It is a known fact all over the globe that every manager who dishes out instructions from the dugouts both young and old more often than not usually want a wise and intelligent man as an assistant next to them for experience and to also help out in reading matches and their opponent tactics on the pitch or behind the scenes.
We’ve seen a right-hand man like Rui Faria a very loyal ally to Jose Mourinho during his stint with Chelsea and Manchester United, Zeljko Buvac another loyal right-hand man to Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool before he went solo, another assistant manager who also worked with Kloop at some point his David Wagner who is also brilliant in doing his duties.
Assistant managers are usually the unsung heroes at clubs or countries, who take training, works on formations and tactics of the team, or set pieces and they generally run things behind the scenes that many football fans don’t even appreciate despite putting in a lot behind the scenes. However, at some point those experiences gathered while working as an assistant manager often provide an opportunity or pave way for this assistant manager to carve out their own legacy through a great achievement when they finally accept a role as the main manager of a club or country.
Today in this piece, Cheapgoals will look at the life of an assistant manager who is too good to be an assistant
One known fact about Chelsea football club is that when it comes to providing young players they’re arguably one of the top-ranked team in England, as such a young Jody Morris came through the youth ranks of Chelsea alongside his close friend and now club legend John Terry, Morris became the youngest player ever to play in the Premier League for Chelsea when he debuted for the Blues at the age of 17 years and 43 days in their home game against Middlesbrough in 1996.
The young Morris later went on to be named Chelsea’s Young Player of the year for the 1996-97 season, and during his stint with the Blues, he made over 173 appearances for Chelsea, won the FA Cup and even went on to briefly made the captain of the team by then club manager Gianluca Viali who was also a former player of the team, unfortunately, Viali reign with the Blues didn’t last long as a new manager was appointed.
The arrival of a new manager put a lot of dent in Morris’s playing time in the team, due to that he was often linked with a host of teams who would guarantee him more playing time, in fact during that period he was linked with a move to Leicester City managed by his former England U21 manager Peter Taylor, but the deal didn’t materialize as he went behind the pecking order to the likes of Didier Deschamps in the team.
In midst of his reported move elsewhere, Morris was offered a new five years contract to remain with the team until 2003, but then he turned the offer down and choose to still pursued his move to another team, by doing so Graeme Souness the very controversial manager offered him a lifeline and the chance of playing regular first-team football at Blackburn, but sadly the deal also didn’t materialize, and he later moved to Leeds United.
In 2004 Morris joined Millwall after a short brief stint with Rotherham United, he made over 70 match appearances for the ‘Lions’ before he sustained a career-threatening injury towards the tail end of the 2005-06 season and in 2007 Morris was released by Millwall, Morris also had a stint with Charlton Athletic, and St Johnstone in the Scottish first division on a short team deal playing under his former teammate at Millwall.
After a successful five months stint with the team from the McDiarmid Park, he was offered a two-year contract at the end of the season following an impressive performance which thrilled Derek McInnes and even helped the team to gain promotion to the Scottish Premier League after a seven-year absence from the topflight, amidst been offered a new contract with the team, in 2009 he was also offered a new contract by the Saints having been praised by McInnes for his influence on the team.
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2011 laid the foundation of Jody Morris coaching career as a young manager, following the departure of McInnes as the manager of St Johnstone, a new manager took over the reign of the team as a caretaker and Morris was appointed as an assistant to Alec Cleland, in the main time Morris left the McDiarmid to sign a one year contract with Bristol City reuniting him with former manager Derek McInnes but his stay with Bristol didn’t last long as his contract was terminated.
In 2013 following his departure from Bristol City, he returned to Chelsea as an assistant manager with the U21 team, thereafter he was moved down the pecking order with the U18 team as an assistant manager to Joe Edwards and they both achieved success, so he was later moved up as the main manager of the U18 team in the 2016-17 season and he went on to achieved success winning a treble the Youth Cup, U18 Premier League South and National title.
For many years now, Chelsea has been one of the most successful football academies in England, even though they haven’t been reaping a lot from the players since the time of their former defender, captain, and legend of the club John Terry, and that has been a great avenue used by fans to banter the Chelsea faithful. However, in the last couple of season, the fruits of the hard work invested in producing talented young stars from the academy have been paying off with what the current manager is doing with the team giving a lot of chances to the young players, even though some set of fans might not fancy his ideas.
Having talked about how Chelsea has fared in producing young talents who could lunch an assault on getting a starting shirt in the team and those who are already making ways in the team even though some of their players have moved on due to limited opportunity to showcase what they’re capable of doing with the senior team.
Morris, the unsung hero who knew some of these players in and out during his stint with the U21 and most importantly U18 team where he was hugely successful even though some of the players have left the club, such as Chalobah and all.
In the 2017-18 season Jody Morris took his achievement with the team to another level by winning the inaugural U18 Premier League Cup to add to their trophy haul and claiming an unprecedented quadruple, a feat that hasn’t been achieved by any manager from the youth ranks, following all of his achievements with the team, Morris couldn’t continue with the youth team, as he left in the summer of 2018 to joined former Chelsea midfielder, captain, and legend Frank Lampard’s backroom coaching staff at Derby County in 2018.
July 2019 was another great chapter in the career books of Jody Morris, as Lampard was appointed the new manager of Chelsea on a three -year deal having impressively done well with Derby County in just a season. Frankie leaves with Jody Morris to Stamford Bridge as his right-hand man and since then he has been part of the backroom coaching staff.
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In the wake of Chelsea’s transfer ban, huge questions were asked about how they’re are going to cope in playing in the league and other competitions without bringing in players who could help them in navigating all of those championships, there were calls from the team fans that some of their loaned out players should be brought back into the team to help them going forward until the ban is lifted which in the end was later lifted.
Following the ban uplift, hopes were high in January that Chelsea was going to bring in a lot of players to at least refresh and help build the zeal and morales of the players, no player was brought in, as Lampard and is crew kept faith with the senior players in the team and the young players like Tammy Abraham who has done brilliantly for Chelsea thus far, Mason Mount and Fikayo Tomori who combined have made their mark in style with the team as a first-team player.
Having gone years with relatively giving little opportunity to academy players in the first team, but recently things changed and all thanks to Frankie and Jody Morris, with that there is an iota of hope that in the coming future Chelsea team could be benefiting more from their academy players. As more encomium needs to be showered on the unsung hero who has been the brain behind the future some of these young players have worked with, in the youth team.
You will agree with me that Jody Morris is too good to be an assistant manager with what he achieved with the Chelsea U18 youth team, if all of those hard works, dedication, tactical approaches and reading the game could be infused into his own team if he later decides to manage a team in the future he would go places. However, history also has it that not all assistant managers who left their role and go solo do usually went on to achieve great success in their career.
