Of Martin
We went from a magic sponge to heart monitors
work, show them clips of things they should be aware of, areas we think we can exploit, chances we think we can create, and then we’ll go out and train.
“Once we’ve finished training on a Friday the boys will then take away their own individual clips to watch back, on players they’ll play against, all the goals the team has scored, goals they’ve conceded, so they have all that information if they want to go away and watch it.
“As a player I enjoyed that, I enjoyed watching all that back. Some players will watch it all, some players won’t. Some will be happy to hear what they heard in the meeting and concentrate on their game.
“Some will want to do their own research, to see a little bit more about the person they’re going to play against.
“But they will have access to every player in the opposition’s squad, with two minutes of video clips of the player so they can be fresh in their own mind about what they’re going to do.
“On the Saturday I’ll generally be in here at about 12pm, a couple of hours before the players arrive, to make sure everything is done. Beuzy will then go through most of the set-pieces. On the Friday after training we’ll either do a bit of shaping in training or we’ll do our setpieces after training, just so it’s fresh in the mind.
“If we think they have a weakness we try to work on that on the Friday and from there we’ll put all of that up.
“Before the game all the players have all that information up on the wall, so that every movement we’re going to make on the Saturday, in terms of set-pieces, is all there.
“The game then comes and goes. After the game I’ll usually leave here at about 7 to 7.30pm after we’ve spoken about everything, debriefed everything.
“What you do then depends on whether you’ve won or lost – you go home and you’re happy, or you go straight to bed.
“Usually on a Sunday I’ll try to spend some time with my wife and kids because I don’t really get a chance to see them during the week.
“I’m coming in here for about eight in the morning and going home most nights at half-four or five. If it’s a Tuesday it can be 10pm or 11pm, so Sunday is usually family time for me if I can.
“It’s a full-on job and that’s why I struggled at the start with trying to play as well as doing this.
“It’s a lot of work, it takes up a lot of your time, and that’s not talking about the individual meetings I have in my office on a day-to-day basis.
“There’s a lot of ‘Can I speak to you for five minutes gaffer?’ and there’s always something that needs your time.
“If everybody wants five minutes of your time, and I think we have 60 employees, that’s 60 x 5 for me and five minutes for them. It’s never going to happen in the one day. There will be different people in at different times, with different things to do, and you’re kept busy, that’s for sure.
“It’s a constant job and everybody here works together well, so we try to prepare the players as best we can.
“I know some fans will see us not winning a game on a Saturday and think ‘they have been f ****** about’ but it’s not the case.
“We put in even more work in that case, every week it’s more and more, and at the end of the week that’s why it’s so difficult as a manager to take.
“As a player you turn up, do your training and if you don’t win you think ‘right, next week we’ll win’.
“As a manager you’re literally spending three, four, five hours a day putting everything into this one game to try to get a result, so if you don’t win it really hits you and you’ve got to try and do it all again the following week.
“I’ve worked under a lot of different managers and some wouldn’t speak to you from Monday to Friday if you lost a game, and if you won they wanted to be your best pal the following week.
“I’ve always consciously tried never to allow that to happen. Regardless of whether you win, lose or draw, I’ll still treat you the same way the following week.
“If I think there’s a lack of effort or a lack of something from you, I won’t ignore you all week, I’ll pull you in to the office on Monday morning and say ‘this is what you didn’t do’ or ‘this is what I expect of you’.
“But then we get on with our work for the rest of the week. I wouldn’t just ignore them for the week – I would make sure on Monday morning they knew why, exactly, I wasn’t happy on the Saturday but we would then move on.
“It is time-consuming but I love it. It sounds like I’m complaining about it but I enjoy working hard, I enjoy the work we do and I enjoy working with the people I work with – they’re all good members of staff.
“We’re lucky we have good people in every department, and it all feeds in to trying to keep us in the league.
“If we do that, that will be brilliant.” Guillaume Beuzelin admits modern technology’s input into modern football is‘crazy’but says it’s important to keep on top of it.
As a combative midfielder, Beuzelin’s career started in his native Le Havre in France before moving to Hibs, Coventry and then Hamilton.
While coaching at Dumbarton two-and-a-half years ago, Hamilton Accies came calling and he jumped at the chance.
Guillaume (38) said:“i was at a full-time club but was part-time and had three or four different jobs.
“But when I arrived here I was just first-team coach, because there was an assistant manager.
“It was a no-brainer to work full-time in the SPL, and I played here so I knew the people as well.
“I knew what a great club it is and the player development is terrific.
“I learn every day, I’ve learned so much since I have arrived here and I would like to keep getting better as a coach.
“We have sports scientists and things like that.
“When I arrived it wasn’t as developed as it is now, even in the physio department.
“Since I arrived two-and-a-half years ago the infrastructure has developed very well, so in that sense it’s getting better and better for us as a coaching staff.
“When I was playing we didn’t have GPS or sports science people, but we need to learn from that. As a coach I think it’s great to have this type of information.
“As a workload in training you need to make sure you don’t do too much, and we know exactly when the player does too much, or not enough, so we can adapt.
“The sports science guys are helping us very well in that case.
“We’ve gone from a magic sponge to heart monitors and it’s crazy, but that’s the way modern football is.
“You don’t want to be behind everybody else, because everybody does that. I know we’re a small club and I know it’s a lot of money on GPS and things like that, but the board are helping us and backing us on things like that, which is great for us.
“There is a lot of preparation and we’ve brought in an analyst on a full-time basis, Keith Glendinning, who does the video.
“Every single player has a personal video, so every time they touch the ball in a game the clip is on, and if you want to ask anything in particular, you ask Keith. That is a massive help as well, in preparing.
“In my time we had very few videos, now we know exactly how the opposition play, their strengths, their weaknesses, and it makes our job much easier.
“When confidence is low it’s important to raise the players, and we have a psychologist who comes in to help us as well.
“Everything is there to get results.”