Influence
Despite his Leicester side often falling at the final hurdle and thus the relative lack of honours, Gillies was regarded as being ahead of his time in terms of his tactical ability, and was held in high regard by the likes of Sir Matt Busby and particularly Bill Shankly. Shankly, once saying of Gillies' side: "There's only one team to beware of and that's Leicester City." Shankly watched Gillies' Leicester side, while Liverpool were still in the Second Division and was greatly influenced by his tactics.
Gillies and Johnson were one of the first managerial teams in England to experiment with practicing set-pieces in training and his switching of Frank McLintock at right-half and Graham Cross at inside-right mid-game, proved revolutionary. Gillies saying it "confused opposition" as opposition players would often be asked to mark "our number eight, so they thought Cross was their man, when McLintock had replaced him" as "players hadn't got beyond thinking about numbers then." Shankly later copied this trick as his Liverpool side were promoted to the First Division and went on to win First Division titles.
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