From The Sunday Times

January 18, 2009

Steve McManaman: Gazza, Zidane and me

Questions of Sport: Steve McManaman on Liverpool’s title hunt, his time in Spain and Steven Gerrard’s music taste

Who was the best footballer you played with? Zinedine Zidane at Real Madrid. There was nothing he couldn’t do with the ball. His vision was what you appreciated most. I played against Rivaldo when he was at Barcelona and he wasn’t far behind.

What was the most intimidating atmosphere you played in? I grew up as an Everton fan and played for Liverpool, so Merseyside derbies were special, but nothing compares with Barcelona v Real Madrid. It’s not two rival cities, it’s two rival countries, with political undertones. When we played in Barcelona, the coach to the Nou Camp went at 2mph because there were so many fans in the streets. There was an armed guard escorting us.

How did you find the language barrier in Spain? I made a point of throwing myself into the culture and trying to pick up Spanish. There were no other English players there at the time, which may have helped. It wasn’t all one-way stuff. I taught them a bit of Scouse and by the time I left most of the squad were into horseracing.

What advice would you give to anyone joining Real Madrid? Get to know the local players. You’ll help your cause immeasurably if you get them onside. If it looks like you don’t want to get on with them, you could find yourself ostracised.

Can Liverpool cope with the pressure of being viewed as genuine title contenders? As the end of the season nears, we might hear rival managers try some of the psychological warfare about whether they’ve got enough experience, but I don’t accept that. Yes, when I played for Liverpool we were short on guys who had won titles or played in big matches, but now you are talking about players who have reached two Champions League finals. I played with Jamie Carragher and Steven Gerrard so I would love it if they could end the 19-year drought.

Do you have the same musical tastes as Gerrard? Phil Collins, you mean? No. I had to laugh when I read that. Is it one of those things where if you’re old enough you’ll be back in fashion eventually? I hope not.

Did you resent the Spice Boys tag at Liverpool? It was water off a duck’s back but I’m not sure why some of us got labelled with it. David James was modelling for Armani and Jamie Redknapp was dating [the pop star] Louise and I got bracketed with them. But none of us were really into the London nightlife scene. We appeared in a few magazines, yet nobody bats an eye when players do the same now.

Have you seen Gazza lately? Not for a while. I try to get hold of him when I go up to Newcastle but he keeps changing his mobile number. I didn’t see the documentary on him and don’t know what has gone on in his personal life but for as long as I’ve known him, if you asked him to do something for you, he would do it at the drop of a hat. Let’s hope he makes a recovery; it would be great if he was involved in football again.

What’s been your best moment as a racing punter? I have had my big wins and losses like anyone who bets but actually owning a racehorse is something else. Robbie Fowler and I owned Seebald, which won the 2003 Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Celebration Chase. The problem was, we never got to see him because we were usually playing or training.

Steve McManaman is a pundit with Setanta Sports for tomorrow’s Merseyside derby

Madrid don't compare to class of '02 by Steve McManaman , 25 February 2009

Madrid don't compare to class of '02

by Steve McManaman , 25 February 2009

Make no mistake, Wednesday's clash with Real Madrid will be a really tough game for Liverpool – much tougher than many people would have anticipated a couple of months ago.

When the draw was made I think you had to make Liverpool favourites, they were flying high at the top of the league while Madrid were struggling behind Barcelona.

That’s all changed in the last two months though. Now Liverpool are scrapping for form, whereas Madrid have won their last nine games and are playing with a huge amount of confidence – scoring a lot goals.

Juande Ramos is doing a great job, all their injury problems have cleared up, they’ve added Lassana Diarra and Klaas Huntelaar (although only Diarra can play), and the likes of Arjen Robben are really turning it on.

The problem Liverpool may have is that usually they are the club with the great tradition – the greater expectation to win. This time they face Madrid, who have an even greater tradition in European football, and the fans will be up for this one.

The Bernabeu on Champions League knock-out night is a special place to be. At Madrid, the Champions League means everything to the fans, it’s very special to them and tonight you’ll see all the banners and the chanting – it’ll be a special night and a tough one for Liverpool.

Saying that (and I might be biased), I don’t think this Madrid side is anywhere near as good as the one I used to play in.

You have to remember, until recently, the fans have not been happy with how the side has been playing. They had been scraping 1-0s or drawing, and it was Barca at the top playing all the beautiful football.

