TOMMY THE MAN TO GET BURNLEY IN THE SWING
BURNLEY boss Sean Dyche has been chatting with top golfer Tommy Fleetwood as the Premier League season gets set to tee off again next month. Dyche has often plugged into personalities from other sports to help his players punch above their weight among the elite.
Trophy-winning cycling coach Sir Dave Brailsford, Hull KR rugby league coach Tony Smith, Oxford University rowing coach Sean Bowden, top rugby union sides Saracens and Harlequins, plus the Mercedes F1 team are among those enlisted in the pursuit of
Burnley’s development.
Now Dyche
(right) is convinced that an audience with
Fleetwood, who is based in
Southport, can lead to a Premier
League pay-off for his players.
Dyche said: “Recently I had a really good Facetime call with Tommy Fleetwood. I like to try and nick those little bits of gold off people.
“Obviously the bigger picture is the team but I like to see how individuals work. I was asking Tommy about the psychology, the in-between bits which arrive when you are playing, how to maintain your concentration.
“You’re walking down the fairway and there could be a five-minute walk before you play your next shot. How do golfers find that alertness to play that first shot following the break in play? Can that help us in a penalty situation or when play is halted for some time? It’s also,
LEE CHAPMAN believes Leeds are going up under their scheming manager Marcelo Bielsa – but revealed the original spy king was Howard Wilkinson 30 years ago.
Bielsa caused a huge storm last season, when he sent a ‘spy’ to watch Derby train, landing Leeds with a £200,000 fine from the EFL as punishment for ‘Spygate’.
But Chapman, 60, whose goalscoring helped Leeds to ‘How do you let mistakes go?’ I call it small failures. In golf you have a lot of small failures.
“You have a bad shot but you haven’t got time to think about it. You’ve got to become alert again and park the mistake.
“I spoke to him about how footballers can do that and how they have to let a bad moment go and move forward.
“I like the idea of getting different views on these things. I was very fortunate to get an hour with him.
“We talked about how you can do things right all the time during training but how to then transfer that automatic response to the course or the pitch. He said to be able to do that on a golf course is vital. “We talked about aligning that to a whole group rather than an individual, which is much harder. Can you get a whole group to operate at such a high level every day and when you really need it – when you’re under duress in a stadium with 70,000 people? Can you go into that automatic mode of delivery?
“I like stuff like that. He is a very calm fella, very relaxed, and he delivered it all in a very easy-to-follow way. It was stripped down commonsense, which is proving very useful.”
Dyche has always been prepared to travel down different routes to produce results, one reason he is so respected. He enjoys chewing the fat with his Burnley staff and asked Fleetwood how he utilises his support team.
“I’m also interested in the team promotion in 1990 and the First Division title two years later, says the same tactics were the norm under Wilkinson (right) – dubbed ‘Sergeant Wilko’.
Chapman said: “People talk about Bielsa but Howard would send scouts everywhere to watch opponents and compile incredibly detailed reports. I used to dread team behind the team. Like tennis players, golfers have a support team. How is all that managed?” Dyche added. “I’ve spoken to Dave Brailsford in the past. It’s relevant now with the outbreak, but at the time we spoke he was going on about the importance of washing your hands. A few years ago his Sky cycling team found they were getting lots of illnesses, so they applied logic.
“It was to wash your hands, wash the bikes, handles, etc. They were told to do it as a daily routine until it became automatic and it worked. A good coach in any sport shouldn’t be afraid to steal the odd idea or two.” meetings as Howard would walk in with 20 to 30-page dossiers prepared by his scouts. He would then get us to watch videos of the opposition and was very big on his stats – one of the very first managers to do that.
“These meetings were never going to be quick and they never were.that was unheard of in those days but Howard was doing these things three decades ago and what we
ROBIN VAN PERSIE has lifted the lid on how Louis van Gaal slapped him at the World Cup – and then dealt him a knockout blow at Manchester United.
Van Persie (above) revealed how he got a cuff on the head when he refused to be subbed during Holland’s quarter-final win over Costa Rica in 2014.
When the pair linked up at Old Trafford, RVP got a bigger shock when his manager told him his time at United was up.
The two men made up their differences last year, when Van Persie invited Van Gaal to his testimonial game for Feyenoord.
But in a new book called ‘LVG – The Manager and the Total Person’, Van Persie recalls the clash, saying: “The game went into extra-time and I got cramp.
“Louis shouted, ‘I’m taking you off.’ I shouted, ‘No, no, we have penalties soon.’ But the last 20 minutes were really hard. Van
Gaal could see that and steam was coming out of his ears.
“When the match finished, he got close and hit me with a big flat hand and said, ‘Don’t ever do that to me again.’ That was Louis – sometimes he can hug a player and sometimes he can hit you.”
Van Gaal (right) was equally direct when he ended RVP’S United career. “He said in a hard way, ‘You’re the player, I’m the manager. I’m not leaving so you have to. You are done in Manchester.’ I asked him to explain where it had gone wrong. He just said, ‘There is a difference between Louis the national manager and Louis the club manager.’”
Last year Van Persie invited
Van Gaal to his testimonial. “I explained the way I see him has not been affected by what happened at United. His reply was, ‘I love it how you have spoken to me. I will be there.’” achieved at Leeds under him was incredible.
“The 1992 title success was the highlight of my career because it’s what you grow up dreaming about, especially as a striker.”
Now Chapman (right) is backing them to return to the promised land after a 16-year absence.when football was suspended in March, Bielsa’s boys were a point clear at the top of the
Championship. Chapman added: “Leeds blew it a bit last year, when Bielsa over-trained them. That’s what my friends up in Leeds tell me. “Bielsa didn’t realise how tough the Championship is – they burned out towards the end of last season. I’m told Bielsa has learned from that, so Leeds are now well placed to secure promotion when the season restarts.”