Pavel Srnicek: "Newcastle United say they are going to have a ‘head coach’ rather than a manager from now on – and I think that is a step backwards.
"I have played under both models. When I played in Italy we had a head coach and responsibility for transfers was with someone else – an owner who would buy the players and tell the coach that he had to play them.
"Some weeks, we would turn up at training and there would be a new player there.
"He was meeting us for the first time but he was also meeting the head coach for the first time too. It was madness, especially because when it didn’t work out and results weren’t good enough it was the head coach who took the responsibility.
"That is my big issue with the head coach model. Who takes the responsibility when things don’t go right? It is the head coach?
"Is it the managing director? Or is it the director of football? I think we all know who will get the sack if the results don’t go right – and it won’t be the managing director.
"It is like if you buy a house with two friends. So there’s three of you have all put your money in – what if one of you wants to decorate the bathroom and the others don’t?
"Or what if one person wants to sell the house and the two others don’t? It seems like a good idea, having three people involved. But when it really matters, are you always going to agree on what you want to happen?
"With Newcastle’s model, I just see disagreements happening from start to finish. They tried this before with Joe Kinnear working above Alan Pardew and a manging director. How long did that go on for?
"I wonder if Newcastle ever learn really. It was only five or six years ago that they brought in Kevin Keegan for a second time around and then immediately they had Dennis Wise in the management structure too, bringing in players and recommending who the club should sign.
"I just didn’t understand that from the start. Why on earth would you bring in someone like Kevin and then ask someone else to sign the players? It made no sense and there was a big problem from the start.
"Kevin left the club and said that Newcastle had brought players in who he didn’t know. That season they got relegated. I am still not convinced that it works in English football and my biggest question mark is whether you are going to get the best manager for Newcastle.
"The best manager that I played for was Kevin and he was someone who had control over everything. He would never have got the job at Newcastle at the moment. He was an ‘old school English manager’ and that didn’t work out too badly!"