Charlie Adam has been thumbing his contacts book as he makes his first steps into management with Fleetwood Town.
‘Last year, I emailed Sir Alex Ferguson and he invited me over to his house,’ he tells Mail Sport. ‘More than anything, he told me to be myself and not to pick fights with the players.
‘It was unbelievable — I was almost hoping the car broke down when he drove me back to the station so I could spend more time with him.’
Time is something the former Liverpool, Stoke and Blackpool midfielder is dedicating to his first role in the dugout. On his first day at Fleetwood, the club staff had to ask him to leave the training ground in the evening.
It was the night before New Year’s Eve but Adam was in no rush to get home.
‘I’ve always wanted to be a manager,’ Adam explains. He was even nicknamed ‘parched’ by his team-mates at Stoke because of his regular conversations with the coaching team during drinks breaks.
‘I see myself as a leader and feel like I have the presence and personality to be a manager.’
After beginning with four defeats in a row on Lancashire’s Fylde Coast the pressure intensified on the 38-year-old but with seven points from their last three games, following Tuesday’s 2-0 win at Bristol Rovers, Fleetwood moved off the bottom of League One. Were doubts creeping in?
‘I think back to when I went to Liverpool (in 2011) and there was fear, walking into a dressing room with Steven Gerrard, Jamie Carragher and all these top international players,’ says Adam. ‘It took me a few weeks to get a grip because you get judged from the first second you walk on that grass, whether it’s at Fleetwood or Liverpool.’
Adam recalls the tale of when his icon Kenny Dalglish called him to his house in Southport and said he wanted
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