ROY Hodgson is very much a modern-day manager, his field of dreams being the training ground with time-consuming administrative work left to others, writes PETER WHITE.

In fact, the Blackburn Rovers boss admitted: "I don't even know what the players are earning."

That's not only the way the system has been changing at Ewood in recent years, it's the direction English football in general has been heading.

Managers look after the playing side, while chairmen and chief executives do the transfer negotiating and contract bargaining after being told by the top man who he wants, or doesn't want.

With the pressure on soccer bosses so great these days, and the demand for success almost overpowering, it's a logical development to follow the trend which has been long-established on the continent.

And, if England was slow to get in line, it's now happening at what Hodgson describes as a "rapid" pace.

"The manager has been the man 100 per cent responsible for every single thing that happened at a club over recent years," he said.

"But there has been more and more a change to the system which has been prevalent on the continent for so long.

"The manager is the main team man and the many other club affairs are run by administrators or a chief executive.

"I think that's a tendency towards which England has been moving at quite a rapid pace over the last five or six years.

"If you go back 10 years, the manager when he came in was certainly expected to be responsible for every single aspect and often it meant that the manager was so snowed under with work that he couldn't even go out training. "Because he was too busy doing other things, such as flying around the country, signing players, agreeing contracts etc, etc

"Now we have a situation more and more where people want their manager to be the guy who runs the team, does the coaching and tells the chief executive what players he would like to be bought and what players he would like to be sold.

"I have nothing to do with the contracts here. I don't even know what the players are earning.

"I could find out if I wanted to but I don't want to know, it doesn't interest me."

But Hodgson feels there will still be managers who want to do everything, even if they are becoming fewer and fewer.

"It's a dying breed but there will always be a place for that type of person. It might be necessary, there might still be clubs who prefer to say: 'We want you to be coach and chief executive'. It's up to them to decide.

"English clubs have had plenty of success in the past. Brian Clough and all the Liverpool managers from Shankly onwards did magnificently by being everywhere and doing everything.

"So it's obviously not impossible.

"All I am saying is that if you really want to do a coaching job, someone has got to assist you with the management tasks. And if you really want to do the management tasks, then someone has to be very good assisting you with the coaching."

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