- FootBiz
- Posts
- FootBiz newsletter #134: Head coach vs manager - more than semantics?
FootBiz newsletter #134: Head coach vs manager - more than semantics?
Where could Southgate pop up next? Plus more FIFA news
Ed Malyon & Matt Hughes
January 16, 2026 • Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes
For a while we have been wondering where Sir Gareth Southgate would pop up next.
Admired for the cultural shift he oversaw at the FA and with the England men’s team, Southgate has been typically thoughtful about his next major role. While he was linked with the Manchester United job a year ago given his strong links to INEOS (via Dave Brailsford) and former FA technical director Dan Ashworth, both now enjoy considerably more distance from operations at Old Trafford, with Ashworth back at St George’s Park and Sir Dave simply staying out of the way.
It has been my view that — given Southgate is perceived as not being an elite tactical coach or evaluator of talent — his best role may be as a sporting director or even in a more senior executive role where the responsibilities are more around building a successful organisation, leading and optimising its constituent parts and establishing a culture. He has shown he does that well.
(As an aside, the last person I met in a coaching role who I thought this about was Gary Neville during his time at Valencia, where I came away from an long lunch convinced he was far more suited to being a club president/CEO than a manager, a scenario which came to pass at Salford City)
Indeed, looking at the current landscape and Southgate’s modern leader archetype is the sort of profile investment groups acquiring a Premier League club would no doubt be interested in, almost a team president position, but Southgate doesn’t seem the sort to dive straight in with some foreign money because it’s the first pay check. If anything, he’s shown considerable patience already.
In addition to coaching opportunities, Southgate must surely have had a number of media offers. Given his relative success in recent tournaments, it would be stunning if the BBC or ITV hadn’t approached him about being a pundit for the summer’s World Cup, and the Beeb would likely have a head start given they’re paying him a reported £50k to host a show called One of a Kind, dabbling in the Jake Humphrey waters of analysing leaders and leadership which Sir Alex Ferguson also dipped his toe into after retiring.
Southgate’s book Dear England is also leadership-focused, as is his content output on LinkedIn, where he averages around two publications a month of varying formats, either musing on topics or promoting keynote speeches or lectures he has given.
The cynic in us wonders if this all is just considered positioning for what role comes next, which is why his most recent LinkedIn post caught our eye.
In it, Sir Gareth expands — in his typically thoughtful way — on the Manager v Head Coach debate sparked by Ruben Amorim’s recent comments, recognising the “erosion of a manager’s authority [that] has been a gradual process over many years,” but which “has accelerated with the widespread introduction of Football, Technical, or Sporting Directors.”
While the differences may seem trivial to some, with the most common distinction simply being a reduction of a certain group of more strategic duties and instead a focus on more on-field executional ones, Southgate pushes back on the idea that it is “merely semantics”.
“From personal experience, it’s not. So much so that when I was offered the role of Head Coach for the England National team, I insisted on changing the title to Manager.”
That little nugget had never been reported before.
“Even though I consider myself calm, collaborative and confident, I understood the importance of authority, influence and control when leading a football operation.
“You may have noticed that my current LinkedIn title reads ‘Leader, Manager, Coach’ - in that order. That is entirely intentional. It reflects the hierarchy of skills I believed were required to run the England team effectively.
“The Leader operates in the public eye, engaging fans, setting the vision, shaping the culture, and championing and protecting the players and staff.
“The Manager is ‘managing’ stakeholders, departments and people, maximising collaboration and making plans stay on track. Oh, and don’t forget the role of persuading 25 financially independent elite performers to put collective purpose ahead of their ego.
“Finally, the Coach works on the pitch, setting the style of play, preparing tactics to exploit opponents, and developing the technical abilities of individual players.”
Southgate transformed his career after taking over England
Not that we would expect him to be in the mix for the Manchester United or Real Madrid jobs (Spurs, if it comes open?) but the timing of Southgate entering the chat is interesting indeed. Yes, his musings are very obviously based on his own experience with England but surely approaches from clubs — or other national teams — must have touched upon this dynamic too? Especially so considering it is clearly of great significance for the former centre-back.
And to be clear this isn’t Southgate arguing that coaches should be taking back more power in a return to the days of Ferguson and Wenger, in fact he says he agrees with the evolution of the role and why it has happened.
“Strategy, culture, planning, and continuity are critical to success in any organisation — and a football club is no different. A Head Coach neither has the time nor, in many cases, the specialist expertise to manage complex player contracts, oversee global scouting networks, or run sophisticated data operations. Equally, it makes little sense to dismantle medical or sports science departments every time there is a change of Head Coach.”
Where his argument may possibly be a little coloured by recency bias is where he states that those who believe the role of head coach — “they just need to coach” — has got simpler are wrong.
Sir Gareth highlights “the complexity of managing modern-day players (many of whom are effectively individual brands), alongside the financial stakes for clubs, and the relentless scrutiny of both traditional and social media” as reasons for added complexity to the coaching role but doesn’t most of this only come into play at the very elite level?
How many ‘individual brands’ was he managing at Middlesbrough?
If this is Southgate’s attempts to illustrate how difficult it is to coach at the top then you’d find few who would argue with that premise, but the very point of installing systems around the coach is so that the coach can focus on the bit he is truly paid for — converting the human resources he is working with into points on the pitch.
Part of me doesn’t want Sir Gareth Southgate to ever manage in the Premier League again.
The likelihood of him being chewed up and spat out is so high, when he could instead simply continue living the peaceful life of a knight of the realm making good money for giving thoughtful talks from behind a lectern.
Perhaps this latest missive was just an extension of that, but it would also handily serve as preparing the ground for a potential return to the dugout.
Whether that is even his best role or not is to be seen. And while we don’t know where he will pop up again — if he even does — we do at least know for sure what his title is going to be.
