🎤 Exclusive Interview with Andy Townsend

Interview March 2025

Townsend has also said never say never when it comes to a third Chelsea spell as a manager for Frank Lampard, while tipping Brendan Rodgers to leave Celtic for a Premier League return.

The former ITV pundit has also discussed a potential move to Stamford Bridge for Caoimhin Kelleher and Aston Villa’s huge Champions League outright odds.

Q: Is the pressure on Thomas Tuchel from the very start?

I think that Thomas Tuchel is used to working within these sorts of parameters. He's gone into a lot of situations in January at big clubs working on an 18-month sort of deal, something very similar to what he currently has.

I don’t think it's a problem for him, he's used to working under pressure and meeting big expectations early.

He usually is an impact manager that delivers. If you look at his stats and look at his numbers and look at everything, Thomas Tuchel, whenever he goes in somewhere, he has that immediate impact.

Now it's a new ball game for him with regards to international football, because you don't have the players on a daily basis.

Q: What are Thomas Tuchel’s differences to Gareth Southgate?

He's going to be very different to Gareth Southgate. Of course he is.

He's got a hugely different personality, almost polar opposite in the sense that he's not afraid to ruffle feathers. Not that Gareth wasn't, but he's not afraid to let his emotions show outwardly. He's one of those coaches.

He turns around to the bench when someone gives a ball away, he turns around to his bench as if to say, what has he just done out there? What on earth have I just witnessed? I can't believe what I've just seen. He’s very open.

He’s quite dramatic in that respect. Sometimes I think too much. Sometimes I wonder if it's a little bit too much for effect, but that's what he is. He's that sort of demonstrative kind of guy.

England are looking for solutions now. They're looking to get over the line. Gareth walked them very, very close to a whisker of winning tournaments.

This guy has been brought in to produce. He usually has an impact. Now along the way, I think there will be players that instantly he doesn't seem to get. There will be players perhaps that he doesn't quite understand why they can't produce the levels that perhaps they should. He's that sort of man.

He's worked with big profile characters and he's not afraid to get in amongst those.

So I think the players will expect to change, but maybe not right away. If England don't win these two, then they might as well forget it (the World Cup).

But I do think over the coming months, particularly this summer, I think he'll be quite vocal on what he likes and what he doesn't like. I think the players will have to like it and lump it and go with it.

Q: Will we see a routine victory for England against Albania?

I can't see anything too radical because Thomas Tuchel has just not had them for long enough. I think you look at the best players, and that's what the England group are — the best players — they are usually the quickest on the uptake as well.

The best players are players that can adapt quicker than others. So he'll expect that from them. But I can't see there being anything too radical in the first two games.

After all, let's be brutally honest, whatever you see tonight, this week and in the weeks ahead, it's about what happens in the World Cup. Thomas Tuchel has been hired to get a World Cup under his belt and England are going to have to go very, very close in that World Cup — it's not going to be easy in America.

It's not going to be easy at all. But they have to go seriously close, I think, for him to be regarded as anything like a worthwhile appointment.

Qualification is an absolute given. What's going to be interesting is seeing the shape of the team and seeing one or two players coming in that perhaps we didn't quite expect and also maybe one or two not starting when the rest of the country are all rolling their eyes.

Like any new coach, he's going to bring some change. I don't see it being radical this week. He's just not been in the job long enough.

He was quite vocal about Gareth's team at the Euros, saying he didn't see this and he didn't see that. Well, listen, we'll all be the judge of how impressive Thomas Tuchel’s team is and if he can get England going in the direction that he wants them to go in. I don't think it will be that radical straight away. It might take a game or two.

Q: Who can star in Thomas Tuchel’s England set-up?

There are a lot of good players in there, but I was very surprised at the selection of one or two. Jordan Henderson, as reliable and as consistent as Jordan was in his pomp, I'm very surprised at his inclusion over the likes of Morgan Gibbs-White.

I know they're different players, but I'm very surprised that people like him are not getting in the initial squad. It’s good to see Morgan Rogers there. I've seen a lot of him and I think he's an outstanding talent. I think he is untapped.

I think that he could be as good as he really wants to be. Morgan, he could be really effective in international football.

As international football can have a slower pace, you need someone who can quickly change the pace of the game, and Rogers can do that. He’s someone who can all of a sudden explode and make the difference.

His finishing will need to improve, Morgan Rogers, but from halfway line to 18-yard box, there's no one more dangerous in the league for Tuchel to pick from.

So I'm looking forward to seeing one or two of those. Again, I think it's going to take a little while for Tuchel. Not long, we can't start talking about 10 games time and still not seeing it. He hasn't got long enough.

