Are the things you learned from old-school managers such as Bill Shankly still relevant?
I learned from a number of people, but Bill was a big influence. He’d left Liverpool by then and would come down to Everton’s training ground when I was a player there. I’d ask him things like: “What do you look for when you go to sign a player?” He’d say: “He has to be fit.” And, OK, you have to have the ability as well, but he was saying that he didn’t want a player who might play only 20 games a season, who had niggles with hamstrings or whatever. He wanted continuity. So later, when I was sizing up a player to buy, I’d always look back at their playing record to see how often they had to miss matches. He’d say that to make a great club you have to have great players. He talked about building players’ confidence, making them feel brilliant. Ronnie Wylie, who was coach at Aston Villa when I was there, was very important too. But I’ve taken something from most of the people I’ve worked for. Alec Stock, when he was my manager at Luton, used to come in to the dressing room and say: “B
