There are some tongue-in-cheek Scousers who have blamed Jim Magilton for Liverpool’s not winning a League title between 1990 and 2020. Their superstition starts from the assumption that the club must have done something wrong in 1990. As Jim Magilton was allowed to depart for Oxford that year, without ever making the first team at Anfield, that must be it.

By coincidence, Jim’s first outing for the Saints was in a home fixture v Liverpool. Belfast-born, he had already won the first 18 of his eventual 52 caps for Northern Ireland when Southampton’s new manager, Alan Ball, made him his second signing, prising him from second-tier Oxford for £600,000. In more than 150 appearances for the Saints,

Jim was a combative and commanding central-midfielder, consistently operating neatly and efficiently, box-to-box.

Which kept him very much in the frame as Merrington and Souness, in turn, succeeded Ball. But after playing the first five games of the 1997-98 season for the latest manager, Dave Jones, Jim rejected a contract-renewal and joined Sheffield Wednesday for a tribunal-fixed fee of £1.6m.

A loan move to Ipswich became permanent in March 1999. Having progressed from playing for the Tractor Boys – with two seasons in Europe – to managing them, Jim’s 10 year-stint at Portman Road ended when he was sacked to make way for Roy Keane. That matter ended up in the compensation courts. A brief spell as manager of QPR likewise ended acrimoniously. Two even shorter-term jobs followed: at Shamrock Rovers – assisting Michael O’Neill, who would later become Northern Ireland’s boss, a job for which Jim had applied – and as the interim head coach at Melbourne Victory, where he decided not to go for the permanent job.

He then became a sports analyst for a while with Alkass TV in Qatar. In June 2013, Jim landed a job – as Elite Performance Director – with the Irish FA. Much capped by his country, but having missed out as its manager, the widely-travelled Magilton was “very pleased and indeed honoured to have been offered this opportunity,” back home in Belfast. In March 2017 however the BBC reported the following – ‘retired footballer Jim Magilton has agreed “to be of good behaviour” after an allegation that he assaulted his stepdaughter was withdrawn. In 2023, aged 54 he became a manager in his own right when he took over NIFL Premiership side, Cliftonville.