The Manager: Inside the Minds of Football's Leaders (11 page)

As important as respect is boundary setting. When Hope Powell gets her team together for international duty, she thinks about it as a duty of care. ‘It’s more for their own
protection. So I do lay down the boundaries – this is what you can do, this is what you can’t do. But they are adults – I’m not their mother – so I want them to take
the responsibility, take the ownership. It’s quite a childish thought, but when you say you can’t do something, all of a sudden everybody wants to do it! But the players are really good
– they generally ask. We negotiate, but I make it very clear that my word is final.’ Finally, it’s about enforcement and sanction. Most of the time, this is understated. As Powell
puts it, ‘I have to just gently say, “Hang on a minute, what are you doing?” and just bring them back.’ Moyes also believes in keeping it low-key where at all possible:
‘I personally don’t believe in fining people if I can help it. I’ve had to do it, but I’m not a great believer in taking money away from people – it’s not
usually the best solution to indiscipline. I would rather just remove the players from the environment – I think in its own way that’s a bigger punishment. It can cause other
difficulties through the media with internet reporting, but by removing a player from the situation I’m sending him home to think about what he has done. He will have to explain to his family
why he is not training.’

Martin Jol confirms the need to maintain the boundaries once set: ‘You need to have certain arrangements before a match and before a season, and certain rules and regulations, and I always
say I won’t let anything slip. For example, you have to be on time. I won’t let them be late for a minute because I will say these are our standards. Another example: everyone wears the
same clothes and the same socks. One player, he was always coming on the pitch with black socks. I thought, “It’s not about you, it’s about the group.” So you have to tell
them, although they can be pretty sulky, but you have to be firm and that is what I have learnt.’

Even when confronting behaviours head-on, both Moyes and Powell favour an empowering approach. Not surprisingly, Wenger takes a similar tack. He is constantly inviting his players to take
ownership and look at their own standards – both off the field and on it: ‘To every quality player, I ask him how well he thinks he has done and I listen carefully to what he says. If
he has a fair assessment of his performance you can think that this guy has a chance in life. I also ask them to consider their level of ambition. This is very important to show how much you want
to be the best and what kind of price are you ready to pay for it. Of course, in football you do need special talent, but when a player passes the age of 20, what is in his mind is more important
than the rest and that’s what makes a career.’

Howard Wilkinson remembers clearly a moment of confrontation that worked well when, even in the heat of the moment, he got the player to look inside himself: ‘I got a player to think about
the lack of respect he was demonstrating for his colleagues by turning up late. It was a case of, “Right, you’ve turned up ten minutes late. There’s 30 of us on this training
ground. We are all paid this much per hour so you’ve cost us that much. We have work to do.”’

The important message here for any leader is that behaviours need addressing, one way or another. Strong leaders grasp nettles when necessary. Of course, there are times when this is not
immediately appropriate – other people are present, other matters are pressing, or the moment is just not right. (After all, 1-0 down with ten minutes to go is no time to address a
player’s behaviour.) But when a difficult behaviour is left unaddressed, it still needs dealing with – it’s just harder to do after the event.

Have the tough conversations

Tough conversations are part of the job – and successful leaders have them. In part, that is why they are successful. When things go unsaid, resentment builds. What was a
small misunderstanding becomes full-blown conflict. It is an act of strong leadership to address the root cause of the problem.

As a manager, Glenn Hoddle often had to hold tough conversations. He recalls one especially difficult instance as England manager: ‘The problem with being England manager is the players
are not yours – you are only leasing the car – so you’re not with them on a daily basis. Paul Gascoigne was one of our best players. I could see that he had too many injuries, and
he was such a good player so I wanted him fit for the 1998 World Cup. I gave him so many opportunities. I said, “Look – you’ve got to get fit, your diet has got to change
...” But I wasn’t hands-on. He kept coming back a bit injured, missed a few games ... We got all the way to the moment of choosing the World Cup squad, and Gazza was still not fit. I
had to play him in a pre-tournament game in Morocco. He was a genius as a player and I wanted him in the team and it was almost down to the very last game whether I was going to put him into the
squad or not because of his lack of fitness. It was the saddest decision, but the toughest decision I had to make because the whole nation wanted him, I wanted him. He got injured after 20 minutes,
he got caught on the ball because he had been too slow and in the end I turned to my assistant and said, “John, we can’t take him.” So I had to sit him down in the hotel
one-to-one and I spoke to him with the facts. “Listen, Paul, for a year I’ve been telling you if we get to the World Cup it could be magnificent for you, you’re at your peak
– but you haven’t listened and now I have to make this decision.” And it was a tough, tough decision.’

