Former Portsmouth and West Ham United star lands coaching role at Championship relegation rival
A former Pompey hero is back in work almost five months after leaving his previous role.
Former Pompey, West Ham United and Bolton Wanderers star Matty Taylor is back in work almost six months after leaving his role as manager of National League club Solihull Moors.
The former Blues left-back was part of the squad that secured a historic promotion into the Premier League in 2003 and became a stalwart of their side over the following five years.
After departing to join Bolton in 2008, Taylor went on to spend time with West Ham, Burnley, Northampton Town and Swindon Town before bringing down the curtain on his playing career and had a short spell as caretaker manager of the latter of that quartet.
Over the last five years, Taylor has moved into management with spells at Walsall, Shrewsbury Town, Wealdstone and Solihull Moors - but has been out of work since leaving the latter earlier this season.
However, the 44-year-old is now back in work after agreeing to take on an academy role at relegation rivals Norwich City until the end of the season. Taylor will work under Canaries head of football development Dean Rastrick after the duo worked together within the youth setup at Spurs and Taylor also brings academy coaching experience from spells with Luton Town and West Ham.
Speaking to the Coaches Voice about his previous academy coaching at Spurs almost four years ago, the former Pompey man said: "My first year at Spurs was an eventful one for the first team. Mauricio Pochettino was sacked early on, so I didn’t get to spend too much time with him, but Jose Mourinho came in. He was fantastic to all the academy coaches.
"He would always give us lots of detailed feedback on the players who went over to train with the first team, and he was more than happy for any of us to go over and watch him and his staff taking sessions. There had always been a very tight relationship between the academy and the first team at Tottenham. José continued that, and gave a decent number of our players their first-team debuts.
"I worked closely with Ryan Mason, which was great for my development. He understood what it took to be a Tottenham player, because he’d been there and done it. There were great lessons for me to learn from him. I’d learned so much at Spurs. Not just about coaching, but also about interacting with players and developing them in certain ways: What does this player need for League Two? How can we help this player step up an age group?”
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