Granted they’ve banged in the goals recently, scoring four at Sporting Gijon and then six against Betis, but they’re still not playing the flowing football that Barcelona play.

Until they win the league, and win the Champions League, whilst playing with style, the fans won’t be as happy as they were during the time I spent at the club, when we had fantastic individuals like Zidane and so on. That was a real golden period for the club and the fans still harp on about it now.

I’ve actually been to watch Madrid a couple of times this season and they haven’t been good, and the fans tell you how they miss old times when we were there.

It remains to be seen if things are about to change, they’re closing that gap on Barca, but Wednesday’s match with Liverpool is a big game.

Ince rues not having time to shine at Blackburn but insists he'll wait for the right new job

By Laura Williamson
Last updated at 10:51 AM on 02nd February 2009

Paul Ince is determined to ‘wait for the right club’ before making a return to management.

The former Blackburn Rovers boss, sacked in December after fewer than six months in charge at Ewood Park, added he would be prepared to manage a lower League club again in order to build a regime of his own.

Frustrating time: Paul Ince was sacked by Blackburn after fewer than six months in charge

Ince cut his managerial teeth at Macclesfield Town and MK Dons but his step up to the Premier League was thwarted after Blackburn managed just three wins in the 17 games he was in charge.

He said: ‘I’ve got to wait for the right job. I’m not too proud to go back into the Championship or League One.

‘I want to build my own team, bring in my own players – unfortunately I didn’t have the time to do that at Blackburn.’

The 41-year-old was back at Old Trafford on Saturday for Manchester United’s 1-0 victory over Everton, less than two months after standing on the sidelines and watching Blackburn lose 5-3 in the Carling Cup to Sir Alex Ferguson’s side.

Ince sat alongside former Liverpool and England team-mate Steve McManaman in the Setanta Sports studio and admitted being a pundit is more difficult when you have been a manager and have ambitions to return to the job.

He said: ‘It is harder. You have to be very political sometimes. Not to say I won’t voice my opinion, but some people can go a bit over the top. It’s a very fine line.

‘In the next couple of months I could have a manager’s job with those players in front of me, who they have seen me slaughter.’

Box to box: We spend the day with Macca and co as Setanta broadcast Manchester United's clash with Everton

By Laura Williamson

Last updated at 8:43 AM on 03rd February 2009

Steve McManaman bounces in to one of Setanta’s outside broadcast trucks in the car park behind Old Trafford, three and a half hours before Manchester United’s clash with Everton.

Still ‘tall and skinny’ (Paul Ince’s description, not mine), McManaman has his hair slicked back and is wearing a pinstriped navy suit and a pink shirt, with a pink silk handkerchief tucked in his top pocket. Quite the seasoned TV pro.

‘Can you put the racing on? Channel Four. I’ve got a bet on,’ is the first thing he says in that strong Scouse accent.

Enlarge

Suits you sir: Steve McManaman and Paul Ince share a joke at Old Trafford

Several people scurry around and the former Kop favourite soon has a six-inch monitor in front of him showing the 2.05pm race from Sandown.

But he just can’t sit still. He’s a one-man show. Everyone gets an ‘alright mate’ and a firm shake of the hand and he’s nattering away ten to the dozen, trying to bag free tickets for him and Robbie Fowler to go and watch some racing.

Then he’s flicking through a newspaper, deciding what he’s going to pick in his football accumulator bet.

When the racing feed cuts out for a few seconds he is straight on the phone to his mate for a running commentary on Celestial Halo, his 4-5 bet that comes in first.

McManaman won’t say how much his stake was, but you can hazard a guess it wasn’t a paltry amount.

Former professionals get a lot of stick for dishing out advice from the safety of a couch in a TV studio but, as Setanta’s producer, Stephen Cook, suggests, there is no motivation for modern players to become pundits unless they really want to do the job.

The nerve centre: Inside Setanta's editing truck at Old Trafford

Money, after all, is not a pressing issue for those who have made their name in the beautiful game.

McManaman, now 36, an FA Cup and League Cup winner with Liverpool and the first Englishman to win the Champions League with a foreign club, Real Madrid, admitted punditry was not something he had ever considered, but Setanta’s approach in the summer of 2007 changed his mind.

‘I’m good mates with Jamie Redknapp,’ he said, ‘and I’d seen him do it.

