Inside The Game: Jamie Carragher Exclusive
Jamie Carragher on why a move into management never truly interested him.
Jamie Carragher says management “looked like a hassle” as he discussed his decision to move into punditry rather than coaching.
Carragher, who made 737 appearances for Liverpool across a storied career, retired in 2013.
However, instead of moving into management, like former club-mate Steven Gerrard chose to do, Carragher elected to go into TV, and has since established himself as one of the leading pundits on Sky Sports and CBS.
Carragher had considered coaching, but when it came to making the decision, it was ultimately a simple one.
He told More Than A Game: “I’d been thinking about coaching and managing my whole career, I’d watch managers and go ‘Why do they do this? Why do they play him, or play that system?’. I always thought like that. Getting towards the end of my career it was either coaching and management or TV punditry.
“I did a little bit of both. Around Euro 2012, I was doing my coaching badges at the time with Conor Coady’s group, Jon Flanagan – I was coaching them when they were 15, 16. I didn’t enjoy it. A lot of people say that the more you do, it becomes better. But I wasn’t driving up to Liverpool’s academy thinking ‘I can’t wait for the session’. It was more just getting it done. To be fair, I wish I’d have got more of it done – got my A licence. Gary Neville’s done that… It didn’t do him any good!
“But he always said to me you should do it for the TV, your own learning, and he could be right, but I just enjoyed the TV and I think it suits me more. I love talking about football, arguing, debating, giving opinions. It gives me everything I want. I see myself as between coaching and TV, with the shows that we do."
“When I looked at management, it just looked like hassle. A lot of young coaches I spoke to, they’re bogged down in computers, paperwork, writing sessions down. I didn’t want that. The work you’ve got to do, they just want to be out on the grass. There’s a lot of work that goes into it and the pay that they get… It would probably have been different for me, I might have gone into somewhere a bit higher up at Liverpool, but there was never a job offer.
“An offer came in from TV and I thought ‘I’m going right to the top here, the best show on the TV, or I’m going to have to learn the ropes lower down the leagues or at Liverpool’s academy’. And even moving house. It’s a simple thing, but my kids were in school, I wouldn’t want to move my family. Stevie [Gerrard] has had a couple of jobs where he’s moved on his own and almost been commuting [back], and I just want to be around my kids, watch my lad play football, not travelling around when you could get sacked the next day. I had too good of an offer from Sky to do the TV.”
Carragher, along with former Manchester United defender Neville, have become a fine double-act, either on commentary, in the studio at stadiums or on Sky Sports’ flagship Monday Night Football, where Carragher gets the chance to analyse the weekend’s biggest talking points to a level of detail that other shows are unable to offer.
“You don’t know what you’re going to do on MNF, it’s just whatever the story is, what everyone’s talking about,” he said.
“As a football fan there’s probably two or three results every weekend that jump out at you and you just know as a football fan ‘That’s the one’. I’m experienced enough now to know what the story is, and I’m only going to use four clips. So if you were doing Newcastle [6-1] Tottenham [from April], it’s the first 20 minutes, but I’ll try to find things that I think the coach would be looking for. I do love trying to find that thing that nobody else has found, but it’s getting harder, not because of other shows, but because of social media.
“It almost feels like every club has got four or five people who want to analyse their team to death – brilliant! I follow a lot of them, because they know their club better than me. The knowledge of supporters, the data, there’s a lot more scrutiny on the game.”
The preparation is crucial. In that aspect, Carragher believes there are certain similarities to management anyway.
“People think you’re bogged down in stats,” he added. “You can be if you want to be, but we get a stat pack for every game. My homework’s just watching the match, watching matches that everyone else watches, so I get up – three or four newspapers up on my iPad. What are the quotes, what are the stories, what are the manager’s saying? The match is on that night – what are people talking about?
“I’ll never miss Match Of The Day or a live game. Let’s say for instance I’m away, and England are playing, but then at the weekend I’m working, I’ll make sure I’ve recorded the game and I’ll go through it when I get back. Sometimes I’ll just watch a game, not analyse it. But if we’ve got Monday Night Football, I’m analysing the 12:30 Saturday game, Match Of The Day, I might be doing a game on a Sunday, but if I’m not and I’ve got that full weekend, I’ll go through all of it.”
By Patric Ridge
