Breaking Lines

Crumble And Ball - Friday Nights in Hotels

Many a Friday night has been whittled away in the environs of a *insert name of chain* Hotel by football teams across the world as the logistics of ensuring you're in the right town or city for the following days match kick in and the motorways are clogged with luxurious team coaches. But with perhaps 20 hours to kill before kick off, what does the team do?

The logistics of getting everyone to the hotel can be a challenge especially if the coach driver has their traffic radar set to Join Every Traffic Jam! The challenges of just getting out of London for example! You have a journey, before you begin your actual journey out of the capital to the other part of the country. 

Catering for a professional football team is complex - dietary requirements, variety across a meal and a season and ensuring the Apple Crumble has enough crumble and just the right type of custard! 

And then its prep for the game - the compulsory walk to nowhere, meetings galore and then off to victory… or at least thats the plan! 

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The Gambler - Half Time Strategies

Kenny Rogers sang it well - you've got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold, em... and half time in football is when the manager plays some of his big chips!

It is such a tricky period for a head coach - do you make tactical changes, substitutions even. A period of calm reflection or get stuck into them with an almighty rant. These are the choices

As the manager walks down the tunnel the thoughts that have been forming in their mind in the previous half begin to crystallise and the decision of what to do next are pressing

Do you need to change the mindset of the players? Change the game plan or change the players? Is the formation right? What will our opponent do?

All of these are options and of course there are others also adding their opinion into the mix. Coaches who may see other elements of the game, medics advising on player injuries, performance staff looking at the capacity of some players to last the pace!

Maintain the status quo MAY work but you have to also be prepared that the other coach may also make changes to how they face the second half.

In essence its often the strategies set out in the 5mins before the players leave that will effect the game - that is if the players actually follow the instructions!

 

Time is Running Out - Deadline Day Decisions

Deadline Day - the culmination of months of preparation for recruitment teams, managers and club hierarchy as they look to seal those late deals that might make the different. Wether players entering or leaving the building, the pressure grows as the clock winds down and the window slams shut (it always slams - never gently closed!)

The day can of course, be quite calm. Deals completed in the days previous and nothing is untoward. No last minute dashes to the MRI scanner, no hastily chauffeured players lost in traffic, or turnarounds on a busy motorway as the club is gazumped by a rival. Here's a lot of the grizzly details!

 

One of the main roles of any manager is to pick the team, and while its joy all round for the team selected, for some there the ignominy of being 'dropped' - or 'rested' / 'rotated' or 'not filling the requirements posed by the unique tactical structures presented by the personality of the opponent in the transitions in their strategy'. You're out!

But the psychology of communicating this to the player in question means it is fraught with danger for the head coach. Wrong tone to the wrong player at the wrong time and carnage can ensue and problems created that could have many unforeseen reverberations! 

Welcome to Episode 8 of Breaking Lines

 

Its Gaining Again - INEOS, Manchester United and Weather Woes

"Come on you little fighter & Get back up again!" Supertramp sang - and perhaps the rise of Manchester United is only around the corner!

For INEOS and Sir Dave Brailsford, Carrington and Old Trafford is the next stop as the multi-sport organisation looks to enhance the performance of the teams at Man Utd. And while being famous for the 'Marginal Gains' mantra at British Cycling and TeamSky, Brailsford is now taking on a beast with huge global standing in Manchester United. But it's not the first football club to explore using other sports and practitioners to influence their organisations. From Sir Clive Woodward and Steve Redgrave to MSG group and Barcelona many organisations have pooled knowledge across sports.

And as its winter in Northern Europe, the cold snap has returned and provides more challenges for clubs in simply trying to train  - and then there's the games too! Wind, rain, snow, ice and, believe it or not, even sun have caused games to be postponed or curtailed. So what's there to do... well small areas of pitch are decimated, stadium steps are conquered and professionalism rains down - until we all get too cold and go back inside!

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When The Going (A) Gets Tough & Give Youth A Chance

'One Of Our Own' is the refrain from many a terrace when the bright and shiny new young player is unleashed before a naive but excited fanbase. With more leeway than any other player, mistakes are forgiven at the altar of gaining experience. But managing emerging talent requires more than just providing opportunity. 

Planning for the longer term - technically, physically, emotionally and psychologically - is something a manger must do. Too much too soon and the player may go off the rails, or the jump up is too big, too soon. Integration into training is relatively easy compared to integrating into a squad and dressing room. Talent only gets you so far... And then there's the parents, agents, media, other clubs!

Is every away ground a tough place to go - surely there must be some easier places to visit. Ensuring you come away with points from fixtures at the opponent's ground may mean employing unusual or different tactics. From playing the crowd to stifling the opponents tactics, its a different beast away from home. And that's before you even have the joy of the travel and hotel logistics to deal with!!

And why did Trevor Francis not know he was in the theme tune for Only Fools and Horses?!!

Came In Through The January Window

The Mid-Season or 'January' Transfer Window offers clubs, coaches and fans the opportunities to shape the 2nd half of the season -for better, but sometimes for worse; nothing is guaranteed when it comes to building teams!

This episode Gary and Dave explore how a manager will work in the time before the window opens to begin to target new recruits to come in and how working with the recruitment teams can work. Meetings, videos, web conferences, travel abroad all crammed into the time also required to keep the current team performing as highly as possible! 

Further we look at some recent comments from Michael Owen on whether players from the past could play in the modern Premier League. And then we postulate as to the robustness of current players to have coped with time travel in the opposite direction!

More insights, more stories, more context on the world of football management!

Deck The Balls - Christmas in Football

Christmas is a time for families, festivities... and football! Well it is in the hectic world of British football, where talk of Winter Breaks and a mid-season break are banished like the ghosts of Christmas past. From the inevitable planning of the Xmas parties for the players, for staff its logistics, rotation, travelling the roads of the country while sane people are tucking into the excesses of the Yule time.

This episode we explore why it can be a period, dense in games that can set you up for a positive second half of the season - to mean you're battening down the hatches and getting the recruitment team in overdrive for a busy January! From debates on whether to train on Christmas morning, evening or at all, its a unique challenge in the football calendar.

Over the years we've seen it all ways! So let us guide you through the run up to the Christmas Festive Football Celebration!

Good Kompany and Technical Area 51

Few places in a football stadium have more mystique than the technical area! Prowling the perimeter of the pitch, or sat in comfort on the reclining, heated padded seats, this is where the emperor coaches survey the battlefield on the pitch. After the niceties of the pre-match talk its onto the pitch where communication with the players is tested in the cauldron of the stadium.

Afterwards, in the tranquility of the managers room, pleasantries are exchanged; well sometimes! No shows and long visits, when the match is done the staff get to mix together and share information and friendships are renewed.

Finally we turn to some things which have left the game - Bovril and Baths. Mainstays of dressing rooms for decades they are now practically extinct. And while their replacements may have more scientific benefit, the old school ways give rise to some better stories than Isotonic drinks and individual showers!

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