He needs to put people in there that he feels are going to give him what he wants and he's going to have to demand from those guys that they make it happen.

Q: How important is a 2-1 away win over Bulgaria for the Republic of Ireland?

It's been really difficult in recent years for the Irish boys, it really has, confidence has probably never been lower than just after Stephen Kenny left and in that period, John O'Shea was taking charge and trying to steer them back on track. I genuinely feel now that there has been a little bit with some of the more recent results under Heimir Hallgrimsson, I think there's been a little bit of a shift in confidence.

We've got some other very, very talented younger players, but I think they need to inspire themselves. I've said this before, it's not about the coach trying to perform miracles with that group of players.

I remember when Troy Parrott first came on the scene a good few years ago, and Troy's not really kicked on, it's not quite happened for him.

Evan Ferguson's had injury problems, he's moved clubs and hoping now that he can maybe, after a good summer, have a sudden comeback at the start of next season and hit the ground running.

I think those boys, the likes of Evan, need to drag the best out of some of the others around them. As a group, if one gets a move to a better club and all of a sudden one or two others start to get inspired by that.

It generates an electricity that sometimes can filter around the rest of the squad. But I think it'll be a long, hard, tough campaign and it's not gonna be without its hiccups along the way.

We're far from out of the woods. I genuinely think there are signs that things may be getting a little bit better.

Q: Do you agree with the route they took in appointing the new manager?

They took a long time to make that appointment, didn't they? They took a good few months. It didn’t happen overnight. There were always gonna be the likes of Chris Hughton.

There was always gonna be one or two others and names obviously from great Irish players from years gone by that were maybe in the frame to pick it up. In the end, they made their choice.

Heimir Hallgrímsson has been around for a while, he knows the international scene. When I've heard him speak, I think he speaks well.

I spoke to John O'Shea, who said, look, he's very different from what Stephen was doing, but he's his own man and he's pretty adamant about what he wants and what he needs.

You've got to add a little bit of realism to all of this because as I said, the quality of the squad, whilst it's improving, it's still not good enough.

There are still players that don't dominate their position enough at their clubs that are playing international football and that is a difficulty.

That is not easy for an international coach to put huge demands on people that aren't really playing in the top flight on a regular basis. So, look, he's got the experience and there's been some green shoots of recovery.

There's just been some signs recently that things are starting to get a little bit better. What I would say is, you shouldn't be too focused on the style of play. Get results.

Football managers need to win matches and get results. They get results, all of a sudden, you'd be surprised — players start playing better, players aren't injured so much, players wanna be part of it.

All of a sudden, others can get selected and it's amazing how things can snowball when you start getting results. For too long, we've been concerned about producing players that can play a certain brand of football. Well, let me tell you, I’ve spoken about the England players having to adapt. Irish players have got to adapt too.

It’s not about playing one way. It's about coming in and when your manager stands opposite you and tells you you've got to play a certain way, it's about adapting to that and being good enough to do that.

We haven't been good enough in recent years at that and I think that under this new coach, he shouldn't get too wrapped up about playing a brand of football and playing the beautiful game.

Get some results and start getting some wins and that’s a chance to step in the right direction.

Q: What have you made of Jaden Philogene’s struggles?

For Jaden Philogene, there's no position where you suffer more in a football team when the team's struggling than wide players and a lone striker.

Jaden’s played recently and has looked decent, he got a couple of goals at Old Trafford not that long ago. I watched him against Bayern when he played in the Champions League for Villa, at Villa Park.

That was a big call for Unai Emery, who had some injury problems going into that game in that position. But it was still a big call for Unai Emery to place faith in Jaden in that position on such a huge night.

But he played him and he did the job. He wasn't at his sparkling best going forward, but he absolutely played his part in what was an amazing night for Villa.

He's had a fair bit of turmoil in recent years in terms of going to Hull and then he's coming back to Villa, then after five minutes he's out again.

The PSR rules mean that clubs are constantly looking to maximize younger players and seeing if they can balance books here and there. I don't think Jaden, with respect to him, is at the level at the moment where he is gonna ever be dislodging some of those boys at Villa that were in front of him. I think he would have recognized that.

I think going to Ipswich with Kieran McKenna was a decent move for £20million, which is not an insignificant amount of money. He's played enough lately. I think it will take him a while before we actually see the best of Jaden.

I think when you're having the sort of run they've had in particular lately, where they just can't seem to get results, then it's really difficult for wide players. It's so difficult because instead of being where they want to be, level with the 18-yard box, attacking-wise, invariably, they're level with their own 18-yard box almost, tracking runners and fullbacks and wingers and wide players from the opposing teams.

