IT’S CRUCIAL TO FIND THE BALANCE AS MANAGER

DECEMBER 29, 1996 is a long time ago. I was 28 years of age. On that day, I walked into the dressing room of Kingstonian FC and presided over my first game as a football manager.

I told the lads that I wanted to play an attacking, possession-based game, where we were brave to be on the ball and positive in our play. Shots and crosses; that’s what I told them I valued. The outcome was a 4-4 draw. My second game ended in exactly the same result.

It was open and it was exciting, for sure. But the club was at the bottom of the league and we needed to grind out some wins to survive the prospect of relegation. So my thinking needed to evolve.

We needed to defend with more discipline and organisation. We needed to concede less at set-plays. We needed to run a little more defensively. So we worked on those things.

It didn’t take long for us to find a way to shock the league when we travelled away to leaders Yeovil and won 3-2 on their home ground to end a long unbeaten run under their then boss Graham Roberts.

We showed that day a big improvement as a team. The balance of our football had changed. Our focus was split between our time with the ball and our time without the ball. We didn’t quite score four, but we only conceded two and we won three points.

And so, across my 900-plus games to date, I’ve learned to manage with balance. There are unquestionably times when I get the balance right, and there can always be times when the balance is wrong.

No two teams are the same and the attacking and defensive qualities in any group have to play their part.

The job of a manager is to work out which balance will best suit the team in hand. I have most certainly had teams that are more likely to win with a 70/30 possession balance and others more likely to win at 30/70! Nowadays, there is a tendency to believe that a possession-orientation game is the only way to play - to a large degree I agree.

Academies place a phenomenal focus upon the techniques and habits in the attacking side of the game and young players are far less receptive to defensive concepts.

The skill of management is therefore in creating defensive challenges and structures that do appeal and motivate. Perhaps this is Pep’s greatest gift? Perhaps this is Klopp’s primary asset?

Four-four was a great scoreline. One-nil was much harder to achieve, though. And three points does feel better than one.