‘Stepping away from football is hard. You don’t go into training any more, you aren’t with 20 of your mates all the time, and this is a good way of getting round it. The camaraderie’s back.’

You can see his point. A couple of hours later McManaman is joined by former Liverpool and England team-mate Paul Ince, back in the public glare six weeks after being sacked as Blackburn Rovers boss.

Cook said Ince was most relieved to hear he didn’t have to wear a tie for the show, but ‘The Guv’nor’ is clearly still a little nervous in front of the camera.

By 3.30pm, two hours before kick off, the tie-less Ince and McManaman are sitting in the studio high above the Old Trafford pitch. Anchorman Angus Scott does an impressive job of leading the coverage while the pair of them chatter away off-camera.

Setanta's main commentator John Champion described Manchester United's clash with Everton

The presenter even takes some ribbing from McManaman about turning up in his brother’s suit.

Scott doesn’t flinch when the stadium announcer reads out the team sheets in the middle of his live update from around the grounds. The noise is deafening in the tightly-packed studio, which can’t be more than fifteen square metres in size, but Scott just smiles and carries on as the techies scramble about looking for the ‘off’ switch.

During the advertising break he manages to laugh about it and takes a sip from the bottle of water he has marked with his name in marker pen – experience has shown him television is not as glamorous as it seems.

Commentator Jon Champion is another who impresses with his thorough approach to the live show. He said it takes him two or three days to prepare for each game, to digest the relevant facts and figures and distill them into a page or two of notes.

Champion also has an interesting take on the relationship between the commentator, generally a trained broadcast journalist like himself, and the summariser - former Chelsea, Celtic and Scotland midfielder Craig Burley.

‘My job is to tell the viewer what is happening,’ Champion explains, ‘and it’s his job to say why and how it is happening.

’80 per cent of the job is done by the 29 cameras around the ground. You must never lose sight of the fact that the picture is more powerful than any words can ever be.’

Enlarge

Smile Paul: Setanta's team pose for the cameras before Saturday's broadcast at Old Trafford

The man who dictates the images the watching world will see is Grant Philips, the match director.

A softly spoken Scotsman and Celtic fan, Philips is not the sort of director who ‘effs and blinds his way through 90 minutes, opting instead to instruct in a quiet, controlled manner.

Philips sits in front of a wall of monitors akin to the flight deck of a 747, calling out the numbers of the cameras he wants to main feed to use.

It is mind boggling to the uninitiated, particularly the speed with which replays are offered after a key incident.

The process debunks the theory men can’t multitask - football matches must have a formula, but controlling 29 cameras and six replay screens takes some doing.

The production goes well, bar McManaman’s issues with saying ‘phenomenal’ and Ince’s attempts to get a word in edgeways, and Manchester United reach their 12th game without conceding a goal with a 1-0 victory over Everton.

The United fans may be celebrating but, for the Setanta production crew, it is time de-rig the cameras, pack up the trucks and move on to the next venue. The ‘talent’, the faces in front of camera, will be long gone by this point - but you can bet your life McManaman’s still talking.

Action replay for classic Liverpool v Newcastle match

Feb 16 2009 by Luke Traynor, Liverpool Echo

Stan Collymore's famous winner against Newcastle in 1996 320

ONE of the greatest football matches ever played in the Premiership is to be recreated.

Liverpool’s dramatic 4-3 win against Newcastle United at Anfield in April 1996, has gone down in sporting history.

Now, the stars who served up those thrills and spills are coming together for an intriguing re-match.

Already, former players including Robbie Fowler, Jamie Redknapp, Steve McManaman, John Barnes, Ian Rush, Jason McAteer, Rob Jones, Dominic Matteo and Mark Wright have agreed to pull on the red shirt again.

Former Anfield legend Phil Thompson is contacting the Liverpool players involved in the charity game.

Money raised will be split between the Alder Hey Imagine Appeal based in Liverpool and the Children’s hospital in Newcastle.

Phil is trying to persuade the Reds former foreign contingent of Patrik Berger, Stig Bjornebye and Bjorn Tore Kvarme to play.

The colourful Bruce Grobelaar, a European Cup winner, will keep goal with David James expected to be on England duty at the time.

The 4-3 blockbuster won renown for two sides playing stunning attacking football in a match which the Reds edged with Stan Collymore’s late winner.

For Newcastle, players including Alan Shearer, Peter Beardsley, Les Ferdinand, Philippe Albert and David Ginola are expected to turn out.