It's not easy for young guys like that in those sort of positions in the field. So I think you have to temper with what you're seeing with Ipswich's current plight. Jaden is a talented lad. We've seen that before.

We've seen glimpses and bits of it from his Villa days and obviously up at Hull, we've seen one or two really exceptional moments from him.

I think we need to see an Ipswich team again in confident mode and winning matches before you start to see the best of wide players in a team like that. I think it’s a bloody difficult role for him at the moment playing there like that.

Q: Will Kieran McKenna be at Ipswich next season?

It'll be interesting to see what happens with Kieran McKenna because I thought they'd survive. At the start of season I said I fancied Ipswich to do it. And I really did.

It's only now, and we're talking March, that I think they've run out of gas and I don't think they're gonna be able to cope now and survive. I don't think you can switch it on.

It has happened before when Leicester did it with Nigel Pearson, but it was back in December, January when they really started to get it going from an almost impossible position. I think it's just too late now.

They're going to have to go on a top four run to get out of it now and I just don't see that. Does Kieran stay? I think there'll be one or two that would probably take him.

If I was him, unless it's a top seven or top eight club that comes in for him — and I can't see the vacancy in that sort of area right from the here and now — I would stay where he is.

I think he’d get them back up. But obviously he would then be making everyone at Ipswich very aware that he doesn't want to be doing this every five minutes, if he sees himself better than that, he sees himself as having a bit more than that, and the club have got to up the ante a little bit in order for him to stay.

One thing I would say, and it goes for all the teams at the bottom of the league, is that too many teams get promoted into the Premier League and try and play the beautiful game, try and play their way through the lines, try and show the rest of the footballing world how potentially good they can be.

Go back to Leeds United under Marcelo Bielsa. When they got promoted, they were a hard running, aggressive team, and I remember watching them and all the analysis about how many men they got in the box, how many times they crossed it, how many final third entries they had — all the important numbers.

The numbers rolling around at the back and across the back and the goalkeeper playing it out, I always consider them as less relevant. You'll have statisticians that would disagree with me — that's fine — but I think too many newly promoted teams try to show the world how good they are instead of doing what’s needed.

Coaches like to protect their reputation far more today than they ever did years ago and they don't adapt quick enough. They don't adjust.

For any of the teams coming up next season, whether it's Leeds, Sheffield United, or whoever, those teams need to stick to some principles — but when the s*** hits the fan, they've got to be able to adjust.

They've got to change the dynamic. Southampton, Leicester and right now Ipswich — they're not doing that.

They don't disrupt the opposition enough. They make life difficult for themselves. They concede the ball in their own third far too often and don’t press high like that Bielsa team did.

Teams have got to do that far more. When they get promoted, they don’t walk in with world-class players. They walk in with honest, good players and maybe one or two additions. But whether it’s intensity or fitness, they’ve got to disrupt the opposition — and not enough of them do.

Q: What will need to change at Southampton this summer?

Whenever a coach walks through the door, and Ivan Juric obviously has merits, of course he does. You're looking for that new voice — that spark. You're hoping to get some impact from him.

That hasn't happened. They concede a lot of poor goals at this level. They give teams far too many opportunities to get at them and they're shell-shocked.

I was never there, sat on the bottom of the league, but I've had moments when I've been down the table and looking over your shoulder a bit. I've never had a period where I was rock bottom of the league. Then you look and all of a sudden you see the following week you're playing Liverpool, then Manchester City, and then you’ve got Manchester United at home — the games come at you relentlessly.

Southampton look like they have accepted their fate and they're going to be playing Championship football again. They know that. They've got to be realistic.

I would have thought it’s time to make a change again in the summer and get a manager that they hope can get them up — someone a bit adaptable, who is prepared to change and tweak things in order to survive.

You don't want a coach coming in saying, "this is what I do" and being rigid. They'll come up and go straight back down again. They need someone who can bring something different to the party.

Q: Do Middlesbrough fans have a right to expect more?

You can very quickly gain momentum and conversely you can lose it in the Championship. When I got promoted with Middlesbrough, I think in something like September or October, we were 15th.

Then all of a sudden it can change. I remember Bryan Robson sitting us all down and we had a dressing room packed full of players getting on a bit but who had been around the block — Premier League players.

Gary Pallister, myself, Paul Gascoigne, Nigel Pearson and Paul Merson. We had a lot of good players and he said: ‘Guys, come on now and liven up. It’s time to get going.’

