With his own nondescript career in coaching it’s only natural that Mark Warburton should indulge in some name-dropping.
As he awaits Saturday’s trip to Celtic Park the Sevco manager is going overboard with Brendan Rodgers the target for his envy.
For six months both men were on the payroll of Watford but if you were to believe the hot air from the Ibrox boss the two men are long lost buddies constantly exchanging ideas and information.
Rodgers was manager of Watford from 24 November 2008 until 5 June 2009, it was the least successful period in his managerial career.
During that epic six month spell Warbo was the assistant academy manager for the Watford u-17’s and u-19’s teams.
Rodgers had a game almost every three days as he came to terms with his first managerial job after leaving Chelsea- the amount of time that he had to spend with the assistant manager of the u-17 side is likely to have been limited.
Despite their limited time together Warbo, who used to work as a city trader, believes that an Anfield bootroom style set up was created among the coaching staff.
Reminiscing about the good old days Warbo claims:
It was a good time to be at Watford. We had Brendan, Malky, Sean, myself and a guy called Dick Bate.
“I remember Brendan being very affable. He had the gift of the gab and could speak very easily to people. He was very well organised.
“He spoke a lot about Jose Mourinho in terms of his level of organisation – he referred to him as: ‘The best organiser in the world.’
“Sean was my youth-team coach, I was academy director and Malky was first-team coach while Dick was around the first team and also worked with the academy.
“Dick was probably the best coach educator in the world bar none. So it was a great opportunity to learn.
“There was also a guy called Keith Mincher who was the FA’s psychologist, for want of a better word. Aidy Boothroyd (Rodgers’ predecessor as boss) got some good people on board. It was a bit like the Anfield boot room.”
When Rodgers quit Watford Malky Mackay became manager and appointed Sean Dyche as his assistant, Warbo quit Watford in February 2010 to look into ‘other sporting interests’.
