Great Premier League players do NOT make great managers – Van Nistelrooy’s Leicester job feels like a shot in the dark

NAME me a great Premier League footballer who has become a successful Premier League manager?

You can’t, because there aren’t any.

Plenty of the competition’s legendary players have had a stab in the dugout – Roy Keane, Patrick Vieira, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Vincent Kompany, Gianfranco Zola and Tony Adams, as well as Alan Shearer as Newcastle interim chief.

None lasted too long in English top-flight management and all of them failed.

So the appointment of Ruud van Nistelrooy as Leicester’s new boss feels like a shot in the dark.

And a throwback to an era in which big-name former players were expected to walk into a dressing room, metaphorically thrust their medals onto the table and command instant respect from their new squad.

It is a theory which has been debunked by that illustrious list mentioned above.

Meanwhile, Wayne Rooney’s managerial career is threatening to disappear without trace at Plymouth Argyle – who have conceded ten goals in their last two matches – before he even gets a crack at a Premier League job.

And Lampard will be receiving a warm welcome at Millwall on Saturday in his new job as boss of Championship strugglers Coventry.

Aged 48, Van Nistelrooy has had just one full season in management at PSV Eindhoven.

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It was a decent campaign, in which PSV finished as Eredivisie runners-up and won the Dutch Cup, while Van Nistelrooy also enjoyed a successful couple of weeks as Manchester United’s caretaker – which mostly consisted of beating Leicester.

Still, it’s clear that Van Nistelrooy wouldn’t be getting a Premier League job right now if he hadn’t been a great player – a Premier League champion, Golden Boot winner and PFA Player of the Year at United.

And while the 37-year-old Jamie Vardy knows exactly who Van Nistelrooy is – having broken the Dutchman’s record for scoring in consecutive Premier League matches during the Foxes’ miracle title campaign – plenty of younger players won’t know much about a career which peaked more than two decades ago.

Like most clubs, Leicester have tended to ignore a manager’s playing calibre – Brendan Rodgers and Steve Cooper are career coaches, Enzo Maresca a graduate of Pep Guardiola’s backroom set-up.

So this is left-field. Van Nistelrooy, who takes charge of the Foxes for the first time against West Ham on Tuesday, would be a significant trend-bucker if he succeeds at the King Power.

Leicester is a tough job in many ways.

Long-serving director of football Jon Rudkin is very close to the owner Aiyawatt ‘Top’ Srivaddhanaprabha, while senior players, including Vardy, hold an unusual amount of sway.

A boozy players’ Christmas do in Copenhagen on the weekend of Cooper’s sacking also suggested discipline might be an issue.

Leicester should aim high

And the club were considered fortunate to avoid a points deduction under Premier League Profit and Sustainability Rules, only because they were in the Championship at the time they were charged.

Then there is the question of expectation levels. At most newly-promoted clubs the sole aim is survival. And at most clubs outside of the ‘Big Six’, ambitions are limited.

Yet at Leicester, ‘unrealistic expectations’ are entirely reasonable.

Along with Manchester City, Liverpool and Chelsea, the Foxes are one of only four clubs to have won both the Premier League and FA Cup in the last decade.

So how can anyone say it is unrealistic for Leicester to aim high when they have won the title more recently than Manchester United and won anything more recently than Arsenal, Tottenham or Newcastle?

Van Nistelrooy proved as Old Trafford caretaker that he looks and sounds the part – bearded, roll-necked and quotable, he has the PR credentials to go with his playing honours.

But he faces one hell of a difficult task. And he might also be carrying the hopes of any great Premier League player looking for a short cut into elite management.

David Moyes vindicated?

REMIND me again of the reason for the ‘David Moyes Out’ campaign at West Ham, after the Scotsman masterminded the most consistently successful four-year run in the club’s history.

Under Julen Lopetegui, the Hammers are 14th, as opposed to three top-half finishes and three consecutive European quarter-finals, including a first trophy in four decades under Moyes.

In black-and-white terms, what Moyes achieved at the London Stadium pretty much reached the glass ceiling for any club outside of the elite.

There were complaints about playing style, yet there is precious little evidence of anything sexier under Lopetegui.

Indeed, there doesn’t seem to be any coherent playing style whatsoever.

VAR ‘triumph’

ANOTHER triumph for VAR at Brighton on Friday, when Stockley Park spent three minutes deciding that Southampton ‘scorer’ Cameron Archer was onside.

Only to then spend a further minute or so deciding that his team-mate Adam Armstrong – who definitely was offside – was interfering with play, making the first decision irrelevant.

The ludicrous amount of time taken to rule out that potential winner meant the match lasted 103 minutes.

It’s almost as if they don’t actually care about match-going punters.

Manchester fallen?

A THIRD of the way through the season, there is no Manchester club in the Premier League’s top four.

By the time the derby comes around on Sunday week, City v United could be a genuine mid-table clash.

Is it possible that Manchester could be without Champions League football next season for the first time since 1995-96, back in the days when England had only one representative at the top table?

Title race ‘wrapped up’

COLE PALMER, whose deadpan media interviews are almost as entertaining as his sublime footballing skills, was dismissive when asked whether Chelsea were in the title race after a 3-0 win over Aston Villa left them joint-second with Arsenal.

And he was right. There is no title race. Liverpool have it wrapped up.

You might normally fancy the leaders’ trip to St James’ Park to represent a potential minefield – but on Saturday Eddie Howe was congratulating his team on a performance in which the shot count read Crystal Palace 16 Newcastle 1.

PA system take

AM I just getting old and irritable – as opposed to middle-aged and irritable – or are PA systems at football grounds getting louder and louder and PA announcers getting more and more irritating?

Point of ref

REFEREES have become very tough on sign language.

The waving of imaginary cards is punished with real cards, along with the performance of a TV screen gesture to appeal for a VAR review.

So why not clamp down on the most annoying and widespread hand signal of all – the wagging of a finger at a ref by a player who has just committed a clear foul?

I’d go for a mandatory six-match suspension or even a sine die ban.

Dream replay denied

THE SCRAPPING of FA Cup replays was hugely controversial and on Sunday, seventh-tier Harborough Town showed us why.

A dramatic late equaliser away at League One Reading should have earned the part-timers a 3-3 draw, a rematch at home and a place in last night’s third-round draw.

Instead, they suffered the distinctly less romantic outcome of exiting after conceding twice in the opening minutes of extra-time.

Ashes hopes

THE AUSSIES were stuffed at home in their First Test against India while England – with a potentially explosive group of fast bowlers – won well in New Zealand.

Might next year’s Ashes Down Under be an actual contest rather than the usual massacre?