It was no surprise to hear Erik ten Hag, the former manager of Manchester United, Bemoan that the modern player can no longer take criticism.
He's right. A combination of factors is the culprit. The awakening that exists in daily life and penetrates through society. Money. Media exposure. And the power of their activa value for a football club. All those elements make it extremely difficult to manage the modern football player.
If I even pulled a face to something that a coach said to me in my time, even if a senior player and captain at Liverpool, I would get a flood of what today's player would call abuse. It would be in the style of “Who do you think you are?” And “What have you ever achieved to justify an opinion?”
Nowadays, the ruthless media means that the man on the street puts these players on a pedestal before they have ever had a good impact on the game. They are little more than the children from next door who won the lottery.
And, just like me, many schools leave school without a huge education behind them and in many cases, because of the money they earn, they attract parasites that lead them on the wrong path. Many will never reach the potential that they have.
Part of it can be lucky about who you meet during your football trip.
I was lucky. Jack Charlton, my manager at Middlesbrough, rated me quite brutally. He said I had a little talent, but I was liable to waste it. I had two doors to choose from: behind the one there was the chance to work hard and to make a career while behind the others there was the chance to throw it all away. I lay on what he told me.
The second bit of luck I was to meet the collective that was Liverpool's dressing room. As a 24-year-old walking in that environment, a shock was and realized that I was really with the big boys, serial winners from whom I had so much to learn.
Look at these young Manchester United -pups such as Alejandro Garnacho, Jadon Sancho or Marcus Rashford. Who did they listen to? Are we really surprised that Garnacho still finishes the tunnel in the week that ten Hag makes his comments when he is replaced and we hear Ruben Amorim say he will speak to him? No, challenging the manager is what we are going to expect. The tail wags the dog.
This season you have to be super successful such as Arne Slot or Pep Guardiola and Sir Alex Ferguson for him. These managers had teams that won almost every week and that prevents the kind of behavior that we see from these starters. The petulance they show.
I think Manchester United is more than most of them. The players get too much admiration in that club too early, a pedestal has always occurred from a young age. As a player in Liverpool, if we lost, I would not want to go to the city on a Saturday night.
Manchester is just 30 miles away from Liverpool, but I feel that the attitude is different from players. It is more 'showbiz'. You don't have to do much to be treated like a star.
The big mistake that United recently made and Ten Hag was culpable, ended up with Cristiano Ronaldo. The perfect professional, a requirement of standards. He is one senior player that the others look up to, to see the example he placed every day.
Yet even he said, after leaving United,: “They live in a different era. Their mentality, they are not the same. They don't suffer. They don't care. I don't only mean Manchester United, but all teams in the world. They are not the same as my generation. '
I am over it, but that is the importance of your senior players. In general, as a manager you have players four days a week, two hours a day, not counting match days. But you may have 25 of them, so how do you like what is going on in their lives? Senior pros. Players you can trust that are proud of their group and exercise the standards for others to adhere to. They take the responsibility to take care of the dressing room and tell these children directly before they become a problem for the manager. Who are those men for Manchester United today?
The big Celtic and Scotland manager Jock Stein always said: “don't look for problems as they will find you.” You have to ignore a lot what you hear, but that was always easier if you had men you could trust in your dressing room.
I am asked if I was walking away from management because of the modern character, but that was not that. After I was fired at Newcastle United, I threw it because I did not want to be responsible with the kind of people that football clubs ran more. People wonder if it was in the time that I had with Craig Bellamy. He was difficult, but he had fantastic talent and always wanted to improve. He was just crazy how he did it and I am sure he would say the same thing himself.
The management today has never been more difficult. The requirements are huge at the highest level. Dealing with some of these personalities deserve every cent they get every cent. But from my perspective you can keep it!
Liverpool's unfortunate hero who surpasses Salah
I was told that the last time the FA Cup fifth round Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea or Spurs did not have it, was 1984 and if you like your signs, Liverpool won the competition that year. They also won the League Cup and European Cup, wore a pin-striped shirt and their main attack had scored 30 goals by February.
But Omens or Portents are not for me. I put it down on coincidence and how fantastic this current Liverpool side is.
It is easy to determine Mo Salah for his creativity and goals, to greet Luis Diaz for his pace and energy or to praise Virgil van Dijk for his elegance and calmness, but the one Liverpool player that I would choose, even above that year, would be Alexis Mac Allister.
I believe for a long time that the best football players come from Argentina. Perhaps it is something to do with the migration of so many Italians there, combined with the natural Latin flair and aggression, but, regardless of the ingredients, they provide excellent football players and this man is my current favorite.
It is no wonder that his teammates ribbed him about being Jurgen Klopp's 'son'. It would be difficult for every manager not to favor him.
He looks like he has the best attitude. Even when Bruno Guimaraes left him in Anfield the other night, his undisturbed reaction says everything about him.
I bet the manager never has to talk to him. He is brave, full of striving and has a fantastic appetite for doing hard yards. I like it the most when he pushes further forward and makes disaster. I am a huge fan.
The £ 35 million plus add-ons that Liverpool paid Brighton for him is similar to the bargain of recent times. Whatever the bonuses are, now sign the check because it is worth every penny.
My only disappointment is that he looks Scottish, has a beautiful Scottish name, but he does not wear a Scotland sweater. That saying, it must have been a difficult choice: Scotland or Argentina …
Why Palmer's critics should leave him alone
I have one message for the critics of Cole Palmer: Back Off!
Only because he went seven games without scoring people, his body language now doubts. He still looks dangerous. I don't see a downning of tools in efforts – because seven shots have to testify against Southampton.
We see this with creative players, they have dips and are going to wander deep in search of the ball.
But that is just frustration, he knows how good he is and how important he is for the team and just wants to influence the game.
You look at the body language of a player during the 90 minutes and I just see a fully targeted young player.
Because Chelsea recently did not win games, people point with the finger at Palmer and I am afraid, young man, you have laid that bar yourself. He goes through a quieter period, but we will see him score again. He seeps out of the class.
Manchester City, with all the money they have spent lately and more, will still think that he is the one who has escaped. They certainly didn't bought anyone as well as him.
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