving means it is impossible for managers to cover all their old duties. Transfers and contracts are often locked into marketing and sponsorship arrangements and require commercial expertise.

UEFA’s financial fair play regulations will require a more strategic, long-term view than a hands-on football manager can provide. FIFA are proposing to do away with licensing of agents, which means that clubs will need to exercise more diligence themselves to avoid falling foul of regulations.

Change is on the way. But it won’t simply follow an imported “model”.

Continental clubs also have problems. Owners and boards fall out with sporting directors as easily as managers.

Some stay for years — like Michael Zorc at Borussia Dortmund or Bernard Lacombe at Lyon. Some of them move on quickly like Palermo director Walter Sabatini, who is shortly to take on the role at Roma. Some of them are gone within months. And many foreign coaches envy their English colleagues for their authority.

English clubs are in the fortunate position of being free to draw on the experience of other countries.

We shall probably never see another Fergie, but the next generation of managers are likely to be doing more than simply coaching the first team.