TARKOWSKI TAKES HIS TEAM-MATES TO TASK
STUHNEDPAYEOPPEOLPEL✱E has revealed it’s not always tough-talking Turf Moor boss Sean Dyche who has been in the thick of it.
Improve
“From my experience most managers like to leave the players for the first five minutes at half-time to discuss it between themselves, while they speak to the coaching staff,” said the defender.
“With England against Switzerland there was plenty said at half-time between the players about what we needed to improve on before the manager got involved. It’s the same at Burnley too – if someone is picking someone out for not doing enough then that’s the way it is.
“It’s your job at the end of the day and if someone isn’t doing theirs right they need to be told.
“We haven’t started the last few games very well, conceding a couple of early goals against Fulham and against Watford. It’s never great to start a game that way. So stuff has been said at half-time, but we TWO years spent as a carpet cleaner hardly prepared Matt Doherty for life as a Premier League footballer. But it sure as heck helped him deal with a staggering FIFTEEN rejections – and inspired him to make it at Wolves. This lunchtime, the Ireland international will make his fifth Premier League appearance of the season, having never lost sight of the days when he worked for his dad for £200 a week. He said: “I had 14 or 15 trials when I was younger. I didn’t play that well when I was over here. I’d readily admit that now. “I’d left school to go on so many trials that education wasn’t any point any more. I was away for one week at a time having the trials – so I just left. “It was a risk I took at the time. It looked like it had backfired for a few years.
Chance
“I worked for my dad, doing whatever he said. He has his own carpet upholstery cleaning company. It made me grow up and realise that was what I DIDN’T want to do. “We’d have little chats in his van all the time. “He’d say, ‘Maybe if you play in the League of Ireland and get across to England when you are 21, it might work.’ “Then a pre-season friendly game when I played for Bohemians against Wolves changed everything. “Having said that, I didn’t set the world alight. I was all right but I only played 55 minutes. “So when the chance came around to come to England, people asked, ‘Are you homesick?’ I wasn’t.
“I was 18 and having spent two years with my dad, Tom, that helped me grow up and mature and I was ready to come over when I did.”
Doherty, now 26, is the longest-serving first-team squad member now on the books ay Molineux, having spent seven years at the club.
It has been that long between his appearances in the Premier League, having played during the end of Mick Mccarthy’s spell in charge.
He dropped down to League One and has bounced back up with a club that has lofty ambitions.
Doherty said: “The club has changed completely. The board has changed, the training ground has changed and the philosophy has changed.
“We are all aware that the new owners mean business.
“They are looking for Wolves to go as high as the club can as quickly as we can.
“It’s up to us, the players here at the moment, to produce for them because all of the stuff they are doing, the people they are bringing in and the training ground – they are backing us.
“I’ve seen the really tough times.
“When we dropped into League One a few years ago when we lost to Burnley when both clubs were in the are quite a respectful group. We are never going to insult someone personally. Things are going to be said but in the right manner because we just want the best for each other and the team.
“If things aren’t going well, we don’t all turn on each other and say, ‘He is crap, he is rubbish, he needs to do more.’
“We respect each other but when somebody needs a word, people will have it. We manage that between ourselves, the manager doesn’t need to give us too many rollockings.
“Obviously I have spent a lot of time at Burnley so it’s easier for me to voice my opinion. I’m still quite new to that with England but here I give my input and I like to be more vocal if I can.”
Despite his gruff, scary exterior, when Dyche does let rip it’s always in a constructive way, claimed Tarkowski. “If it’s coming we know we are going to Championship, the atmosphere was toxic, the fans were close to tearing the place apart when we lost.
“The fans and players didn’t get on at the time. But winning League One helped the rapport and since last season it’s been great.
“As a player, you can’t do anything but go with the flow of it and raise your standards.
“I’m delighted with the players who have come in because it makes us stronger. But I’m not sitting back thinking, ‘Hell, what am I doing in this company?’
Survived
“I think I’m capable of being around the type of players that are here now and I’ve survived a lot of managers, so I must have been doing something right.”
And so to Nuno Espirito Santo, the Portuguese coach with Champions League experience guiding the club upwards.
Doherty says: “He’s definitely the best coach I’ve worked with – 100 per cent. He’s out on the training pitch every day. Some managers are on the sidelines, letting the coaches take over.
“But he takes every session. That helps the boys.
“I remember I used to train when I wasn’t playing and if the manager doesn’t come out, it’s hard to get into it.
“His man-management skills are excellent. He’s just a top, top manager.”