Then we went on an amazing run, almost nigh on unbeaten to the end of the season to get promoted. It's that sort of league.

Look at what Frank Lampard is doing right now at Coventry. He's doing amazingly well and he's got that momentum and got the players in the palm of his hand.

He's got the club where he wants it going — upwardly mobile. They lost to Derby but then beat Sunderland 3-0 with a Haji Wright hat-trick. Now it’s March and if Middlesbrough can pick it up, then they have every chance.

They're outside the playoff positions at the minute, but I'm not totally convinced they've got enough about them to absolutely get in there and get amongst those places.

I'm not quite sure. They've been a little bit too inconsistent. However, if they were to find a little bit of momentum right now, it can be everything at this stage of the season. It really can.

How many teams have we seen promoted where they're not even in the playoffs with a few weeks to go? They get a bit of momentum, drop into the playoffs two games from the end of the season and end up getting promoted.

Luton did it. We've seen teams do that. We know it can be done. That is the message Michael Carrick has to keep stressing to the players. But it needs to be now.

Q: Who do you make as favourites in the play-offs?

The playoffs are such a brilliant climax to any season. It must be so cruel if you just miss out or if you're in the top two and then you slip into the playoffs — that would no doubt really hurt as well. But I love watching them. I think they're compulsive viewing.

What I like about the teams up there at the minute, starting with Burnley — I never saw Scott Parker's teams when he was at Fulham or Bournemouth with this incredible, incredible record.

To have conceded 11 goals is unbelievable, in an era where too many managers are getting promoted and having to play a certain brand of football, Scott's going about it in a slightly different fashion.

Yes, he wants his teams to play. Of course he does. But he's actually now started to recognise that they’re bloody good at keeping clean sheets. Very good at not conceding goals. Scott will know that gives him a real opportunity to get his club promoted.

I tip my hat to him in that respect because again, there’ll be loads of other managers or fans out there probably saying that they’d rather see 4-3 games. That’s a load of codswallop. It really is.

They’re good at what they’re doing. They work hard. They’ve developed something — and that momentum around clean sheets gives them a fantastic chance.

I think to try and pick someone to come up out of that lot, like Burnley and Sunderland, at the moment is very, very difficult. Those playoff games can hinge on just a moment. But if you don't concede goals, you are a team worth backing, let me tell you.

Q: What do you make of the situation at Stoke City?

They've got powerful owners at Stoke. It's not like they've got someone in charge who’s got half a dozen local petrol stations and has remortgaged them all to buy the club.

They've got very, very powerful owners. Now I know all of those very wealthy people want their clubs to wipe their face and take care of themselves. I'm sure the Coates family has put in significant money over the years — I'm sure they have.

But I'm alarmed at where they are and I'm surprised at the dramatic fall from grace — because it really is.

Where they find themselves now is in a situation where they're going to have to, this summer, reevaluate everything they're doing at that club.

Maybe it's time for others to come in and be a little bit more dynamic behind the scenes to shake things up. It’s difficult when you’ve got people who’ve been at the club a long time and supported it so well — to turn around and say, "this isn’t working anymore."

That's not easy. But they used to be like Brentford. When you went to play them in the Premier League, they were really hard to handle under Tony Pulis and Mark Hughes.

Think back to the long throws from Rory Delap, Peter Crouch at the near post, bundles of players — they got results against big teams.

They need a radical rethink. And it might be the voices from the very top that also need to change.

Did you ever have the chance to play in Scotland?

I saw Packie Bonner at a function in Dublin a week ago and we were talking about how Tommy Burns rang me and asked me about possibly going to Celtic.

I was just entering my last year at Aston Villa and I wanted a two year deal, but Doug Ellis would only give me one.

He would only give me an extra year and I wasn't really interested in that. I wanted an extra couple. Whether or not I'd had a conversation back then with Packie about it and he mentioned it to Tommy Burns I don’t know, but he did say to me that he remembers Tommy saying that we'd had a conversation.

I said to him that I would absolutely love to come and play at Celtic, but at that moment I was trying to get an extra year at Villa.

As it happens, that didn't pan out and I ended up going to Middlesbrough. I've been lucky to have played in London, played on the South Coast, played up in the North East, played in the Midlands and played on the East Coast.

I've kind of been everywhere geographically, apart from north of the border. From speaking to Paul Gascoigne when we were at Middlesbrough together, he said about how amazing it was for him at Rangers.

I’ve worked with Ally McCoist for years and still do today. When I talk about some of those Old Firm games, they are always compulsive viewing,

So I think it would have been lovely to have sampled that, but it wasn't to be. That happens so much, in football, getting calls here and there.

