Alan Irvine is too self-deprecating to publicise his transformation of Preston North End in his own words. His worries tell the tale just as well. This time last year the Scot took Preston to the foot of the Championship and began to listen to those who had earmarked him as the latest astute coach to slip on the first step into management.
Now his concerns centre on stopping Liverpool before Deepdale's biggest crowd since the early 1970s and trying to take that elusive leap into the Premier League. The sceptics have been silenced.
Typically, and vainly given his past as both a player and assistant manager at Everton, the North End manager insists tomorrow's FA Cup tie against the Premier League leaders is not about himself but a club competing in the play-off places with a fraction of the resources of its rivals. And a famous stadium that, now completely revamped in time for a live national television audience, will host a sell-out crowd of over 23,000 for the first time in four decades. All of which highlights the work of the man anxious to keep out of the spotlight.
Having replaced Paul Simpson with Preston languishing in the relegation zone in November 2007 the Glaswegian, as he puts it, "managed to make things worse". Bottom of the Championship at the start of 2008, Irvine ultimately led the Lancashire club to 15th and safety with a run of form that, as a self-made league table on his office wall emphasises, was bettered only by the promoted City's of Hull and Stoke in the second half of last season. The recovery commenced, however, with Irvine questioning the wisdom of his decision to leave "The Chosen One" and an Everton side competing in the Uefa Cup to go it alone.
"There were times last January when I thought back to the number of people who questioned me coming here," the 50-year-old admits. "At Everton I was probably in the securest job that you can get in football. It was a fantastic job at a club that means an awful lot to me and it was probably the worst time to leave. I didn't apply for this job. It was not as though I was looking to leave. I got a phone call asking if I was interested.
"I took a few days to think about it, weighed up all the pros and cons, and to be honest it was heavily weighted in favour of staying at Everton. But the overriding factor was that I had to have a go. I had a big question mark in my mind. I'd always have been asking 'What if I had done it?' and I would have doubted myself in terms of my own ambition and drive and determination. Was I staying at Everton because it was easy, safe and well within my comfort zone? The big thing was the "what if?" I had to find out."
Irvine had prepared for management since taking his coaching badges at 25. Having been accustomed to studying while working as an insurance broker and playing part-time for Queen's Park, he was bored with the free afternoons that came with the full-time life at Howard Kendall's Everton and needed something to do. It has proven a wise move that tomorrow will deliver its biggest showpiece so far.
"People will obviously link me and Everton with the game but the biggest thing is how important it is for the finances and the profile of the club," Irvine insists. "It's a fantastic draw but scary too, because Liverpool are capable of turning us over. Whoever they put out will be top internationals. It doesn't matter what team they pick, they would all get in our team. Liverpool have outstanding, world-class individuals but they play very much as a team. They know their jobs in and out of possession. They are a well-drilled team."
As are Liverpool's opponents. This season, having invested in mostly loan signings in the summer due to Preston's financial constraints, Irvine has continued where he left off last term to guide North End into contention for the play-offs. In the process, and in his own quietly efficient manner, Irvine has answered those who argued that, as the good cop to Moyes' bad at Everton, he is "too nice" to be a ruthless and successful manager.
"I'm a bad tempered so-and-so, I just don't show it too often," he says.
"I won't fail because I'm too nice. I hope people don't think I'm horrible either. I'm not vindictive and I won't try and stitch anyone up but I won't fail because I'm frightened to tell somebody what I think. The biggest thing of all is to be honest, but that doesn't mean you have to be cruel."
Logged
