"Playing with the likes of Bryan Robson and Steve Bruce you always thought they'd go on to be managers.
"Some may have thought one of them would be our next manager but I certainly didn't think Sparky [Hughes] would be a manager yet out of the three.
"He's probably now the most outstanding candidate for it.
"He really seems to have taken to management."
He also breathes a sigh of relief that
"Sven [Goran-Eriksson] was mentioned a few years ago when our manager was talking about retiring.
"You think back now to the choices being talked about and they would have been disastrous."