ISL: SC East Bengal's full coaching staff — Who will assist Robbie Fowler?

SC East Bengal’s debut campaign in the Indian Super League (ISL) will see Liverpool legend Robbie Fowler standing by the touchline as head coach, the club has confirmed. The seventh-highest Premier League goal scorer of all time will be joined in the dugout by Anthony Grant and Renedy Singh as assistant coaches. Other notable appointments include Robert Mimms as goalkeeping coach, Terence McPhillips as set-piece coach, Michael Harding as physiotherapist, Joseph Walmsley as performance analyst and Jack Inman as sports scientist.

Anthony ‘Tony’ Grant’s appointment was a foregone conclusion, the 44-year-old Englishman having previously worked with Fowler at A-League side Brisbane Roar. A former observing coach at Juventus and Borussia Dortmund, the soft-spoken strategist and ex-Evertonian midfielder has a diploma in performance analysis and Sports Performance and describes himself as having ‘big morals and big care for players’.

He will be accompanied by Indian legend Renedy Singh who after previous stints at FC Pune City and Neroca FC, joins Fowler’s backroom as the bridge between the players, especially Indians, and the foreign coaching staff.

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Robert Mimms, the goalkeeping coach, is a former Tottenham Hotspur and Blackburn Rovers goalkeeper and has worked in the ISL previously at Jamshedpur FC and ATK. His last assignment was for the Bangladesh National Team and he was a part of the Bangladesh side that India faced last year in a World Cup Qualifier.

In hiring Terence McPhillips as the set-piece coach, East Bengal have managed a massive coup, becoming the first Indian club to make such a specific appointment. The former Blackpool manager may well turn out to be a very shrewd appointment, what with dead-ball situations being a key differentiator in modern football.

Michael Harding treating a Newcastle United player (Source: Twitter/QEBNA)

The final three names on the list are experienced specialists in their respective fields. Michael Harding was the physiotherapist for Newcastle United for 14 years having joined the club in 2006 and is also the co-director at the private Osborne Clinic. As per reports, he and soft-tissue therapist Wayne Farrage were stood down by the Newcastle management amidst an internal investigation, following which Michael has accepted the offer to join Robbie Fowler at East Bengal.

Joseph Walmsley is another English league import, having previously worked as a performance analyst for the Preston North End’s U-18 team and as a scout and analyst for their senior team. Lastly, Jack Inman has experience of working as a sports scientist at Bury FC and Macclesfield Town FC, and has an MSc in Sport and Exercise Science from the University of Central Lancashire.

With things seemingly falling into place for East Bengal at the eleventh hour in terms of the coaching staff, it remains to be seen how the club utilizes the final few days of the transfer window in an attempt to assemble a squad that could challenge at the top of the ISL table.