Every manager is two different people. There is the guy who is winning, and the guy who is not. Sir Alex Ferguson was absolutely charming after a game, as long as he had won. If he hadn’t, he was a boiling head of frustration.
I have been there. On many occasions I woke up the next day and was not necessarily proud of how confrontational I had been with the officials or opposition manager.
Mikel Arteta would have felt like that this week, embarrassed by some of his behaviour during Arsenal’s goalless draw at home to Newcastle on Tuesday. I am not even sure what he was getting so excited about, there was nothing greatly controversial.
Rather, what we are seeing is a young manager who has shown he is finding Arsenal’s position at the top of the Premier League more and more difficult to deal with. The pressure is mounting and his conduct at times this season has been very different to the previous three years.
He knows he suddenly has a great chance of winning the league and that brings out a different side, sometimes a not-so-nice side, and certainly one we did not see during Arteta’s playing career, when he was never overly aggressive.
It was different with me, confrontation followed me from my playing days into management. After all, I was the guy who planted a Galatasaray flag in the centre circle of the Fenerbahce pitch when I managed in Turkey. Not that I regretted it, and I’ll come back to that.
Arteta is not finding it easy to control his emotions and he must learn there is a limit, a danger of that passion becoming counter-productive. But as long as you stay the right side of the line — and by that, I mean not disrespecting everyone else around you — then it is all part of the show.
Of course managers are going to contest decisions and get into the odd skirmish with the opposition bench. When you are on the touchline you see everything through the prism of your club. All you see is your team being wronged.
Only later do you sometimes realise it was you who was wrong all along. That is fine, I understand that. The point I make about Arteta is that he just has to be careful. This is new territory for him and he has to find a way of coping with the increased levels of expectation.
It is different with Jurgen Klopp. His reaction towards officials this season is borne more out of frustration. Monday’s 3-1 defeat at Brentford has left Liverpool 16 points off the top. I never would have believed that approaching the halfway stage.
I thought this group of players had the belief they were good enough and it would only be a matter of time before they got their act together. It is a bit more worrying right now. It does not appear to be a blip, and Jurgen will be feeling that.
His players are starting to argue among themselves, which isn’t a bad thing in isolation. But as they used to say to us: ‘Look in the mirror first, son, before you start pointing the finger at anyone else.’
The club is desperately crying out for some big personalities and strong characters to pull the lesser lights through this difficult time. The high intensity that has defined their team is no longer there. Jurgen said very early on that he did not think they needed anything extra in midfield. I have insisted all along that they did.
Thiago is a silky footballer but can’t do the pressing. Jordan Henderson does not have the energy he once did. Harvey Elliott would be better coming into a team that is winning. And Fabinho has been a good player, but he has always been no more than just a steady player for me.
All of this will be adding to Klopp’s irritation, and he has already apologised for some of his aggression towards officials this season. That is what management does, your emotions can often get the better of you.
This brings me back to the incident involving myself in Istanbul. Did I apologise for that? Absolutely not. My Galatasaray side had just won the Turkish Cup final against Fenerbahce, our big rivals, at their home ground.
Nine months earlier, their vice-chairman had called me a cripple, referring to the open-heart surgery I’d had. I did not forget that. So this wasn’t the heat of the battle, I saw the guy’s face in the stands afterwards and ran on to the pitch with the flag.
This was not me showing disrespect to Fenerbahce as a football club, I was making a point to a board member of that club who was extremely rude to me, and rude to anyone who has had open-heart surgery.
It was exciting getting out of the stadium that night, and I have no regrets whatsoever. Looking back, I am proud of it!
Failing to win FA Cup as a player doesn’t haunt me
It is FA Cup third-round Saturday, the one competition I did not win as a player, but later did as a manager with Liverpool. Why did we never win it, or make a final, during those years? That is a good question. We were the best team around.
We either won the First Division or European Cup every year, if not both. We lost a semi-final to Manchester United at Goodison Park in 1979 and against Arsenal at Highfield Road the following year. That is football, the best team does not always win, and it was the beauty of the FA Cup back then.
Is that a regret? I cannot complain about my football career! I have a large trophy cabinet and would never look back and bemoan something that eluded me, no matter how great the FA Cup was when I was a player.
It is different today. Both domestic cups have been diminished, the early rounds especially. For everyone now, the focus is either to remain in the Premier League or, at the other end, to win the title or qualify for Europe.
Is the FA Cup a priority for anyone? I think not. Being in the top four is like winning a trophy now. Winning the FA Cup, from a financial perspective, does not allow you to go out and buy the best players — being in the Champions League does.
Lampard is NOT a bad manager
Frank Lampard is a thoroughly decent man and it was an exceptionally brave move to take the Everton job — but he will be doing well to survive there much longer.
The owner, Farhad Moshiri, has gone AWOL, and that is never a good sign of being in it together with your manager. Like a lot of wealthy men who come into football, he thought this business would be easy.
But he has listened to the wrong people about big football decisions. The one thing you have to get right is recruitment — and Everton have got it badly wrong. Frank inherited a lot of the issues arising from that and they are in serious trouble in the Premier League.
Realistically, it is going to be difficult for him to keep his job. If he is sacked, I would not say that makes Frank a bad manager. I don’t think he’s had a failure yet. There is no disgrace in getting sacked at Chelsea under the previous owners.
Did he do anything drastically wrong? No. He didn’t at Derby, either. He got to the 2019 Championship play-off final and, on another day, would have had them in the Premier League.
But I did question him taking over at Everton. I was not sure it was the job he needed. His next two in the league are against Southampton and West Ham. They could well be the wrong games at the wrong time.
All three are in a relegation battle and fans will be expecting nothing less than total commitment. If Frank were to lose both, his time at Everton would be up.