Jamie Carragher
Jamie Carragher says Leicester City boss Brendan Rodgers once offered him a coaching job. Carragher played under Rodgers at Liverpool when he was coming to the end of his career. Carragher says Rodgers initially asked him to join the Liverpool backroom staff before having a change of heart.
Jammie Carragher said “The first chat I had with Brendan Rodgers was: ‘I’ve got a year to go on my contract’, I was very wary of Brendan Rodgers coming in, because he was only three or four years older than me, and I certainly didn’t want him to feel threatened or (put) under pressure by me. I wasn’t Jamie Carragher in his peak, if you like. I was 35 and I didn’t want him to feel pressure as if he had to pick me or I was going to cause him a problem. So my first chat was: ‘Listen, I’m not your first choice. I’m here to help you. I’ll play Europa League games, Carling Cup games. I am finishing at the end of the season but I’ll try to help you as much as possible’. He actually offered me a role on the staff after the first time I’d spoken to him, really, and it really excited me, because I’d got a little bit down the year before, when I wasn’t playing as much… not so much down but, for me, playing every week was a massive part of my life and I found it tough. That’s when I decided I wanted to finish at the end of my contract. To actually mix the playing with the coaching would have been brilliant for me for 12 months – and that was something I wanted to do with (Kenny Dalglish, Rodgers’ predecessor) but unfortunately he lost his job. But the next time I spoke to Brendan Rodgers, he’d changed his mind and brought Mike Marsh in, which was fine – I had no coaching experience. I always wonder where it would have taken me if that decision had stayed – but I decided I was going to go.”
