Steve McClaren has revealed he considered his future in management after being sacked by Newcastle United - and has admitted it took him “eight or nine months” to recover from his St James’ Park experience.
The 56-year-old was dismissed in March 2016 after just nine months in charge of the Magpies, with United in the relegation zone and set for demotion.
At Newcastle, McClaren was given the title of ‘head coach’ and not ‘manager’, meaning he had only partial influence over transfers and the direction the club was heading - something he accepts was damaging to his own personal performance.
After being sacked by Newcastle, McClaren considered quitting coaching altogether following his chastening Tyneside experience - but seven months later he had returned to Derby County as manager.
During a wide-ranging and excellent interview with The Times, McClaren - who insists he believed he would “rebound and make a mark” when he first took the United job - said: “I thought long and hard about the future after Newcastle.
“It was very, very difficult. I felt... there are certain things you can control, but there were too many things I couldn’t control and that was frustrating.
“I asked myself: ‘Have I done enough?’ I’ve never fallen out of love with football, but with that job? It was the same after England. It took me a long time, eight or nine months, to recover.
“It was about needing a break and exploring other things.”
After lasting just five months back at Derby before being sacked by the Rams for a second time, McClaren accepted a number of punditry roles.
Then, in August, McClaren received a call from Jordi Cruyff, who was head coach at Maccabi Tel Aviv - and soon the former England manager found himself flying out to Israel as a coaching consultant.
But McClaren found himself acting as Cruyff’s assistant, and claims that he “missed out” on a few management opportunities in England as a result.
“It started off as consultancy, helping Jordi adapt to becoming a coach. It ended up as full-time assistant, sitting on the bench, working on the field,” McClaren added.
“But I always felt it would be short term and the thing missing is that it wasn’t my team.
“I was five hours away from England and there were two or three opportunities that I missed out on because I wasn’t there, so I couldn’t just nip up the road and speak to people. It was time to come back.
“I just said to Jordi, ‘I need to go home...’
“I’m a No 1. I want to be out on the field, working with players, building a team. I need competition, I need that winning feeling, even that losing feeling, although it’s horrible, to keep myself motivated.
“Problem-solving, taking decisions, being the decision-maker, making 1,000 of them a day. It’s what I do.”
After leaving Newcastle, McClaren started studying for a sport directorship Masters degree at Manchester Metropolitan University.
He believed he could follow in Louis van Gaal, Dick Advocaat and Johan Cruyff’s footsteps from coaching to a sports-director role.
But the yearning to return to management proved too strong.
“You’re a player, then a coach, then a manger and the next step is to be a sports director or a technical director,” he continued.
“Louis van Gaal has done it, Dick Advocaat, Johan Cruyff, loads of people. So maybe I’ll have a look at it, I thought. It was a great course, terrific and I was exploring.
“One day I made a decision. I said to [my wife] Kathryn: ‘Right, for as long as I can, until my legs give out, I want to be on the field.’
“I’m a manager. I’m 56 and in coaching terms still relatively young, especially when you see how long Sir Alex [Ferguson] went on for, Roy Hodgson now, Sam Allardyce.
“People have said to me: ‘You’ve got too much to offer, you’ve proved in the past, given the right circumstances and with the right people around you, you can be successful.’
“I’m open to anything. It doesn’t matter where you work — Europe, England, Scotland, Wales... I just want the opportunity to manage again.”