Stan Collymore's famous winner against Newcastle in 1996 320

Efforts are already under way to get St James’s Park fans favourite Faustino Asprilla over to the UK from Colombia.

The match could be televised live, and is almost certain to be transferred to the appropriate setting of St James’s Park.

If the game in October is a success, a return fixture could be played at Anfield.

The idea emerged when the former Reds skipper attended a football convention in South Africa and he was approached about the proposal.

Phil Thompson said: “It’s a wonderful idea. The game touched everybody and the abiding memory is Kevin Keegan slumped over the hoarding at the end.

“Fantastic football was played and it must have been devastating for Newcastle to lose 4-3.

“Magic always happens at Anfield.”

Ticket details for both the dinner and the match to be announced.

luketraynor@liverpoolecho.co.uk

No more local heroes- What happened to the Liverpool production line

04 Mar 2009 - 15:25:37


David Ngog's first Barclays Premier League goal for Liverpool
last night was a turn around in fortunes for a gangling 19-year-old who, it's fair to say, hasn't set Anfield alight since he arrived from Paris Saint-Germain last summer.
Off the mark: David Ngog celebrates scoring against Sunderland
But it also prompted a question about the state of Liverpool Football Club. If Rafa Benitez is happy to pay a rumoured £1.5million for a young, unpolished, foreign player, what does that say about the club's stock of home-grown talent?
Liverpool may have won the FA Youth Cup in 2006 and 2007, but Benitez's transfer dealings don't suggest the next Steven Gerrard is going to be unearthed any time soon.
The Liverpool youth set-up, which became the Anfield Academy in 1999, used to be a production line of top class players. Gerrard, Jamie Carragher, Robbie Fowler, Michael Owen and Steve McManaman all learned their trade in Liverpool's youth teams.
They were nurtured by former Reds winger Steve Heighway and learned exactly what it means to be a Liverpool player.
'The Liverpool Way' - a 'holistic', 'player-centred approach' - is still, apparently, the way of life on Merseyside, but where is the next generation of home-grown talent?
When we were kings: Phil Brazier lifts the FA Youth Cup with Liverpool in 1996
Since Liverpool won the 1996 FA Youth Cup with a team including Carragher, David Thompson and Michael Owen, which young Scousers have graduated to become Anfield legends? None.
What went wrong?
Heighway retired from his role as academy director in May 2007 after 19 years of coaching at the club.
The man who won four league titles, two European Cups, two UEFA Cups and an FA Cup during an 11-year playing career at Anfield walked away with some parting verbal shots at Rafa Benitez, particularly with regard to the manager's attitude towards the youth set-up.
Reserve football was 'meaningless'; managers are under too much pressure to try young players at first-team level and Heighway, the self-confessed 'best coach of 17- and 18-year-old players in this club', should be left to do his job.
But the rot had set in long before Heighway's departure. Fowler and McManaman were followed by the golden generation of Owen, Carragher and Gerrard, as well as players such as Thompson, Joey Barton, and Dominic Matteo. But after that, well, what did happen to Anfield's great hopes? Sportsmail looks at the shining lights who couldn't cut it at Liverpool.
Moment of glory: Neil Mellor celebrates scoring for Liverpool in 2004
Neil Mellor The Sheffield-born striker and son of former Manchester City player Ian Mellor progressed through the ranks at Liverpool, scoring goals aplenty for the Under 19 and reserve sides before getting his chance in the first team.
In August 2003 Gerard Houllier sent the promising centre forward to West Ham for a year-long loan, but injuries undermined Mellor's spell in London. He returned to Anfield, where Champions League football and a long-range winner against Arsenal in front of the Kop followed. A knee operation to cure tendonitis saw the striker spend most of 2005 on the sidelines.
A loan spell at Wigan Athletic followed, before Mellor moved to Preston North End in 2006. Injuries have restricted the appearances of the centre forward, now 28, at Preston and he has been most effective as a substitute.
Liverpool 2 Sunderland 0: Ngog helps to lift the mood for mournful Kop
It's official, Liverpool are better without Torres... but only just! Sportsmail's game-by-game guide to the Spain star's impact at Anfield this season
Help us out: Rafa begs Newcastle to halt United surge
Spurs flop Ramos gives Raul and Real confidence to beat Liverpool at Anfield
LIVERPOOL FC NEWS FROM ACROSS THE NET