So I was interested. Of course Tommy would have had half a dozen players like me that he would have been looking at and juggling, so it happens all the time.

Every now and again, they come off more often than not, they don't.

Should Brendan Rodgers be linked to top Premier League jobs?

Brendan Rodgers should be in the frame for top Premier League jobs. Brendan is a very capable coach. I think this year in the Champions League, we've seen Celtic play with an intelligence and an understanding of those games far better than we've seen Celtic teams maybe in previous seasons.

I was really impressed with the way that they played against Bayern Munich, Bayern might go on and win the damn thing but I don't think it's the greatest Bayern team I've seen by any stretch at the moment. However, Celtic played great against them in Munich.

I covered a few of their games, I saw them at Villa Park, where they looked like they might go under completely after 20 minutes being two down, then all of a sudden come back and got themselves right back in the game only to get done at the end.

I've definitely seen a better understanding of what's required to get through the group phase and to get into the knockout phase.

This new format worked for Celtic. I think sometimes in the four team groups, if you see yourself at the bottom after three games all of a sudden and you're chasing and it's psychological - it can be a little bit difficult.

This current format was chopping and changing all the time and it took us right to the last game before we really knew who was going to be going through or who was going into the playoffs. So I think that worked for them.

That allowed them to breathe a little bit after all when they got pumped by seven in Dortmund. Usually in that sort of scenario in a four team group, that could be really difficult to recover from.

I think they've shown a good amount of understanding of what's required in Champions League football.

So coming back to Brendan, I most certainly think he is a capable coach and crucially, he believes in himself, Brendan. He's pretty full of himself.

He knows what he can do, he can handle a job. He's been at Liverpool. He's obviously been up at an enormous club like Celtic before coming down to Leicester and winning the FA Cup and things like that.

He knows he's got what it takes to compete at the top level. So I absolutely think there's another job there for him in the Premier League if he wants it.

He's not afraid to up sticks and go when he fancies it as well, he's got that in him. If something better comes his way, he might go for it. So Celtic, I'm sure, are very aware of that, that he's an ambitious guy.

But he's a decent coach. It would be unfair to suggest anything otherwise. Brendan is a very capable football coach and I don't think he's done with a Premier League yet, far from it.

What does the future hold for Adam Idah?

I’ve watched a lot of Adam Idah and he got those goals at Villa Park that night, but I think he needs to find an edge to his game.

He needs to find aggression in his game. I don't mean going around chucking elbows in people's faces, because anyone can do that. You don't have to be any good to do that.

I think he just needs to believe in himself a little bit more and he needs to add a little bit more aggression in his game. I mean, aggression in the way that he runs. Aggressive in terms of demanding the ball in the box when he gets a chance to shoot, showing a bit more aggression.

As I said, in his running, sometimes I watch him and I kind of see him sort of coasting a little bit. He's got all the tools, Adam.

There's been lots of players like him over the years with a great physique and quick enough, he should be able to do a little more than he does.

I think that there's potentially a dangerous player in there, but I don't think a coach will get it out of him. I think the only one who gets it out of him is himself. I think he has to recognise that the years start to tick by, opportunities don't come at you forever, and he needs to find a bit more edge to his game.

Daizen Maeda, he runs, when he runs, he runs with intent to make something happen. When he runs to close someone down, he goes at them 100 miles an hour with the sole purpose of trying to get the ball and if he has to do another one a second later and then another one 20 seconds after that, then he will do it.

I don't see enough of that from Adam. I think Adam needs to go for it a bit more. I think if he can do that, if he can demand a bit more of himself, then I still think there's another gear that he can find.

Whether it will be enough to keep him at Celtic as their number nine, I'm not sure, but he could certainly become, for Ireland, a more significant player.

He will then find there will be other good opportunities for him from other clubs, he needs a little bit more edge and an aggressive nature to his game.

Could Frank Lampard be a Premier League manager again, maybe with Chelsea?

The way Coventry have been playing lately, Frank Lampard could be in the Premier League next year. Coventry have had some great times in the Premier League.

I've said it on many occasions, I like to see great ex-players moving on and succeeding in management. I don't like to see what happened to Wayne Rooney down at Plymouth and coming out of Birmingham after such a short period of time.

He was an unbelievable player. I like to see good players go into management and have an effect. I remember when Frank went into Chelsea when they were under that embargo, he had to turn to some of the younger players, and certainly they developed under his leadership.

It hasn't always worked for him where he's been, but right now his team look good and they're exciting to watch. I've got some friends locally that go there every week and they're really enjoying what they're seeing.

