We put too much emphasis on the manager’s role in the game. Sometimes the players are the problem, and sometimes they are the solution, but they are first. They are the reason the play happened, not everything is by design.

When Wayne Rooney made a goal happen, no one credited Sir Alex Ferguson as the reason for why the goal happened, it was Wayne Rooney’s goal.

When Sergio Ramos ran back and made a game-deciding tackle, no one credited Jose Mourinho for the tackle, that was Sergio Ramos’s tackle.

They created the environment, they picked those players to start, but every action was not due to “their tactical genius,” it was a play made by a player.

Can a good or bad sequence of play in a game be accredited to the players nowadays, or is everything the manager’s doing?

In today’s game, we credit the player for executing and the manager for creating the opportunity. To me, that is ridiculous. There is a difference between creating an environment for something to happen and creating an opportunity. Creating an opportunity means you were responsible for the play happening.

The manager is a guide, they don’t carry a remote control. They control who is on the pitch, but they are not on the pitch. Even in the most controlled teams, they aren’t in the game.

This sounds like common sense, but it has to be said, you need good players to win. You need a team to win. You need everyone on the same page. If you don’t have that, you can’t meet expectations. It doesn’t matter who is in charge.

When you have the expectation that you’ll finish top four but the squad of a mid-table team, don’t get upset when your team underperforms that expectation. The players might be the issue, and the manager is there just trying to put makeup on the pig.