Ferguson’s special treatment of Cantona shouldn’t come as a surprise. Football management involves much man-management, essentially the art of treating individuals differently. This is a theme Musa Okwonga explores in his intriguing new study Will You Manage? Interviewing managers past and present from all levels of the game, he finds that an ability to empathise is key to managing footballers. Empathy, Okwonga writes, is not only about knowing when to be nice to players but also knowing when not to be nice. He recounts how Bob Paisley, the revered Liverpool boss of the late 1970s and early 1980s, likened professional footballers to thoroughbred racehorses, on account of their hyper-sensitivity. One day he arranged for his iron man defender Tommy Smith to have the wrong pre-match meal delivered to his table in order to put him in a bad mood – and provoke a particularly uncompromising performance.