It's not only about the win, and they're winning matches, but people are enjoying what they're witnessing, which is nice. I hope Frank can go and make a success of it.

Should he go back to Chelsea? There would always be a massive temptation for him considering his relationship with the club.

I mean, you never say never and it could happen. But if I was him, I wouldn't be thinking about that and I'm sure he's not. If that happens, he'll cross that bridge when he comes to it.

But I think here and now, clearly Frank wants to be a successful manager and I get the feeling now that he's learned a lot from previous escapades.

I think what he's putting in place at Coventry at the moment, that message is getting across. That is working. Players are buying into it.

He's enjoying it, his team look like they're playing well, good luck to him and they might well be playing Premier League football next time round.

Would Caoimhin Kelleher improve Chelsea?

Caoimhin Kelleher is absolutely better than Filip Jorgensen and Robert Sanchez. He's more reliable than those two.

I saw him during the Arsenal vs Chelsea game and Sanchez, for such a big and imposing guy, he makes poor decisions. He unsettles his own back four. He's supposed to have a calming influence and it's supposed to rub off on those guys.

The best goalkeepers have the defenders turning round and thinking. He’s got it.

Robert Sanchez, unfortunately, can make some incredible saves, but too often he makes poor decisions. I think there's a nervousness about what he does and if you've got a goalie like that between your posts, that's got to change.

If Chelsea wants to seriously over the next two or three years have a real tilt at winning the Premier League and I think they're some way off that. But if they do, then they're going to need to get another goalie in.

Kelleher has shown that in big moments in those Cup wins for Liverpool, in big matches. He actually has a very understated way of performing as a goalkeeper. I don't see him panicking like crazy like some goalies do from corners.

What on earth has come over these goalkeepers nowadays when a routine corner comes in, they're shoving people, they're pushing people, they're screaming at the ref, looking at the ref before the thing's even been delivered.

But Kelleher has got a very understated kind of cool, calm, collected sort of manner about him. He's an incredibly capable and dependable understudy to Alisson, but it is absolutely now the time for him to go and play.

I think he can absolutely go and play at a top six club and I really don't believe he would let them down. Listen, he's going to have his moments, he's going to make his cock-ups like they all do, but he's got the sort of manner that he can cope, he's shown it.

He's shown it for Liverpool, he can cope at a big club and I think he can cope at a very capable club on a weekly basis, no doubt.

What hasn’t quite gone to plan with Evan Ferguson?

We saw early glimpses of Evan Ferguson when he was very young coming into the Brighton team. A big, tall guy, technically good enough who got himself a few goals.

Now he's had some injury issues and with Joao Pedro and Danny Welbeck there, it didn't look like he was ever going to muscle past those guys. He’s moved on loan and I hope Evan has a good end of this season, has a good summer and comes back again with an intent to have some serious impact.

If he's not careful, Evan, he could go in the other direction and he could become another striker that had potential and it never quite developed. That's what those around him should be telling him, people close to him should be saying, we're not going to let that happen.

He’s better than that. I think he's a very talented lad. He's a gifted boy and again, because he's a big lad in an era when you're playing up there as a one, you have to have a reasonably good stature.

Very few teams play with one up there who's five foot six, five foot seven. He's got that. So he's got the chance to go and do something, but he's got to now make it happen.

He's drifted a bit for a while with injuries, seeing others play. He's not had the opportunities at Brighton that he would have liked. Now it's time for Evan to have a good summer and really kick on next year.

Evan's out on loan and West Ham's a good situation for someone like him, because West Ham have had a number of strikers in recent times that have kind of gone there with expectations and flopped, and haven't really done it.

Again, Evan needs to say it himself, I don't want to be one of them, I think I could be more than that. But I think he's got to rediscover a real appetite and real hunger and find the capability of playing week in, week out.

10 and 15 years ago the best players like Wayne Rooney and Ryan Giggs before that, came in and were playing every week, sometimes you get a player like Jack Wilshere who is impacted by injuries, but that's just unfortunate.

I don't think you wrap these boys up in cotton wool and they shouldn't ask to be wrapped up in cotton wool every week. They should be out there demanding to play. Evan is now in that scenario, he’s been around it long enough.

He should be busting a gut to play absolutely every week for West Ham and show that he really means it. A bit more aggression in his game, be a little bit more determined to stay in that team and to make sure that he gets his numbers.

Next season for Evan, he should be looking at somewhere between 13 and 15 league goals for whatever team he's at.

If he does that then he's on the right road, he's on the road to recovery. I wouldn't expect him to go anywhere and get 20, I think that's gonna be difficult. But he needs to play more often and he needs to be a bit more demanding again.