Stephen Wright
Stephen Wright You know your best days are behind you when the Coventry Telegraph describes you as a '28-year-old former Liverpool trainee'.
Wright, a boyhood Everton fan, progressed through the Liverpool youth ranks, enjoyed two loan spells at Crewe Alexandra and broke into the first team squad at Anfield. Appearances for the defender, however, were limited and Wright joined Sunderland for £3m in 2000.
After experiencing promotion and relegation with the Black Cats and impressing on loan at Stoke City as he recovered from surgery on his ankle, Wright was released by Roy Keane in January 2008. He joined Coventy City last summer.
Danny Guthrie
Danny Guthrie Liverpool picked up Guthrie when he was 16, after the player had been released by Manchester United. He made just three first team appearances for Liverpool, all as a substitute, and was sent on loan to Southampton in March 2007.
A season's loan at Bolton Wanderers followed and Guthrie showed he was a Premier League player by making 27 appearances for Bolton in the top flight. He then joined Newcastle United in July 2008, apparently at the bequest of Kevin Keegan (unusual in Newcastle's transfer dealings), and has established himself as a first-team regular at St James' Park.
Guthrie's rash challenge on Hull City's Craig Fagan in September, which broke the player's leg, was a low point, but the midfielder has proved to be a useful signing for Newcastle.
Stephen Warnock The Ormskirk-born defender was a promising graduate of the Liverpool Academy and was called up to train with the first team squad in 2001.
Loan spells at Bradford City and Coventry City, where he picked the supporters' player of the season award in 2004, followed, and Warnock was rewarded with a first-team debut in Liverpool's Champions League qualifier against Sturm Graz in August 2004.
Warnock then became a useful member of Benitez's squad, making 20 Premier League appearances in 2005-06, for example, but joined Blackburn Rovers in January 2007.
The defender has become a first team regular at Ewood Park and won his first England cap against Trinidad & Tobago in June 2008.
Red hot: Stephen Warnock scores for Liverpool three years ago
Jon Otsemobor
Jon Otsemobor Perhaps most famous for being shot in the buttocks by a gunman in a Liverpool nightclub in October 2003, Otsemobor made just six first team appearances for the Anfield club.
He got his chance after impressing in the Under 19s and during a loan spell at Hull City, but was then loaned out again to Bolton Wanderers, where he played just one game, and then to Crewe Alexandra a year later.
Otsemobor was released by Liverpool in 2005 and joined Crewe on a permanent deal, before moving to Rotherham. The right-back then joined Norwich City on a free transfer in July 2007.
John WelshWelsh joined Liverpool at the age of 10 and progressed to the first team squad in his late teens. Despite making a substitute appearance in the Champions League, Welsh failed to become a regular in the starting XI and joined Hull City in 2005, initially on loan.
The midfielder won four England Under 21 caps with the Tigers, but broke his leg in March 2007 after a challenge with former Liverpool team-mate Neil Mellor, then playing for Preston North End.
A loan spell at Chester City followed a year later, but Welsh could not break into Hull City's first team and joined Carlisle in the January transfer window.
Youthful exuberance: Liverpool players, including (far left) Richie Partridge and (No 32) John Welsh celebrate as Liverpool beat Spurs in a Carling Cup quarter-final penalty shoot-out in 2004
Richie PartridgeA Republic of Ireland Under 21 international, Partridge was released by Liverpool in 2005 after making just three first team appearances and having spent the 2002-03 season on loan at Coventry City.
The winger then joined Sheffield Wednesday for a year, before moving to Rotherham United in June 2006 and Chester City a year later.
Injuries have troubled Partridge's career but he has made 21 appearances, nine as a substitute, for the League Two side this season.
Liverpool 2 Sunderland 0: Ngog helps to lift the mood for mournful Kop
It's official, Liverpool are better without Torres... but only just! Sportsmail's game-by-game guide to the Spain star's impact at Anfield this season
Help us out: Rafa begs Newcastle to halt United surge
Spurs flop Ramos gives Raul and Real confidence to beat Liverpool at Anfield
LIVERPOOL FC NEWS FROM ACROSS THE NET

McManaman relishes spice of bitter rivalry

True blue who turned red knows all about Mersey derby, and the pain in Spain

By Steve Tongue, Football Correspondent

Sunday, 25 January 2009

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For someone brought up as a dyed-in-the-blue-wool Evertonian, who then played 364 games for Liverpool over a nine-year period, Mersey derbies bring mixed emotions. Studied neutrality is not the most obvious of them, but that is what Steve McManaman has to practise when his employers, Setanta Sports, televise two derbies in a week.

