What Fergie told me about why managers like Klopp lose the plot in TV glare
ONE of the most revealing half hours of my years in journalism was spent alone with Alex Ferguson. Circumstances are not particularly important but the subject matter was, and related to how the Manchester United manager dealt with the media.
Ferguson, still in his prime at the time, was particularly animated when it came to the issue of post-match TV interviews, or ‘trial by camera’ as he called it.
‘You have no idea what it can be like,’ Ferguson said. ‘You’ve just lost a game and there you are in front of the camera with the whole world peering into your soul.’
Ferguson was a fearsome adversary for anybody fortunate enough to be holding a camera, microphone or even pen and paper in his vicinity.
The Scot could be an intimidating man, an aura that only grew in direct parallel with his success.
He didn’t require friends in the media during the later years. All the allies he ever needed were huddled together in an Old Trafford trophy cabinet. It was interesting, then, to learn first hand that he still felt the stress of it all.
Football managers and, to a lesser degree, players are at their most naked, emotional and vulnerable as they stand in the interview area of stadiums with adrenaline pumping and sweat not yet dry. Success doesn’t insulate you from that.
It was this susceptibility to pressure that was doubtless written right through Jurgen Klopp’s impromptu decision to walk away from a post-match interview with Danish TV after Sunday’s 4-3 FA Cup loss to Manchester United.
Klopp didn’t like a question. ‘Dumb,’ he called it. The interviewer, Niels Christian Frederiksen, subsequently claimed the Liverpool manager screamed at him as he stormed off down the tunnel and that is something the broadcaster may regret. There is an unofficial omerta when it comes to reporting such things and, as such, there are members of the Premier League managerial community who will feel that code has been broken.
But in terms of Klopp and his conduct (above), it is unusual but not particularly startling to hear about. The number of ‘flash’ interviews that managers are obliged to give to domestic and foreign rights holders before and after big games can be into double figures and is growing each season. It is one of the prices paid for the torrent of TV and radio money that continues to flow into the English game.
The environment can be one of repetition and tension on both sides of the divide. Managers are stressed and haven’t had time to compose themselves, as they often have by the time they reach a press conference for the written media 45 minutes or so later. Words can, therefore, be muttered in anger.
It is no easy path to tread for TV journalists, either. Sky Sports’ former touchline reporter Geoff Shreeves was probably the best at it and he told me: ‘It’s not about what I want to ask, it’s what our viewers want asking. What do they want to know. But it’s still a challenge to frame that question in a respectful and rational way.
‘It may have to be challenging and then there may have to be a follow-up. I don’t want to lose someone after question one, do I, because then I have failed the viewer.
‘You can’t duck a subject as you wouldn’t be doing your job. You know there will be a touchy subject so it’s about pitch, tone and your framing of questions.
‘If you are so bold as to ask a manager straight away if he fears the sack, then in all likelihood it won’t go well. So you need to find another way of asking it, but you still need to ask it.
‘You don’t need to go in with haymakers, you just have to find a way to go where you know you need to go.’
Managers can be hard to read, whatever the interview scenario. Some can take more than others. Equally, sometimes it’s irrefutable facts they don’t like. Questions with open answers can be talked around. Hard facts — such as a reminder of a league position or losing run — can hit harder.
Klopp did not like the perfectly understandable suggestion that his team lacked intensity as Sunday’s epic FA Cup tie rolled on. A day earlier, after defeat at Fulham, Tottenham manager Ange Postecoglou was irritated by a simple question about his team’s loose grip on the Champions League places.
Both will perhaps reflect on situations that could have been handled better, but nobody got hurt. No rules of engagement were broken. Football management is an emotionally exacting business and sometimes it just shows.