Phillips discusses his route into coaching, his major influences, and the honour he may 'unfortunately' share with Harry Kane soon...
Phillips discusses his route into coaching, his major influences, and the honour he may 'unfortunately' share with Harry Kane soon...As much as he insists it is incidental, the north east of England seems to have a way of drawing Kevin Phillips in.
To say that he inherited a tricky job at Hartlepool would be an understatement, given the turbulence that has defined the club’s recent history. “This season is clearly about staying in this league and then hopefully over the summer have a rebuild and challenge next season to get back out of this league. That’s the goal and the aim, but first and foremost we’ve got eight games left where we’ve got to pick up enough points to stay in this league which I believe we will.”
“It’s extremely difficult just to even get a reply,” he says. “It’s putting ex-players off going on their coaching courses because they just feel like they’re not going to get an opportunity, which is sad because if you’ve played in the game for 20 years you’ve got so much to offer.” Initially, Phillips helped out as a striker coach, working with Jamie Vardy as the Foxes adapted to life in the Premier League, before becoming more involved as the season progressed. When Pearson was sacked the following summer, Phillips followed him out, initially joining Derby County as Paul Clement’s assistant before later taking on a first-team coaching role at Stoke City.
Phillips has no shortage of influences having worked with over 20 different managers at club and international level as a player and a coach, ranging from Graham Taylor to Sven Goran-Eriksson and Harry Redknapp to Ian Holloway, whom he describes as “infectious”. He is assisted at Hartlepool by Lennie Lawrence, a veteran of over 1,000 games in the dugout.
“I firmly believe that man management is more crucial now than at any other time in football,” he says. “You can get really good coaches but you need a manager that speaks to the players and knows what they need. Peter Reid was excellent at that.”
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