With the recent-news that David Moyes would be replaced in the interim by current player Ryan Giggs, it seemed a good time to look back through the years at some of the most-notable player-managers in football history. Here's the latest Top Tenner looking at the men who could set the lineup and jump right in it on the same day too.
10). Herbert Chapman
His reputation is obviously built on his brilliant spells with Huddersfield and Arsenal (winning two league titles at both and setting the foundations for another one at each club) but Herbert Chapman's managerial genius had taken root while he was still a player. Chapman was on the verge of retiring in 1907, coming to the end of his spell with Tottenham, but was persuaded to take over as player-manager at Northampton, where he would implement some of the policies that would bring him such great success in the future, like introducing an extra defender and a counter-attacking style that simply hadn't been seen in football up to that point. He managed Northampton for five years, two of them while still playing, before leaving for Leeds City, and eventually the clubs with whom he would make his name.
9). Andy Hessenthaler
A lower-league stalwart and dead ringer for Colonel Stuart, the rogue marine who holds an entire airport hostage in Die Hard 2: Die Harder, Andy Hessenthaler was Mr. Gillingham for a decade (his son is now on their books) between 1996-2006, making over 300 appearances for the club. After promotion to the second tier in 2000, manager Peter Taylor left for Leicester, and Hessenthaler took over, impressively maintaining their position in the division for four seasons, all while regularly picking himself in the team. He had another spell as player-manager at Dover in 2007, before returning to Gillingham for another couple of seasons, this time without the player tag, in 2010.
8). Glenn Hoddle
It's easy to forget that, after that unfortunate business about karma and whatnot, a succession of relative coaching failures and his often bizarre sentence construction, Glenn Hoddle was once the great hope of English football, starting his coaching career with not one but two player-manager stints. Firstly, he took over at a Swindon side on the verge of slipping into the third tier in 1991, but by 1993 had won them promotion to the top flight, scoring in the playoff final before departing for Chelsea, leaving John Gorman to (unsuccessfully) shepherd the Robins through their only Premier League season. At Chelsea he kept his boots on, making a solid playing contribution in two of his three seasons at Stamford Bridge but more importantly taking them to the FA Cup final and recruiting Ruud Gullit, one of the first genuine foreign superstars of the Premier League era.
7). Ruud Gullit
And it turns out he had purchased his successor, with Gullit taking over after Hoddle left to take the England job. Gullit, who had evolved into a sweeper since arriving in England, still kept a decent presence in the Chelsea side while guiding them to their FA Cup win in 1997, which in this era of money and trophies doesn't sound like a particularly big deal, but it was Chelsea's first honour since 1971. Thus, you might think that Chelsea would be happy and grateful for his performance, but you couldn't take that sort of thing for granted when Ken Bates was around. "I didn't like his arrogance -- in fact I never liked him," said Uncle Ken, presumably keeping a straight face while accusing someone else of arrogance. Bates dismissed the Dutchman -- something Gullit discovered in the media – just under a year later.
6). Gianluca Vialli
Completing the triptych of player-managers at Chelsea is Italian striker Vialli, brought to the club under Gullit as his career wound down, but who would turn out to be their most successful coach of the modern era, until Roman Abramovich arrived. "This is the most unbelievable thing that's happened in my career," Vialli said shortly after taking the job. "I have a lot of great memories but this is something different even from the feeling of scoring a goal. I'm still a little confused but I'm very happy and I hope I can be the right person for the right job." Vialli remained a player until the end of the 1998-99 season, by which time he had won the League Cup and become the youngest ever manager to win a European trophy, lifting the Cup Winners' Cup in 1998. He would go on to win the FA Cup in 2000, before another messy sacking, five games into the 2000-01 campaign.
