Tony Pulis column: Why Carrick’s coaches are more than ‘just a group of teammates’

Kempe was five years older and wiser than me, and I valued his experience greatly. This kind of knowledge was exactly what I was looking for when Stoke reached the promised land of the Premier League in 2008 and I managed to persuade Gerry Francis to join their backroom staff.

Gil was ten years older than me, and again, wiser too. Like Kempe, he was a great silent partner in helping the clubs we worked for.

I was never interested at any point in hiring such experienced staff and I was always open to all lines of communication from them as well because I always believed in my own abilities and methods.

If I were a young manager coming into a role now, I would make sure I had an experienced manager like that with me, to help advise the team but also to help me look after what’s going on above me, with the CEO or director of football – in the gap between manager and owner that didn’t exist when I started my career.

During my long journey as a manager, Peter Reid and Gary Megson also joined me and provided great advice and experience, but as the teams started to grow and added more senior players to our roster, I also appointed younger coaches to engage and entertain the players through passing drills, ball retention and shooting sessions.

This has become increasingly prevalent in the game, with many clubs now having more players in their squad who do not start matches than players who start matches.

As this trend grew, I realized that fostering unity with players who were not starting was vital to the dressing room, so it was important for the two younger coaches to provide challenging sessions and also be the type of personalities able to listen and understand the grievances players might face for not being involved.

It’s a different skill set and the two former players who played under me, Mark O’Connor and Ady Pinnock, were mainstays for me during my years as manager.

They were great at providing that important bit of glue that kept everything together in the dressing room. You can be sure that Carrick will make sure he gets this award too.

Tony Pulis was speaking to BBC Sport’s Chris Bevan.