Getting the mentality right is the manager’s Holy Grail
WHY SO GOOD ONE DAY – YET SO POOR THE NEXT?
JIMMY Floyd Hasselbaink made much of the mentality of players when he reviewed the 2021-22 season recently – and also alluded to it several times during the campaign.
It is, obviously, a massive factor in the game but the Burton Albion manager must know that it is an area in which he has not fully succeeded with his squad.
The inconsistency we saw last season could not all be put down to injuries disrupting the line-up or the manager experimenting with different formations or styles of play.
Sometimes, it seemed to just came down to attitude.
Straightaway, I would not suggest for a moment that, in some games, some players were not trying.
I do not subscribe to the theory, all-too-obvious theory, that players consciously try less, wherever their team is in the table.
These are serious professionals who have reached where they are in the game because they try harder than others, more often than not, and marry that to the talent they have been born with.
Subconsciously – now that is a different matter.
Unfortunately, the weight of evidence from last season is that the Brewers were hugely “up for it” in some games and, all too often, off the pace in others.
Quite often, one immediately followed the other, such as when Bolton Wanderers were taken apart 3-1 immediately before the Brewers went down 3-0 to Ipswich Town and lost 3-0 to Cambridge United immediately after beating Sunderland.
It is often said, sometimes without justification, that Burton play well against the top sides but then don’t do well against the bottom sides.
It is never quite that simple. It takes no account of the form any particular side might be in at any one time, for example. Lincoln City were in good form when they won at the Pirelli Stadium early in the season and heading into a spell of wretched form when the Brewers won at Sincil Bank. Albion’s record against the top six and the bottom six in the season just ended does not back up the theory that they are better against the top sides, not purely in points terms anyway.
In 12 games against the bottom six, they took 21 points. In 12 games against the top six, they took eight points.
It is when you leave aside the points gained – arguably, they should be getting more points against the bottom six after all – and look at individual games, that the argument looks different.
In defeats to bottom side Crewe Alexandra (2-0), Doncaster Rovers (2-0) and Morecambe (3-0), Burton were frighteningly off the pace. By contrast, they were excellent in the wins against Rotherham United and Sunderland and in contrasting situations, one at the start of the season when things had not settled down and one at the end when the opposition were seeking the points needed to close in on automatic promotion.
As I said before, I don’t believe a single player turned up to – say – Cambridge’s Abbey Stadium thinking “this one will be a walk in the park” and subsequently trying less hard to win.
But those flat performances happened too often.
We were left wondering how this could be the same group of players who had performed so well previously.
Hasselbaink must have been thoroughly frustrated by it and, at times, his after-match interviews were accompanied by some head-shaking as he tried to fathom why things had not gone well.
It was not that he “doesn’t know what he’s doing”, to borrow a popular phrase, when he admitted he was at a loss to explain.
I prefer to see it as honesty, an admission that we all struggle to understand the human condition sometimes.
We all have good days and bad days in our jobs or other areas of our lives – why should footballers be exempt?
It is also true that the problem was not confined to Burton.
Bolton, for one, looked a team of thoroughbreds some days and incompetent others, as did Portsmouth, Oxford United and Plymouth Argyle – all paid the price by falling short of the play-offs.
Football psychology just is not an exact science.
The fact remains that the teams who got promoted, who reached the play-offs, have those bad days less often than the rest.
How to crack that conundrum is every manager’s Holy Grail.
In defeats to bottom side Crewe, to Doncaster Rovers and to Morecambe, Burton were frighteningly off the pace