FM12 - From Zero to Hero

Glenn Tham hailed from the tiny country of Singapore in Southeast Asia. Born to a Chinese father and an English mother, Tham moved from Singapore to his mother's hometown, London, at the age of ten. Having discovered a love for football at thirteen, Tham spent his spare time as a child scribbling down football tactics into pieces of paper, and dreaming about becoming a professional football player when he grew older. However, he had little to no talent in the beautiful game. His passing, dribbling, everything, was a disaster, because he never had the opportunity to practice as a kid. He was ridiculed as a boy with no footballing talent and that he never would have any.

At the age of 25, he impressed the higher powers at Chelsea F.C. with his man management and coaching ability, and was accepted as a youth coach at the club.

Tham was then offered the opportunity to become a first team coach at Liverpool F.C., and he wasted no time in accepting the offer and moving away from his parents and relatives in London, to Merseyside. When Roy Hodgson became the club's new manager, Tham was promoted to assistant manager, and he kept his position when Hodgson left to be replaced by Anfield legend Kenny Dalglish in January 2011. With Dalglish's departure in the start of the 11/12 season, Tham, now 30, has been called upon to replace Dalglish on a two-year contract.

This story follows his journey to become one of the country's top, top managers and to prove his doubters wrong.

Looking forward to this, sounds interesting.

I felt nervous as I met the media for the first time as Liverpool boss. I told the reporters about how I thought about the club's facilities, any transfers I might make this transfer window, and that I would definitely be shipping out some of my staff and bringing in some new ones that I deem better. Overall, I think I did pretty well in my first press conference.

Thomas Werner, the Liverpool chairman whom I had worked with as well when I was assistant manager, had passionately told me to ignore claims that I was too inexpierenced to take such a big job and that I would be given a budget of $18M - minimum expectations were to finish 5th and qualify for the Europa League at least. I was confident I could manage that, but I have seen confident coaches before who proclaimed their team would finish 3rd, 4th and ended up battling for their lives at the bottom of the table.

I've been at Liverpool for three years and as a result, know the other staff members in the club well, and also knew how they went about doing things, so that was very convenient for me. Steve Clarke, formerly a first team coach, was promoted as my assistant manager for the season. He told me that the staff from the previous season would all be retained but would accept mutual termination of their contracts should I wish to bring in my own coaching staff. I immediately went to work. I had told the press I would be "re-shaping this club from top to bottom", and that was what I was going to do. In an hour, David Moss, Mads Jorgensen, Diego Caniggia, Ian Barrigan and Stuart Webber had all agreed to mutual termination of their contracts. They were all scouts and I felt we needed to have better ones as they just weren't up to the standard I wanted them to be.

As quickly as I approached David Moss and company about their contract terminations, I started to dial a few numbers. West Ham's Jimmy Hampson, Arsenal's Liam Brady and Stewart Houston, as well as Soren Lerby, were all contacted to come down to the club. Within the day, I had four new scouts join the club, and five other scouts leaving. I also terminated the link between us and three of our feeder clubs, MTK Budapest; Bray Wanderers; and Nacional. The only feeder club we have left is League Two club Accrington.

I want to focus on getting every staff I want in before I think about players. I think I might get two or three more scouts in, a few coaches and first team coaches, a goalkeeping coach, and a fitness coach. I am definitely going to off-load one or two physios as I feel I have too many, and also one or two youth coaches.

Not a bad start to my managerial career, I already have everything all planned out well. Steve has talked to me about arranging a match between the senior squad and our reserves tomorrow evening at Prenton Park, and as I found it a good way for my players to get some match fitness back after a long close-season, I accepted his proposal.