“I love football so when I finish playing, I would like to still be involved in it somehow and a ­manager would be my first choice.”

Wayne Rooney in his playing days.

After his third abrupt exit from the dugout in three years, we have to wonder if it still is.

One of English football’s all-time greats, Manchester United’s record goalscorer was sacked by Birmingham City this week after just 83 days in charge.

He certainly made an impact: he took the Championship club from sixth place to 20th in 15 games, winning just two.

Indeed, he transformed them from promotion hopefuls to relegation candidates.

Prior to that, he left DC United after leading them to last place in the MLS (Major League Soccer) in the United States.

It was the second season in a row they failed to make the playoffs.

And before that there was Derby County where he won praise for fighting a losing battle.

The club was docked a total of 21 points for financial breaches and going into administration, and dropped to League One.

Rooney was seen as a hero for his 24/7 commitment, working with mostly junior players who were left after a necessary cull, and even sleeping in his office during that fateful season.

But now the Birmingham disaster has made him a prime example in the argument that very few top players become top managers.

It was as if the Blues wanted to test the theory after Gianfranco Zola won only twice in 22 games before they sacked him.

Rooney replaced little-known John Eustace who had done a fine job in turning the club around.

But he was not the stellar name the new American owners were looking for.

Rooney’s demise is also further evidence that, when it comes to a certain generation of English players, all that glitters is not gold.

Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard and Gary Neville are the other notables of the early 2000s who failed miserably to follow all-conquering feats as players.

They famously never won anything with England, but were among the finest to have played for their respective clubs.

England boss at the time, Sven-Goran Eriksson, later reflected: “When I look at that team (in 2006), I still can’t understand why we didn’t win (the World Cup).”

Several of those players probably can’t understand why they haven’t become top managers, either.

Rooney, now 38, is still defiant, declaring that he wants to try again after spending some time with his family.

You wish him well, but the kindest verdict can only be that up to now he’s not been very good at the job.

Of course, he is in illustrious company.

Think of Pele and Maradona who both found it impossible to follow their other-worldly feats on the field.

Indeed, their playing lieutenants Mario Zagallo and Jorge Valdano would respectively overshadow them as managers.

The list of high-profile casualties is endless. Of the 1966 England World Cup-winning team, only Jack Charlton had any success in charge.

And of the squads around the turn of the century, just Gareth Southgate can claim likewise. Paul Gascoigne conspicuously cannot.

It says it all about the difficulty of winning the World Cup both on and off the field when only three men have achieved it.

And it hardly makes it clearer what is required when one of them doesn’t belong in the highest echelons as a player.

Zinedine Zidane and Franz Beckenbauer are A-class exhibits while Didier Deschamps was famously dubbed a “water-carrier” by Eric Cantona.

But Deschamps was part of Zidane’s France that won in 1998 and then, from the dugout, turned water into wine in 2022.

Johan Cruyff would seem more suitable company but the World Cup eluded his great Dutch side.

However, his impact as a manager, thinker, guru and mastermind at Barcelona puts him ahead of the rest on the coaching side.

Carlo Ancelotti and Kenny Dalglish were a rung below as players but became distinguished managers.

Bill Shankly, Brian Clough and Pep Guardiola were not quite in their class as players but became immortals as bosses.

Alex Ferguson was never capped by his country but he has his supporters as the greatest club manager of all time.

Jurgen Klopp did not even play in the top flight in Germany but is already a legend at two clubs in different countries.

Arsene Wenger was no great shakes as a player, either, but look at the job he did at Arsenal.

And then there’s Jose Mourinho, who barely kicked a ball, but gets legendary status at Chelsea.

The aforementioned names suggest that the age of “show us your medals” in terms of impressing players is well and truly over.

But it doesn’t mean that laptop-carrying nobodies are exactly a shoo-in for success either.

Foreign bosses – especially Spanish and Portuguese – are still in vogue which prompted a celebrated whinge from Sam Allardyce.

“If my name had been Allardici, I’d have managed Real Madrid and Inter Milan,” he once claimed.

So, just what is it that makes a manager?

Well, communication skills are a must which probably hasn’t helped Rooney.

The striker is not a great talker although those who know him insist that he’s not as thick as he sounds.

And it’s significant he had more success with kids who looked up to him than older pros did.

He also made telling observations about the Golden Generation

Gerrard has been shown up as tactically naïve by Unai Emery who has turned the same players at Aston Villa from bottom three to top three.

Emery’s English had improved since his Arsenal failure.

Gary Neville was given a hospital pass with the Valencia job and couldn’t speak Spanish.

Lampard was a thinking man’s player but hardly an inspirational speaker or tactical wizard. And like Rooney, he was better with kids.

But if there’s one common trait among the ‘Mount Rushmore’ managers it is personality: Shankly, Clough, Ferguson, Guardiola and early-vintage Mourinho all had it in abundance.

Allied to an encyclopaedic knowledge of the game and an instinct for players, it gives a manager a chance.

Rooney had it only in his feet and that sadly was probably his downfall.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.