Jim Magilton

Midfielder Magilton was a Liverpool apprentice at the same time as Steve McManaman and Mike Marsh. Although Magilton's talent as a youngster was obvious, he never managed to make the big breakthrough at Anfield. He was, however, good enough to make over 500 Football League appearances for Oxford United, Southampton, Sheffield Wednesday and Ipswich Town as well as representing his country, Northern Ireland, 52 times. Although still registered as a player at the end of the 2005/06 season, Magilton approached the Ipswich Board with a view to taking over the manager's role from Joe Royle, who had just left the club. Once his appointment as manager was confirmed there was immediate pressure on Magilton to mastermind Ipswich's return to the Premier League, a status they had lost in 2002. In his first full season in charge in 2006/07, Town finished in fourteenth position; they improved that final position to eighth a year later but just missed out on the play-offs. Failure to again reach at least the play-offs in 2008/09 put the manager under severe pressure and he was sacked on 22 April 2009 with Roy Keane being announced as his replacement the following day. 

Magilton was not out of work for long. On 3 June 2009 he was appointed manager of championship club Queens Park Rangers to replace previous boss Paulo Sousa who had been dismissed around the same time Magilton left Ipswich in April. However, on 9 December 2009 Magilton was suspended by his club following an alleged incident with QPR midfielder Akos Buzsaky that followed Rangers' defeat at Watford earlier in the week. Seven days later it was announced that Magilton had left QPR 'by mutual consent'. In July 2011 Magilton was appointed as the assistant manager to Michael O'Neill at Irish club Shamrock Rovers. This appointment was in a "caretaker" capacity, the intention being that Magilton would help O'Neill find a replacement for his previous assistant, Trevor Croly. In January 2012 Magilton was appointed as coach of Melbourne Victory in Australia.