These days teams have big squads and they just tell you that you’re rested, in my day that was dropped and you had to get yourself back into the team.

Too many of these kids nowadays are rotated, but you’ll miss out on big games with that attitude, you've got to be more demanding on yourself. He's another talented boy, I think, that he needs to ask a little bit more from himself.

Did you ever have the chance to go into management?

When I first came out of the game I had a year off, but within a few weeks I had a call from someone at Brighton, this was back in the Withdean days, asking if I was interested in going there as a manager.

I can't remember who it was at the time. But I think Dick Knight was the chairman and then when I started doing the telly, obviously Des Lynam was a big Brighton fan. So Des said to me that Dick had always wondered whether or not you would have actually come down.

I fancied that job and I always thought I would go into management. I think some of the managers that I worked for and coaches that I worked under have always said to me over the years, you should have had a crack at it.

But do you know what? I ended up having pretty much a year of doing very little when I finished up playing and then I went into TV and commentating, obviously on radio and stuff like that.

Somehow I'm still here 25 years later.

Does Damien Duff have a future as a Premier League manager?

I love to see Damien Duff managing in the Premier League. It's funny because there are certain people that you think are definitely going to go into management. And there are some that go into it and you think, I’d never have dreamt he would have been a manager.

Maybe Duffer falls into the latter category a little bit, but a hugely talented boy. When I've seen him on television prior to taking the job, when I used to watch him a bit on TV, you could tell that he thinks and cares deeply about it, the way he used to analyze matches and talk about it. So good to see that he's having a crack.

Again, where it all goes, where you end up, it's very much luck of the draw. We were talking about Gareth Southgate earlier and it's amazing how Gareth, who did very well with England under 21s, all of a sudden ends up getting the big gig.

Gareth got the job and he did great with it. Football's like that. Football presents opportunities to you. It's up to you whether you take them and run with it. Damien is doing well at the minute. He's learning a lot, I'm sure. He's still young and he's still got plenty of time to work his way up the ladder, but it’s not an easy gig, football management. If it was that easy, we'd all be doing it, trust me.

It is not easy, it's not for the faint-hearted, you have to have thick skin. It's not easy for everybody, to do it and to do it well. Doing it well is the trick.

Damien's doing great at the minute, good luck to him. But whether he ends up in a Premier League job, that will depend on a lot of circumstances and his desire to really continue to push himself.

Should Roy Keane go back into management?

Everyone has respect for Roy Keane’s opinion, of course they do. I think he could go back into management.

I've had a few chats with him over the years when I see him at matches and I think he could do it. I think there's probably unfinished business in his blood a little bit with regards to football management.

The problem is he's now in the media where you have commitments, but when you get home and you shut the door and you put the phone down, that's it. It doesn't ring until you have to do something the following day or whenever.

He's been in football management. People sometimes forget that when he picked up that Sunderland job, Niall Quinn was there as the chairman, they were in a right state when he first walked in the door.

He got them promoted and did really well. The problem probably for Keano is everything going on around the club, other voices upstairs and people around the club.

If one or two of them say something to him he doesn't like, he'd probably tell them where to go, but not everything is so black and white in football management.

There are, I would imagine, a lot of shades of gray that you have to contend with and you have to go with even if you don't agree with it.

Doing the media job enables you to have control of your life and it might not give you the highs and lows that football management gives you, but it gives you control of your life and you're able to say yes to this or no to that, do what you want to do, go home, shut the door and then it's done and dusted.

He may be enjoying that and the older you get and with every year that passes, it's less likely that you'll probably go into something.

He could assist somebody again. That might be his way back in.

Should Roy Keane take up a role at Manchester United?

When Erik ten Hag left Manchester United and they needed somebody to come in with a voice and to have an impact, Roy Keane would’ve been a voice to come in and to pick the supporters up who were so low at that point, the United fans.

I think he would have been great at that. I genuinely feel he could have done that. Of course, people always go: ‘No, you'll fall out with everyone.’

But I think he would have certainly given the supporters a lift. He would have had some impact with the players. One or two might not have liked it, it's like we're in an era nowadays where you dare not say anything to anybody. You can't do this. You can't say that.

But in football management, for instance, take Thomas Tuchel's 18 months with the England job. He's got to be able to express himself and say what he feels. If it means one or two don't like it, it's kind of tough. That's the industry we're in.

So I think he could have done that at United at that time. But of course, the thing is with Keano, you could wake up one day and he's left that post, he's gone.

