By Tim Sigsworth
With Tony Pulis’ time as Boro manager well and truly over, speculation over who will be next to take to the Riverside hotseat has been running rife in the papers and on social media.
Despite the well-proven likes of Slavisa Jokanovic, Chris Hughton and Nigel Pearson (along with the less well-proven Gabriel Batistuta) attracting considerable attention from fans, journalists and bookmakers alike at varying points, Jonathan Woodgate has emerged as the consistent frontrunner for the role.
However, from the ever-confrontational Boro Twitter to the reactionary war-zone that is the Gazette’s comment section, this development has been met with widespread condemnation from many and derisory abuse from a minority.
Legitimate, reasoned criticisms of the potential appointment generally involve his history with the club and the current squad, his lack of previous managerial experience and his perceived style of play.
Negative interpretations of these three topics have dominated the discourse surrounding Woodgate and are what I will seek to counter, along with some elements of misinformation, in this article. Whether you agree with my opinions or not, I hope you recognise that my intention is to widen the conversation, not mock or disregard those who hold reasoned opinions to the contrary.
Improper Working Relationships and Jobs for the Boys
Woodgate’s previous coaching experience involves being a first-team coach under both Steve Agnew (one month) and Tony Pulis (seventeen months) and an assistant manager to Mark Tinkler with Boro’s U18s (four months). As such, he has spent the entirety of his professional coaching career at Rockcliffe Park.
Furthermore, several current squad members – Dimi, George Friend, Dael Fry, Daniel Ayala, Adam Clayton and Stewart Downing – are his former teammates, whilst the latter’ sister is Woodgate’s wife.
These circumstances have led to some arguing that Woodgate would be unable to maintain an effective working relationship as manager due to his close relationships with former teammates and with Boro’s top brass, who were likely important in securing the only coaching positions the now 39-year-old has ever held.
However, although his position as first-team coach probably involves more informal interactions with players than the position of manager would, it nevertheless requires a certain level of seniority and authority which, after seventeen months in the role, will be well-affirmed.
Moreover, his position within the Boro squad during the final years of his playing career was a senior one, with his experience at the top-level of the game and his captaincy of the club granting him a position of relative power, influence and respect among his teammates which would be conducive to the emergence of trust in and support for him as a manager.
It is not as if he is transitioning from player to manager in the same overnight way that Gareth Southgate did to ill-effect in 2006.
Accusations of matey-ness with those who would become his players therefore appear wide of the mark, especially given Stewart Downing’s inevitable departure at the end of this season and that leadership does not always have to be authoritarian. Rather, his relationship with the squad seems to me to be a factor in his favour – he possesses intimate knowledge of a squad which respects him as a figure of authority.
Similarly, his established relationship with the club also seems to me to be a positive.
Born and bred on Teesside and raised as a Boro fan, Woodgate not only understands the area, its people and the importance of enjoyable football to it but also, thanks to his experience within the club and its academy, the club’s philosophy, its ethos and the need to build on Pulis’ unifying internal reforms to create a long-term plan facilitative of a pathway from the academy to the first-team and indicative of the club’s long history in that regard.
His potential appointment would not be one borne out of the Hurworth Hierarchy’s supposed affinity for ‘jobs for the boys’, but one borne out of suitability.
Why should he get the job? Who’s he managed before?
Fair enough. Woodgate has never held a managerial position before. Although he took charge of Boro’s first team for friendlies against Rochdale and Hartlepool United last summer and, as explored above, is well-versed in the workings of MFC, that doesn’t make for the best reading.
Nevertheless, there are plenty of examples of inexperienced managers being successful from both the club’s history and the modern game.
Jack Charlton, Bryan Robson and Gareth Southgate all transitioned from players to successful Middlesbrough managers (less so in Southgate’s case) without any of the coaching experience that Woody boasts, whilst Steve McClaren and Aitor Karanka had spent more time coaching at a higher-level than Woodgate but had never managed before achieving success as first-time managers with Boro.
More recently, Lee Bowyer at Charlton Athletic, Graham Potter at Östersunds FK and Garry Monk at Swansea City have all achieved relative success without previous managerial or, in some cases, even coaching experience, let alone the playing career that Woodgate has had and the managers he has played for.
Woodgate also has experience as a scout, having worked as one for Liverpool in Spain and Portugal from the summer of 2016 to spring 2017. With experience in talent identification in two nations which a cost-effective recruitment strategy would inevitably look to exploit, this appears to suit the reformed, rough diamond-focused transfer policy which Boro look to be heading towards.
Accordingly, his experience as a coach, a scout and a top-level player lends itself to the potential for success, whilst similarly or less experienced managers have been successful at Boro and in the modern game before. As such, managerial experience isn’t the be all and end all in Woody’s case – although it obviously does help.
