Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Players are soaking up Manning’s plan – Sykes
MARK Sykes does not give too much away, but there is enough from our chat to suggest that elements of Bristol City’s play at Queens Park Rangers today will be a departure from what has been seen for much of this season.
Liam Manning has taken over as head coach from Nigel Pearson and one of the smaller details that stood out from his introductory press conference on Tuesday was that, when asked what he can do with his new players in three days, his response was, “a large amount, to be fair”, as opposed to the assumption that it would be minimal.
City have been peppering their social channels with clips of boss Manning and assistant Chris Hogg at the High Performance Centre, while the latest Robins Uncut reveals a head coach very much at the head of things and doing the second aspect of his job title, up close and personal.
Sykes admits that after two days of training and a brief team meeting to welcome Manning, it is not a substantial enough period to form a full opinion of someone or their methods, while also not wanting to give QPR too much of a peak behind the curtain, but there already have been some subtle shifts in approach.
It is an obvious one, but whereas City, for much of Pearson’s time at the club, have ostensibly been a counter-attacking/transitional team, Manning wants to dominate the ball. Something the Robins, on occasion, have struggled to do while remaining an effective offensive outfit.
“It’s only been two days with him but we’re just trying to soak up all his information. We aren’t going to get it spot on after a few days but the steps are in there and we’re learning each day,” Sykes said.
“It’s just about the gaffer being out there on the pitch, trying to get us information across, which probably won’t be a lot – we’re used to playing a different way – but a little amount at a time before Saturday. Hopefully, we can get as much as we can from him. It’s been a small amount of time to judge someone, it’s only been a couple of days, but I’m sure they’re working hard to get the information across to us, in an easy way as well; we don’t want to be bombarded with all these strange ideas that we’re not used to. It’ll be drip fed into us and hopefully we can do well at the weekend with their way of playing.
“He’s definitely heavy possessionbased but also it won’t be just about having the ball at the back and getting your stats up, there’s always an end goal.
“Every team, we want to be attacking and scoring a goal, so that will be our main aim, while also being compact out of possession, hard to beat and they are the fundamentals of football, it’s as easy as it sounds but it’s about practising on the pitch, giving everyone an understanding.”
Sykes’ time with Manning and Hogg on the training pitches will be paused for a week, as after the weekend trip to Loftus Road, he will be departing along with Jason Knight to join the Republic of Ireland squad for their European Championship qualifier in the Netherlands and friendly against New Zealand.
Having not been included in Stephen Kenny’s group at the start of the campaign, where he was battling illness and a hamstring injury, in a stop-start first month, his consistency for City – where he has performed at right wing, right-back, left-back and even, briefly, centre-back – has seen him force his way back into the international equation. While undeniably proud, it is also a bit of a wrench that as Manning is afforded a full week of training without the shackles of a game to prepare for, Sykes will not be present and will have to play catchup by watching recordings of training sessions on his return.
“It’s a massive honour to be called up by your country, so I’m hugely honoured by that and privileged,” Sykes added. “But also, I’m sure, it’ll have been lovely to be in for the week or so we have off (from the Championship) at club level and try and learn from the manager because I feel like after Saturday, the next week’s going to be massive in terms of what he can get across to us.
“But I’m sure I’ll catch up – there’s lots of video footage I won’t miss out on – when I come back in, and I can just pick up where I left off.”