5). Adolfo Pedernera
In the 1950s, Colombia was something of a rogue state in the football world. Money was in plentiful supply, with the biggest clubs of the time recruiting South America's brightest talents, and particularly from Argentina after a players' strike in 1948, something that would eventually lead to Colombia being suspended by FIFA. Two of the players Millonarios brought in as part of this recruitment drive were Alfredo di Stefano and Adolfo Pedernera, the former you know all about, but the latter was an inside forward considered one of Argentina's greatest ever players. He was nicknamed El Maestro, for fairly obvious reasons. The two formed part of the team that would become known as the 'Blue Ballet' because of their graceful style of play and in 1951 when coach Carlos Aldabe retired, Pedernera took over as player-manager, going on to win three league titles in a row, as well as a the Copa Colombia in 1953.
4). Guy Roux
“Guy Roux made Auxerre what it is today almost single-handed,” said Basile Boli, one of many graduates of the Roux academy, in 2005. “He lived and breathed for the club.” Roux is known as the man who, with a couple of breaks, was Auxerre manager for 44 years before finally 'retiring' in 2005, only to re-emerge for a brief spell at Lens. But Roux started out as a player-manager at Auxerre, applying for the job at the then-amateur club and offering his services at a very affordable rate (which basically got him the job) at just 22-years-old. Roux didn't stick around as a player for all that long, but would go on to build a club that has gone from tiny irrelevance to Ligue 1 champions in 1996, and four-time winners of the Coupe de France, spending an uninterrupted 31 years in the top flight until relegation in 2012.
3). Graeme Souness
These days, Souness seems happy with a relatively leisurely life as a TV analyst (and who can blame him?), but not when he started out in the managerial game back in 1986. After signing on as Rangers player-manager Souness wanted to make an impact, and did so very rapidly - in the first half of his debut in fact, making that impact on Hibs striker George McCluskey's thigh, earning his second booking inside the opening 34 minutes. Souness would of course then go on to make a rather more positive impression on Rangers and Scottish football, signing the first 'openly' Catholic player for Rangers in Mo Johnston, winning the league in his first season, and again in both 1989 and 1990, and would have notched a fourth title in five seasons had he not left four games before the end of the 1990-91 season to take the Liverpool job. In all this time Souness was registered as a Rangers player, although he would largely manage from the Ibrox sidelines, making just 72 appearances in nearly five seasons, the bulk coming in the first two.
2). Johnny Giles
Being a player-manager might seem like a tough enough job, juggling dual disciplines, trying to maintain authority while simultaneously technically being in the ranks, balancing one's own playing concerns with the myriad issues a coach has to deal with. Doing that in one place is tough, but two just looks like masochism. Nevertheless, that's what Johnny Giles did in the 1970s, combining being player-manager of Ireland (1973-80) with the same role at West Brom (1975-77), and doing it pretty well too. He got the Baggies promoted to the First Division in 1976, where they finished seventh, before leaving to take charge of Shamrock Rovers back in his homeland. Giles was Don Revie's choice to succeed him at Leeds in 1974, but instead the board appointed Brian Clough. How different history could have been.
1). Kenny Dalglish
Usually, a legendary player becoming manager for the side they gained their reputation is not a particularly good idea. After all, how could a man who won five league titles and three European Cups enhance his standing at a club after taking over in the dugout? What could he possibly do that would have any impact other than diminishing his legend? Well, as it turns out, he could win three more league titles, two FA Cups and become a sort of spiritual leader and figurehead after Hillsborough, attending dozens of funerals and elevating himself from king to deity on Merseyside.
Kenny Dalglish took over as Liverpool player-manager in 1985 after Joe Fagan had retired and promptly won the double, not only playing 29 games but scoring the goal that would seal the title, on the final day at Stamford Bridge. With his own playing time diminishing and Ian Rush departing for Italy, Dalglish then rebuilt the Liverpool forward line and, after a fallow year in 1986-87, won two more titles before his shock resignation in 1991. The stresses of Hillsborough finally took their toll. “I think Kenny made the player-manager role work because he was such a fantastic player and he was revered and respected by everyone in the squad,” said Jim Beglin, Dalglish's former teammate and charge, a couple of years ago. “He had an aura about him and his greatness on the pitch was easily transferred off it.”