Tomorrow is Eddie Howe’s birthday. He’ll leave the ranks of the thirty-somethings and leave the Premier League with zero permanent managers under the age of 40. Now contrast this with the Bundesliga, where one third of the managers are still in their 30s.

German football may have its flaws but “blockages” in the pipeline of young coaching talent isn’t one of them. It can’t be, not when the managers of Schalke (Domenico Tedesco, third in the table) and Hoffenheim (Julian Nagelsmann, seventh) have a combined age of 62, which is eight years less than Roy Hodgson at Crystal Palace.

Half the Bundesliga managers had never managed a top-flight club when they were appointed. In the Premier League, that number is four - Paul Clement, David