We’re sick of shite football, why would we want Pulis 2.0?
Another argument doing the rounds has been an assumption that because Woodgate has spent the vast majority of his coaching career working with Pulis, he will look to play the same torrid football that Boro’s supporters grew to despise last season.
Irrespective of him being in tune with supporter desires as a Boro lad and having spent time working as a coach in Boro’s possession-favouring academy and as a scout for Jurgen Klopp’s far-from-defensive Liverpool side, statements from Woodgate and those close to him contradict the assertion that he would be a Pulis 2.0.
On BBC Tees last Friday (17/05/19) Neil Maddison, a former Boro midfielder and current player liaison officer at the club, commented on the Woodgate speculation and dismissed claims that his relationship with Pulis would leave him inclined to play a safety-first, Pulis-esque style of football.
“Working under Tony Pulis, it's the manager's head on the block, you might say, 'I think you're wrong gaffer', but it's the manager's head on the chopping block and he'll go the way he thinks.
"I've talked to Woody a few times regarding how the team played and I remember him saying 'I love to see teams press and get in the face of the opposition'. So he might have a different philosophy and style of play.
“He understands the club and he understands the way it's got to be played in terms of last season what happened.”
Curtis Fleming, also a first-team coach under Pulis, echoed Maddo’s sentiment in an interview with BBC Tees on Tuesday (21/05/19).
“I think first and foremost Woody is a great lad. He works hard. He’s been at the Academy. He’s played at the top level. He knows the club. He’s a Boro lad and a Boro fan.
“It is a different kettle of fish stepping up the manager’s job but look at the lads who have stepped up this year: Lee Bowyer at Charlton, Scott Parker at Fulham, Frank Lampard and Derby. People talk about experience but it is about belief.
“Woody wants to play good football, he’s worked with some great coaches and he’s a good coach himself.
“It’s a totally different thing being No. 1 but no-one will know until you get the chance to do it.”
Furthermore, Woodgate himself spoke of his footballing philosophy with reference to then-manager Aitor Karanka in an interview with the Football League Paper in October 2015.
“The manager has been fantastic for me from day one here. It’s the same for all of the players. He has changed the club’s philosophy in terms of wanting to win every game, even every training session.
“If we lose a game we really know about it. Everybody is disappointed when it happens, but with this bloke it really is like World War Three.
“That’s something I will learn from him, which is how it should be. He is certainly the man to take the club forward.”
Regardless of misconceptions that Karanka-era football was similar to Pulis’, a philosophy of wanting to win every game contrasts starkly with Pulis’ football and suggests that Woodgate would likely introduce an enjoyable style of play without sacrificing defensive solidity as Garry Monk did.
Therefore, on the basis of those three quotes, a Woodgate-managed team featuring hungry, dynamic youngsters could actually be a quite attractive prospect.
Conclusion
Change is required at the club if last season’s 7th placed finish is to be built upon and if our financial resources shrink as predicted but what Boro don’t need is an expensive and time-costly iconoclastic overhaul which threatens the vehicles for long-term success introduced during Pulis’ ill-fated reign.
In that context, Woodgate is a solid option who, though he may not guarantee short-term success, will likely ensure the conception and implementation of a long-term, club-wide plan (if it isn’t already in place) which will set the club up well for the mid-to-long-term future and satisfy supporter desires in the short-term with an attractive style of play and the promotion of academy players to the first team.
Appointing a proven Championship or even a proven Premier League manager does not come without risks, the appointments of Garry Monk, Tony Pulis and even Gordon Strachan prove this. That isn’t to say that appointing Woodgate doesn’t come without risks, but they are certainly minimised by his knowledge of the club and his suitability to the noises which are coming from the club in terms of providing opportunities to academy players and implementing a cost-effective, foreign or lower league-focused recruitment model.
Perhaps he isn’t ready to become manager just yet. I’d certainly agree that Slavisa Jokanovic seems a better appointment in that the risk of failure appears lower and that his managerial experience and previous successes far outweigh Woodgate’s. By a long way.
What I don’t agree with is arguments against his appointment being made on the grounds of misinformation and assumed weaknesses rather than the known experience- and track record-based strengths of someone like Jokanovic.
Given that Woodgate hasn’t been removed from the club as other members of Pulis’ backroom staff have, it seems probable that he will remain a member of the new manager’s coaching team or perhaps be promoted to assistant manager. In context of the factors referenced throughout this piece, that can hardly be a dangerous prospect.
However, if he is appointed as manager, he deserves to be given a two-to-three year chance of developing his team and as a manager – his suitability to the club’s current circumstances, often incorrectly or dubiously criticised, stands as testament to that.
