SMITH’S CRISIS MANAGEMENT
NO DAY OFF AND A CHANGE OF TACK AS BOSS LETS PLAYERS KNOW HIS THOUGHTS AHEAD OF HUGE GAME
DEAN Smith cancelled a squad day off to let his Leicester City players know exactly where they went wrong at Fulham and to try to move on quickly ahead of Monday’s huge home game against Liverpool.
Smith ordered the players into Seagrave on Tuesday morning, following the 5-3 thumping at Craven Cottage, having initially scheduled a rest day.
At the training ground, there was a thorough debrief and analysis of the goals City conceded, with Smith changing his approach.
Previously, his meetings have been collaborative, with players able to offer their thoughts on solutions. But this time, Smith did all of the talking.
“My job is to rationalise it,” he said. “We came in the following day so we could put that game to bed and talk through what happened.
“The players understood what my thoughts were and the other coaches’ thoughts were and we’ve moved on.
“I felt it was productive. It was due to be a day off. But I don’t like things lingering. I wanted to get it out of our system. We did, and sorted it. I thought it went well. The proof will be seen on Monday.
“I’ve always been brought up in this game that you can’t change what’s happened, what you can do is learn from it and correct it and move on quickly.
“There’s no point us worrying about the Fulham game for two or three more days. I wanted to get it put to bed.
“I knew very quickly when I watched the game back what the errors were for the goals and the chances we conceded so it was a case of making sure we got that out there very quickly and spoke to the players so then we could move on.
“I did the talking and told them what I expected in certain situations of the Fulham game, what we needed to do better and what we will do better going forward.”
City will put into practice Smith’s instructions on Monday, by which time they will know how their rivals have fared.
Leeds take on Newcastle in the Saturday lunchtime kickoff before Nottingham Forest head to Chelsea at 3pm, with Everton hosting title favourites Man City on Sunday.
Smith imagines his players will be keeping tabs on the games.
He said: “I would always encourage them (to avoid the games) but you’re not going to keep them away from it, they’re obviously going to watch football games and I’d encourage them to watch the Newcastle game because they’re our next opponents.”