PLANNING IS THE SECRET TO SURVIVAL
SOMEONE joked with me the other day that I’m the lower league’s Sam Allardyce! He’s been specially hired by Everton to keep them in the Premier League – no doubt he would have had a plan before he even walked through the door. I have my very own National League Survival Guide. The chances are any manager going into a club at this stage of the season means inheriting a crisis situation. At the moment that is my niche. A relegation battle is something that can eat you up, or be the best learning experience of your life. I went through two as Torquay United manager, both in extreme but very different circumstances. We successfully beat the drop on both occasions. Believe me, with everything going on, they really were successes. Day one is all about listening. Find out what everybody in the club thinks. From the chairman, to the coaches, to the tea lady. I’ve been watching as many games as possible so I’m aware of strengths and weaknesses of teams, but you want to include everyone in the process to start moving forward. As a group you all agree on the plan. It’s a shared vision.
Relationships
Then you literally take it one day at a time. At Torquay we had a phrase: Next practice. You think no further than that as you go about trying to get a result on Saturday. Every player has a performance ceiling and a floor. During these bad times, most will be playing right at the bottom of their potential. It’s up to you to recognise what you’ve got and assess if their attitudes up to the standard you expect. If they are, they can be worked with. You can then identify your squad’s strengths and fit a simple game plan around what is going to be easy for the team to execute when they’re under what they perceive as a huge amount of pressure. It still amazes me how new managers go into teams and threaten players with losing their jobs. As if, ‘Right, if you don’t do it, I will get someone else who can’, is going to suddenly improve performance and results. It’s an old-school mentality that maybe worked years ago – but even then it didn’t last long. If players don’t trust what you’re trying to do then ruling by fear is a very short-lived policy. If you’ve been screaming and shouting every day, are they going to put everything on the line for you, their team and the club? Probably not. If you’ve led by example and shown you’re trying to benefit them, they will. I’ve said before, if we’d been relegated after my first season at Torquay, I’d have been happy to go down with that group. Now that might sound strange, but I knew they’d given me every ounce of what they had. Of that team, Angus MacDonald, Nathan Blissett, Brendan Moore, Dan Butler have all gone on to bigger and better things. It’s too easy to come in, see a player isn’t performing as well as you believe he is capable and just write him off. But why not find out why? It might be that he’s having a tough time off the pitch with his missus, he might be struggling because he feels he should be doing better, he’s been badly treated so can’t see the point, and then some players just want it too much. You have to invest time in building relationships with them. Speak to them individually, speak to as many people as you can about them and get to know them. You can’t fake it. You can’t pretend you genuinely want to help them, the club or the fans. People will see through you in a heartbeat. I’ve been there as a player. The manager comes in, spouts off and as soon as he walks out, everyone turns around and says, ‘Yeah, alright mate’. The whispers start, the moaning begins and soon there are fractures. In a relegation fight when you need every single point you can get, having those issues because people don’t think you are what you say you are can be fatal. So building trust with your players is key. During my playing career I started working with a strength and conditioning coach called Simon Jeffrey. But he’s also qualified in psychology and has become a mentor to me – he’s basically a genius! We worked with him a lot at Torquay. In the summer he invited some players, former and current, down for a mini training camp. Ex-Newcastle United defender Mike Williamson came down because he was in between clubs before signing for Oxford United. One of my old players came down specifically to work with Simon so I sorted out him staying at the club’s facility. At the last minute the general manager decided he wouldn’t allow it.
Vision
Bank Holiday weekend meant it was too late to sort anything else out. So we turfed my little girl out of her room, she came in with me and my wife, and he slept in there for four nights. It was great fun. My kids loved having him around, my boy played football with him every day, and it served as a reminder the joys of working with players and how they become like family when you get it right. Another important part of any survival is ignoring the ‘noise’ – external and internal. It can work both ways. When things are going well, you can listen too much to how good you are. When things are tricky, it can only make the situation worse. You have to get the players to blank it all out. Fans can be screaming that you don’t have a clue, you might hear someone say you’re getting sacked next week because a new owner is coming in, or players are being tapped up and told they’re going to be alright next season so shouldn’t worry. It’s nothing to do with you as a manager, but you have to focus the group. Last season, the players were going home and hearing the club was in administration. Whatever job you’re in, it’s going to be difficult to function to your best. ‘What does it matter if I play well or not because we’re going to lose ten points anyway?’ You have to make them see they can’t affect it. They can only affect the shared vision you all agreed on. It goes back to having the right plan. Mine is ready to go.
To see my full National League Survival guide, check out The NLP’s website