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The number of true Blues who have gone over to the other side as players is something of a continuing frustration to Everton followers, who dream of the teams they might have fielded had Ian Rush, Michael Owen, McManaman, Robbie Fowler, Jamie Carragher and others stayed true to "The People's Club". McManaman turned down his boyhood favourites because they would only offer a one-year schoolboy contract to a tiny lad whose father (also an Everton fanatic) wisely reckoned would need longer than that to develop physically. Kenny Dalglish, Liverpool's manager at the time, suggested a schoolboy contract plus a two-year apprenticeship on top and the deal was done.

"I was a big Everton fan, but at the time Liverpool's scouting system was just a hundred times better," says McManaman 20 years on. "They made that extra effort, wheeled out Kenny Dalglish to meet you and made you feel as if this was the greatest club in the world. The clubs were virtually on a par at that time, Everton had just won the Cup-Winners' Cup, which I went to watch as a fan, but at that age your dad wants what's best for you and I think that was the case with all those lads."

If Liverpool became the more successful of the two sides in the Nineties, they still lost as many derby matches as they won. McManaman was a squad player in his debut season for the most famous of them, the 4-4 FA Cup replay at Goodison that prompted Dalglish's resignation.

"That was just the most incredible game," he says. "I had some great derby memories and some terrible ones, and being a local lad they do mean that little bit more to you. I understood that by playing in other derbies as well, like in Spain, where it really meant a lot to the local boys."

There is a feeling, articulated by Carragher in his autobiography Carra, that passions off the pitch in the Mersey derby have degenerated into crude abuse of players. McManaman still believes that the rivalry, fierce as it is, has nothing on what he experienced after leaving for Real Madrid in 1999 as the first major Bosman free transfer and coming up against Barcelona.

"That's something else. It's like Spain against another country, with a different language and culture, and there's real resentment there. When we got near their ground there'd be police running alongside with shotguns and we'd all get into the middle of the bus while [the Barcelona fans] stoned the windows. It was just mad." Sticks and stones or not, it was a hugely enjoyable time, after which he could probably claim to have won more major trophies abroad than any other British export, including two European Cups.

Liverpool, in contrast, had never been in contention for the League (once finishing eighth, once seventh) and had to settle for the 1992 FA Cup (he was named man of the match in the final) and a League Cup three years later. What of Rafa Benitez's chances this season of the trophy that supporters want most? "I think it's still very much on the cards and certainly the best chance for a long, long time."

Although essentially supportive of Benitez, whom he first met in Spain, he believes one little managerial outburst in the past couple of weeks would have sufficed and that the second one, about the club's internal politics, was not quite the Liverpool way. "I thought the first one, about [Sir Alex] Ferguson, was just a half-term report, not a rant, where he felt United had got away with things. I didn't mind that. The contract problems I'd personally have preferred to be kept quiet. It should be kept private. But I don't think it's big enough for him to walk away."

He admits that Liverpool will need to improve on last Monday's performance, when they allowed Everton back into the game for a deserved draw. "It was a little bit negative. The people Liverpool put on the pitch were quite negative, and the passing went sideways and backwards, the whole team. It just invited Everton to come and have a go at them and they were incredibly resilient. Then it was a stupid challenge to give away a free-kick and they let the best header in the team, Tim Cahill, have a free header, so it was a disastrous end to the game for Liverpool."

There will be more mixed emotions when Real Madrid meet Liverpool again in the Champions' League. "Madrid are not in great shape at the moment, though the Champions' League brings the best out of them. So I certainly think Liverpool will be favourites and the four English teams should be too strong for everybody bar a very impressive Barcelona side."

Long before that, however, there is another, more parochial, squabble to be settled. Delighted to have found such an enjoyable second career without the strain he saw afflicting Dalglish, McManaman will gratefully take his place in the Setanta box today.

His former team-mate and fellow Spice Boy (a tag they naturally hate) Fowler will be representing Liverpool, and Gary Speed Everton, whileMcManaman plays the neutral. "We'll have a laugh and a joke. The people I work with are brilliant, and where you miss the camaraderie of the dressing room, I've got that back here."