Eric Ramsay: The ex-Chelsea and Man Utd coach who chose MLS over Championship

Eric Ramsay is convinced his decision to accept a head coaching role in Major League Soccer rather than the Championship will benefit his overall development.

The 33-year-old Welshman starts his first full season at Minnesota United against LAFC on Saturday, having joined the club in March last year before guiding them into the play-offs, where they were beaten in the Western Conference semi-finals by eventual winners LA Galaxy.

Providing Ramsay lasts the first month of the new campaign, he will become the 17th Major League Soccer boss – out of a possible 29 – to have been in charge for more than a year.

By contrast, of the 18 Championship managers who started last season at clubs who are still in the second tier, only two, Leeds and Middlesbrough, still have the same man in charge.

The bleak statistics are why Ramsay chose the USA to step up following extended spells as a youth coach at Chelsea before joining the first-team set-up at Manchester United.

“I am self-aware enough to know I am by no means the finished article as a head coach,” Ramsay told BBC Sport.

“I wanted an experience that was going to give me the best chance to develop, the opportunity to make some mistakes and manage something that feels big.

“It feels like there is scrutiny on MLS. There is media to deal with. There is pressure you have to deal with exist, albeit not to the same extent as England.

“The Championship would have been equally as testing, if not more so, but with that constant nagging doubt, looking objectively, that there is a much shorter life-cycle for guys who go into that league. All round this was a relatively sensible decision.”

Ramsay is, by some distance, the youngest coach in MLS.

He is following a trend of clubs trusting youthful bosses, including 31-year-old Fabian Hurzeler at Brighton and 32-year-old Will Still, who is in charge at Ligue 1 side Lens.

Ramsay followed the coaching path after graduating from Loughborough University with a sports science and management degree.

He worked at Swansea and Shrewsbury before joining Chelsea in 2019 and then moving on to Manchester United, initially as player development coach under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, in 2021.

“I had reached a logical point to pursue an opportunity like this,” said Ramsay.

” I had two-and-a-half years at Chelsea, been with the Welsh national team and had two-and-a-half years at Man Utd – and two-and-a-half years there can feel like five or six.”