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Louise Thomas
Editor
Craig Bellamy has warned his Wales captain Aaron Ramsey against taking up a player-coach role at Cardiff.
Ramsey was recently awarded his UEFA A Licence and has been linked with a Cardiff coaching job following the sacking of Erol Bulut and the interim appointment of Omer Riza.
But Wales manager Bellamy believes combining playing and coaching roles do not mix after watching Vincent Kompany undertake both jobs for Anderlecht when he was working at the Belgian club.
“In the future I definitely see Aaron going into management,” Bellamy said of his former Wales teammate, who is now 33.
“I think it’s starting to circle in his mind, as it usually does later on in your career.
“I’m quietly confident he will see that part of the game is for him.
“With his experience and knowledge, and his understanding of the game, I would be surprised if it wasn’t at a really high level.
“But I can’t see him being a player-coach at Cardiff this season. I’ve seen Vincent do it and it is really difficult.
In the future I definitely see Aaron going into management. I think it’s starting to circle in his mind, as it usually does later on in your career— Craig Bellamy on Aaron Ramsey
“That was the first time I saw it really close up. I’d not been exposed to it playing wise.
“I’d probably not recommend it after seeing Vinny doing that at Anderlecht.
“I think he felt that as well and decided he was either going to carry on playing or become a manager. He chose the managerial route. It’s a difficult one.”
Ramsey featured in Wales’ opening Nations League ties last month, starting the 0-0 home draw with Turkey and coming off the bench in the 2-1 win at Montenegro as Bellamy’s reign began in positive fashion.
But the former Arsenal and Juventus midfielder misses out on Friday’s visit to Iceland and the Montenegro return in Cardiff three days later after suffering a hamstring injury.
Bellamy said: “I’m really disappointed for him that he picked up another injury. He was exceptional in the game against Turkey.
“He did everything we asked of him in the role he played. The chances we created, if you look back on them, they all came from Aaron.
“He is a clever footballer and he showed that during that game.
“But he isn’t going to miss out on too much because I’ll keep him updated and I believe he might be with us on camp during this period.
“There will be another set of information we’ll want to feed into him over a 10-day period and another two games.
“I speak to Aaron quite a lot and I try to involve him in tactically what we try to do. He comes down to Dragon Park (Football Association of Wales training centre) to see me quite a bit and we go through certain stuff.
“I’ve known Aaron since he was five and I knew he was going to be a professional footballer even then, which is very rare.
“That allows us to have a good level of communication.”
