Kelly Eyes Return To The Big League

Cherries defender keen to learn from woodgate

- John Wragg

Jonathan Woodgate vowed to be straight with people when he was snubbed by Fabio Capello at Real Madrid.

Capello, later to manage England without distinction, walked past Woodgate in the corridor and said that Real sporting director Franco Baldini wanted to see him.

Indeed he did. Baldini basically gave Woodgate his cards, telling him he could leave Real Madrid.

Woodgate wondered why Capello couldn’t tell him himself and from that moment promised he wouldn’t be like that when he went into management.

Bournemouth’s young defender Lloyd Kelly, 22, is getting the benefit of that pledge and appreciates Woodgate’s straightforward approach.

Benefit

A star as a player with Middlesbrough, Leeds, Spurs, Real Madrid and England, Woodgate found management more difficult and lost his first job in charge at Boro last season after 38 games.

He’s back for a second go at Bournemouth as caretaker manager having been appointed as new first-team coach only days earlier.

The man who gave him a way back into football, Jason Tindall, was sacked and Woodgate stepped up from coach to manager in the space of three days.

Since then he has played four, winning three and drawing one going into the weekend game with QPR.

That unbeaten start included victory at Premier League Burnley to put Bournemouth in the quarter-finals of the FA Cup for the first time in 64 years.

Now he’s waiting to see whether that’s good enough to put the Cherry on the cake and get him the job full-time ahead of others on the list like Thierry Henry, Patrick Vieira, David Wagner and Marco Silva.

Whether he’s manager or reverts back to coaching, Woodgate knows a centre-half when he sees one.