Big summer on the agenda for manager and City staff
THE end of a season is a chance to reflect on what you’ve done right and wrong and ask yourself tough questions to make sure you learn ready for the next campaign.
The first important checkpoint for a manager and his coaches is to see and highlight a problem. The second important thing is to find a solution. It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall with Michael O’neill for the first part when I’m sure he talks candidly to those who he trusts. We will see the second with our own eyes because the proof will be in results.
We have to make sure we have got to the bottom of why we have had such a fall in form at the turn of the year in the last two seasons. It is essential for all clubs to have a long-term project and develop players and a challenge to stay within certain financial constraints but you can never get away from the fact that you always need results in the short-term.
We have to make sure that the squad is packed with players who we believe will take us up to the Premier League and keep us there. I want us to set a bar in recruitment and sign Premier League potential, not Championship potential. That is positive thinking and telling about how ambitious we are about getting back up. It is going to take a lot of hard work and demands commitment and drive.
If there comes a time when we have to sell one of our best players - and that might happen while we are in the Championship - then we have to be certain that the money we recoup is used well. We have missed Nathan Collins at centre-half this season but that doesn’t mean it was necessarily the wrong decision to accept Burnley’s offer, much as I would have liked him to stay.
There won’t be much money
being splashed about in the Championship and you have to get your investments right.
We also need to learn how to bounce back quicker after set-backs or find a way to grind
ourselves out of a rut. Every point is vital and they soon add up. Just look at the table and that rush of teams from Middlesbrough, in seventh with 70 points, to Blackpool, in 16th with 60. Ten points is barely anything over the course of a long season and it shows how it can be a mad scramble.
Never give up. The season is rarely over in this division.
Nottingham Forest had a stinking start but were still in the shake-up for automatic promotion until mid-week. Blackburn, Middlesbrough, Luton, Sheffield United and Bournemouth have all been in a funk at one stage or another and some have lasted longer than others – but they have found a way to win more games than they’ve lost.
I don’t think we need a dramatic overhaul this summer but it is vital that we bring in the right players who can make a difference. That might be just three or four.
You don’t need to reinvent the wheel to be successful. You need wingers with pace to get behind, you have to creativity in midfield and be prepared to work as a defensive unit from front to middle to back. You have to have a number one goalkeeper who you trust and a solid backbone through your team.
Middlesbrough was a disappointing result and performance but a spine of Bursik, Jagielka, Allen, Sawyers and Brown is one you can build on. Harry Souttar is still to come into that and Nick Powell is coming back from injury needing to prove his endurance.
I will keep banging on about the need for a defensive midfielder who can make that area solid. That’s the main base of your team, where you can control a game.
Even if you continue with three centre-backs you can play with a 3-4-3 on occasion, particularly at home, to give you that width in wide areas higher up the pitch and make sure that your wing-backs are not outnumbered two-to-one down the side. You can mix it up deciding if it is the right game to play with four across midfield or two up front.
But consistency on the pitch comes from consistency on the training ground from Monday to Friday, consistency in selection and consistency in systems and tactics. You don’t see Jurgen Klopp chopping and changing his formation too often, even if sometimes you need to adapt during a game.
In an ideal world you want to get into a position where you have players who are ready to come in and do the same role as the player they’re replacing, staking their claim to be number one when they get the chance. This will be O’neill’s sixth transfer window to get nearer to that target and it’s another important one.