That's the sort of guy he is. But I'm sure he's enjoying his life, and I'm sure he's enjoying what he's doing. He looks like he's having good fun. I'm glad that you see his personality doing the TV and the podcast, because there is a very humorous side of Roy that some people didn’t believe was there.

I think it's always been there, and you see more of it when he does the telly and the podcast stuff. I think he's enjoying his life, with every passing year, it's less likely he'll get back involved.

Is 33/1 good odds for Aston Villa to win the Champions League?

33/1 is fantastic. That's a great bet for an Aston Villa team in the quarter-finals.

They've got a manager that knows how to navigate his way through these sorts of waters. He has proven many times previously that he's good in these situations.

Can they beat PSG? They're going to have to play better than they have played of late. I've watched Villa a lot this season. When they are at their best, I'm telling you now, they are a proper team to watch. They are really, really good.

There's been a few games where it's not been there, it's not been quite so effective. They're better than where they are in the league. They should be better than that.

There is not much of a gap between them in the top four, but they should be higher.

Against PSG, it's gonna be tough. I'm going out there and looking forward to the game immensely because I was so impressed with PSG. I did them earlier on in the season and they didn’t catch my eye as much as they did in the Liverpool games.

I thought against Liverpool, and there is no pressure like at Anfield on a Champions League night, they played their way out under pressure so much that Liverpool didn't even know whether to press or not against them.

At home obviously Alisson had that extraordinary night, an incredible game. They could have comfortably won that game by three goals. You know they really could have. So very, very impressed.

I love the way Fabian Ruiz, Vitinha and Joao Neves all receive the ball under pressure, play out under a heavy press, a hard press.

Tactically, I think what's gonna be really key here is that Villa have got to get it absolutely spot on. They've got to get it right and that's what Unai Emery does.

Tactically, he sets his team up very well. I remember seeing Villa in a week beat Manchester City and I'd not seen any team do to Man City what Villa did to them last year at Villa Park and then a few days later they beat Arsenal as well.

I think much of that was down to not only the flair and the running power of Morgan Rogers at that particular time, but I think it was also about the way that the team have a great understanding.

Villa have a good understanding of when they're in a certain position that they sit, they bank up, they don't press, they just shuffle from side to side, they make life difficult, they might try and make teams play around you rather than through you.

All basic stuff, but they're very good at doing their own thing. They go about their work and they stick to it. If they don't stick to it, Emery won't play them.

Unai Emery is that sort of coach, at home sometimes, the crowd are urging the team to get it forward, but the centre halves get their foot on the ball on the halfway line because they like to draw teams onto them and then try and play through them a little bit – they are really good at that.

I think it's an unbelievable tie. They're going to have to be at their very best to beat PSG because they are a proper team. They're a really good team who equally have some outstanding players playing really well.

For the first time, PSG look like they could go the distance. Even when they had all their big hitters a few years ago, I never fancied them to have enough about them to beat the very best teams in this competition.

This current PSG team could go all the way. But I'll tell you what, if Villa come back from Paris, it'd be amazing to come back with a lead. But if they came back even 1 down, I think they are more than capable of an incredible night at Villa Park.

Villa Park takes on a different feel and meaning when there's an expectancy around, that's what's lovely about what Unai Emery has done.

He's brought back that feeling at Villa Park that anything might happen. If they are only one down to Paris back at Villa Park, trust me, anything could happen.

Are permanent deals for Marco Asensio and Marcus Rashford no-brainers?

Marco Asensio has shown that he is different from the rest, because he can finish. He could always finish when he was at Real Madrid, but was never a guaranteed starter. He wasn’t a Galactico, if you like. Which is why he never probably started enough.

For Villa, he's shown that he can be a very important player to score goals. That's the one area that Jacob Ramsey, Leon Bailey, and Morgan Rogers, even though Morgan scored a few, need to improve on – their finishing and output in terms of goals and numbers.

Asensio gives them that. I've enjoyed what Marcus Rashford has done in flashes since he's been at Villa. We've certainly seen a more determined Marcus Rashford in a Villa shirt than we saw in the United one recently.

For £40 million, I'd be very tempted to do that deal. Because I think that's in today's standards a cheap player and we know potentially what he can do.

He's still got to produce more in terms of goals in a Villa shirt. But again I hope he assesses and reevaluates exactly where he is in his life and in his career now – he needs to produce it now.

Otherwise he's going to fizzle out and he's just going to disappear and end up in Saudi. Listen, he might want to do that and good luck to him, but if he wants to do it at Villa, he's got a manager that's going to demand a bit more. But I do think he's capable of finding it. For £40 million, I would do it.