It is too easy for foreign managers to work here, says Jose Mourinho - and British coaches are suffering
He believes the situation could have serious consequences for the future of the England team
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Your support makes all the difference.Jose Mourinho says he fears for the future of British coaches, believing English football “should be concerned” about the increasing shortage of homegrown managers in the Premier League.
The Chelsea manager, who takes his struggling side to third-placed Leicester City on Monday night, says it is now “too easy” for foreign coaches to get jobs in the competition compared with when he first arrived on the English scene in 2004.
He believes the situation could have serious consequences for the future of the England team, with Football Association chief executive Martin Glenn confirming that the governing body may look abroad for the next national manager, once Roy Hodgson leaves the role. Mourinho was speaking after Swansea’s Garry Monk became the latest British coach to lose his job this season, meaning the number of homegrown managers in the Premier League has fallen from nine in the summer to seven.
“I think you should be concerned,” said Mourinho, who is Portuguese. “You know, the Premier League was quite a closed space for foreign managers and to come here was not easy. To come here, you had to do something serious.
“When I first came here [after winning the 2004 Champions League with Porto] I think I did enough to deserve to be here. You come to the country No 1 in European football, and you feel that you have to deserve to be here.
“I think in this moment it’s too easy. I think the number of foreign coaches in the Premier League, even in the Championship – and maybe League One, I don’t know – it’s too big compared with the number of English, or in this case British managers.”
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