Leighton Baines - next Everton manager (but one)?

[sdk]

I have great respect and fanboy affection for Baines and my wife already knows that should we ever adopt a dog, we'll be naming it after him. I'd be very interested to see him running some games in a managerial position, but I wonder whether he's temperamentally well-suited to it. He seems canny enough but would he really be interested in investing the degree of focus on management that he did on his personal performance? He's long seemed to be someone whose footy talent was undeniable and worth the cultivation, but whose interests tended in various directions, and he often suggested that he'd be keen on investigating other stuff after his playing days were over.

Perhaps retirement from playing and his experience to date in the training aspect of footy have reinvigorated his interest (or made him think it remained his best bet for the sort of successful career to which he's become accustomed). Whatever. Love you, Bainsey.

 

[jazzy]

So who gets booted to make room for his ascension, Unsy?

That would need a very big boot.

 

[4737carlin]

And we love our Leighton Baines

 

[Yarrgh]

Absolutley. Get an education for free off Benitez; get a Championship team if possible; develop your style and get good results.

I think that this would be the dream scenario for Baines. A season with the Spaniard, then a season or two elsewhere, ideally getting into the PL and ensuring a season staying up and then back once the current driftwood in the squad has been purged.

Last season of GP and first in BMD...

 

[Nyhus]

Baines seems like he would be a much better manager fit than Dunc. Ferguson is full of fight, but i cant imagine he’s got the head for the strategic side of things. Baines seems a much sharper tack than Dunc. He was also a much better player than the big Scot.

 

[Oasis1878]

Rumoured to have leapfrogged the Galloot in the pecking order and about to become a key member of the Everton first team coaching staff. A successor to Benitez might be pushing it time-wise, but he's apparently done well as a youth development coach. I'm sure he'll be doing all his coaching badges in the next year or so if he hasn't already done them.

He's a much more credible blue to be making manager than Ferguson; Baines is serious and articulate, whereas Ferguson is all spluttering OTT passion and he lacks polish. Baines has demographics on his side too: he's a hero and role model to a younger generation of blues to the one who hero worshipped Ferguson. The new generations who probably make up the majority of Evertonians now in their 20s and 30s have dads who worshipped Ferguson; they respect his standing at the club but they dont identify with him as much as they would Baines.

A strange one from me given his record in undermining Roberto, but if I were a betting man - and notwithstanding that Usmanov/Moshiri tend to go for established industry names as managers - I wouldn't mind enquiring what odds I could get on Baines being manager well before the decade's out.

You missed out ‘serial winner’, @davek

 

[davek]

What’s this based on mate?

He strikes me that way. Doesn't he you?

 

[davek]

Because I do not believe he’d like the pressure or the responsibility that goes with it.

Working with the players, organising training sessions and being one of the lads is ideal for him

Based on what?

Seems ambitious to me if he takes up Benitez's offer. He's off to the US on tour.

 

[davek]

You missed out ‘serial winner’, @davek

I missed it out because he's not.

 

[davek]

I'm scared, this does not compute, and my entire GOT belief systems has been sent into a tailspin.

On top of the fsw rocking up, I'm genuinely perturbed at all this, my tiny mind cannot sort out the information.

@davek - is it really you and are you ok mate?

I;m not advocating it; I;m saying that the Benitez decision to promote Baines - and his accepting it - looks like a statement of intent.

I could see him being Everton manager much more than I could Ferguson, let's put it that way.

 

[Terrarian]

Rumoured to have leapfrogged the Galloot in the pecking order and about to become a key member of the Everton first team coaching staff. A successor to Benitez might be pushing it time-wise, but he's apparently done well as a youth development coach. I'm sure he'll be doing all his coaching badges in the next year or so if he hasn't already done them.

He's a much more credible blue to be making manager than Ferguson; Baines is serious and articulate, whereas Ferguson is all spluttering OTT passion and he lacks polish. Baines has demographics on his side too: he's a hero and role model to a younger generation of blues to the one who hero worshipped Ferguson. The new generations who probably make up the majority of Evertonians now in their 20s and 30s have dads who worshipped Ferguson; they respect his standing at the club but they dont identify with him as much as they would Baines.

A strange one from me given his record in undermining Roberto, but if I were a betting man - and notwithstanding that Usmanov/Moshiri tend to go for established industry names as managers - I wouldn't mind enquiring what odds I could get on Baines being manager well before the decade's out.

I don't get you, you slate the lad constantly, weird behaviour

 

[Zezti]

Give it Bainesy till the end of the season

 

[davek]

I don't get you, you slate the lad constantly, weird behaviour

I still slate him.

How is my posing the possiblity that he could be Everton manager in a few years time contradicting anything I've ever said about him?

It isn't.

I dont like him, but it doesn't rule out me musing (at a time when the manager's job is the number 1 topic of conversation and when Benitez has just massively boosted Baines profile as a coach) about Baines as a future manager.

 

[Terrarian]

I still slate him.

How is my posing the question and posing the possiblity that he could be Everton manager in a few years time contradicting anything Ilve ever said about him?

It isn't. I dont like him, but it doesn't rule put me musing (at a time when the manager's job is the number 1 topic of conversation and when Benitez has just massively boosted Baines profile as a coach) about Baines as a future manager.

I just read one of yours saying if he's a good coach you can forgive him but he was a cracking player. just find it a bit odd.

 

[davek]

I just read one of yours saying if he's a good coach you can forgive him but he was a cracking player. just find it a bit odd.

I also said I wouldn't forget what he'd said in the back end of RM's time here.