Preston North End legend Paul Gallagher wants to embark on his own journey as a manager, after having a taste of it with Stoke City.
Gallagher’s time at Deepdale came to an end last summer, after a decade. In a Preston shirt, he made 313 appearances and then stepped on to the coaching team for two plus years – working alongside Alex Neil, Frankie McAvoy and Ryan Lowe.
But, Neil lured him to the Potters last year and after he was sacked in December, Gallagher stayed on until the end of the season. He took two games as caretaker, before the appointment of Steven Schumacher. Gallagher then left the club this summer and is now driven to start his career as a number one, wherever that may be.
Speaking to the Lancashire Post, Gallagher said: “I think, now, I would like to go around and watch other teams train. You are always learning and I want to be the best coach I can be. The next step, I hope, is to be a head coach/manager. I feel like I’ve done the coaching for four years and don’t get me wrong, I love that – being on the grass with the players, giving them detail, information and trying to improve them.
“I think the next step, I would like to go out and watch other teams and go to other games – at League One and League Two level even, just to see how other things work. Hopefully, the time might come where I get an opportunity to a young head coach. I would like to be an aggressive manager, I always feel personality is a big thing. I think your team has got to play with personality and if you set up aggressive without the ball, the other team knows they are in for a game.
“I remember being at Preston and the opposition would always say they hated coming to us, because they knew they were in for a tough game. I want my players to play with personality and believe that they are good players. You want to dominate possession, but you’ve got to have a few different ways of playing – with and without the ball. There can be three or four different ways of pressing, so the analysis comes into it of watching games and breaking it down.
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