Pep Clotet has worked with some of Europe’s top managers but believes Terry Venables was 30 years ahead of his time.
Birmingham boss Clotet, 42, is a keen student of the game having learned as a youth coach under the likes of Manuel Pellegrini and Mauricio Pochettino.
Clotet is now trying to take something from each of them but he believes Venables’ time at Barcelona in the mid-1980s was the template for Pep Guardiola’s managerial career and English football.
Clotet said: “My dad is a member at Barcelona. We went to the games and I grew up watching Terry Venables, Gary Lineker, Mark Hughes… I met Mark Hughes and I said to him: ‘I remember seeing you there, watching you scoring a lot of headers.’
(Image: Adam Sorenson – Daily Mirror)
“He said in that first season it was fantastic. ‘No-one could play against us, we were pressing all the way up the pitch. But the next season we couldn’t even run! We were exhausted.’
“It was Venables who brought the English mentality to Spain. I met him a couple of years and I told him that. ‘Listen, what you did there… it’s even better than you think.’ What he did there, no-one has done that again until Guardiola was in charge. That was 30 years ago.
“Now you have players here that are using concepts here that they were not using before. The clubs are also making it possible. I remember, working with Roberto Martinez at Swansea, being told it’s hard to play football, keep possession because the fans always wanted to get forward.
(Image: Adam Sorenson – Daily Mirror)
“But Swansea created a culture at the club. The same at Bournemouth . The same at Brentford. What a fantastic achievement. All within FFP, now Brentford move to a new stadium. What England is doing with English football is incredible.”
By his own admission, Clotet had an average playing career curtailed by injury, worked at Espanyol during Pochettino’s time in charge, with ex-Malaga boss Pellegrini and then moved to Swansea, Leeds before becoming a manager in his own right at Oxford and now Birmingham.
Clotet has bought into Birmingham, loving the local beer, heavy metal and likes the TV show Peaky Blinders so much that he has become friendly with its creator and renowned Blue Nose Steven Knight.
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Birmingham is one hell of a task to have taken on but they are now 13 games unbeaten in all competitions and they go to Leicester in the FA Cup full of belief with Clotet a contender to be Manager of the Month.
Clotet puts it down to a closer working relationship with the club’s owners and, while not all managers would welcome it, he is happy that the club’s owners have an office and someone based at the training ground.
Clotet said: “The challenge was massive. But how can we improve the style of the club to slowly meet the idea of the owners to move forward. How we can get results. How we can go a little forward in the FA Cup, more than in recent years. Still develop young talent.
“In my opinion, it’s been good that the owner’s representative is here at the training ground with us because he can see the difficulties of the job, how much everyone works and when things don’t work it’s not because we don’t try. Sometimes you do a great job and you still don’t win.
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“I think it helped us with balance and perspective. It’s been a really good season. The owner has spent a lot of time in Birmingham which, for us, is fantastic. Obviously he has his own business but he has visions of how to take the club forward and it helps to have regular meetings.
“So overall, we are very satisfied with the way it’s going. We’re not struggling against relegation. Last season, the only game of the season we weren’t fighting against relegation was the last game of the season against Reading. And now we’re not suffering like that.”
Clotet has also managed one of the most exciting young talents in 16-year-old Jude Bellingham who has been linked with Europe’s biggest clubs.
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“The more noise, the more speculation around him, the less it affects him. He loves Birmingham, he’s a big fan of the club, he wants us to do well and he wants to be part of that. Who knows about the future? But I know for sure, that doesn’t affect him,” said Clotet.
“For people outside, they will see Birmingham as having a really good kid and they give him a chance. But with the academy, there’s been so much attention to detail. Coaching, his family have made sure he makes the right steps all the way, everything has been done the right way.”
