Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson insists no-one at the club expected Mark Hughes to enter management.
Before Manchester City, Hughes was a success as Wales coach and also with Blackburn Rovers.
But Ferguson has spoken of his surprise that Hughes became a manager, although the Scot’s comments fell short of a direct attack, having been asked to predict which of his present players could become managers.
“It’s difficult to assess that because you don’t know what ambitions the players have,” Ferguson said. “Currently we’ve got [Ryan] Giggs, [Paul] Scholes and [Gary] Neville taking their coaching badges. That’s great and I encourage them to do that because it gives them a platform if they want to stay in the game.
“It can be difficult to pinpoint who would make it as a manager. For instance, nobody here thought Mark Hughes would become a manager, never in a million years, and we all thought Bryan Robson was a certainty to be a top manager.”