The key to tough conversations lies invariably in the preparation. David Moyes takes the decision rationally, then prepares emotionally: ‘I remember the tough conversation when I changed
the captain. Like any leader making big decisions, I looked for the best way to do it, tried to be fair and did what I believed was right. It was a long thought process – I don’t make
these decisions lightly. Then I worked out how to give him the message in a way that would keep him completely engaged and playing well.’ Glenn Hoddle uses quite detailed preparation.
‘I use role plays [getting someone else to play the character] and visualisation, which I find very powerful. But because I’m dealing with a human being, there is a reaction that I
can’t predict – so I have to be ready to go somewhere I didn’t expect.’

Howard Wilkinson’s direct style lends itself well to tough conversations. It also inspired his team at Leeds to be direct in their dealings with him, and with each other. In the League
Division One (then the English top flight) title run-in in spring 1992, Wilkinson’s Leeds side looked to have lost all chance of winning when they conceded four goals at Manchester City,
leaving Manchester United ahead on points and with games in hand. ‘I went in on the Monday and said, “Here’s my plan for the next five games. We can win four; we’ve got to
draw the other one, at Liverpool. On the penultimate game of the season we play Sheffield United in the morning, and Manchester United have to go to Liverpool in the afternoon. If we do what I say,
we may just put pressure on them to get a result from that game and I don’t think they will. So I’ll pick the same team every week, unless we get injuries, but against Liverpool
I’ll make one change.” The next morning Gordon Strachan, who was captain, came in and said to me, “I’ve come to save you the embarrassment and tell you to leave me out when
we play Liverpool. Don’t give me any bull**** about you want to keep me fresh for the home game. We need one point there as you say, and you’re right I’m not the best person to
get one.” Wilkinson had been direct with the team, and Strachan had been direct with him. The clarity was inspiring, and all was well in the Leeds camp. Strachan was on the bench for the
Liverpool match, they got the draw and Leeds won the title.

If for any reason it becomes impossible to have the tough conversation, matters can spiral rapidly out of hand. Martin Jol describes such a situation. ‘I always try to speak to my players
individually. Sometimes I don’t like a player because I know he doesn’t like me – but I still invite him into my office. With one player it went:

He basically stopped talking to people, and if you stop talking to people you can’t play any more.’

Direct clear feedback given in the moment is a light form of tough conversation. It prevents something festering and growing into a bigger problem. Wilkinson appreciated the way his great
goalscorer, Lee Chapman, went about his business: ‘I used to use statistics in my feedback. Lee Chapman is an intelligent man, and he knew how many crosses we needed for him to get a goal. So
he was red hot. He’d come in at half-time and he’d be saying to a teammate, “You should have crossed it. If you’d have got it in, I could have scored. I need more of
those.” This created trust in the dressing room. The player comes back with, “No, actually I couldn’t” – and he explains why, or he says, “Yes, you are right
– sorry.” Fine ... end of argument. The two agree. You need that level of honesty in order to be able to conflict and resolve. Because then he’s dealing with the problem –
otherwise it’s left to fester. For me, that’s Lee Chapman taking hold of his own career a little bit and saying, “I’ve got ownership. I know what I need to do, but I also
know what others need to do.” And then they by their token can say, “I know what I need to do but I know what you need to do, Chappy.” This sort of live feedback is gold dust to a
team.’

When the manager gives feedback, though, the key is to remember why you’re giving it. Dario Gradi is committed to the growth of players and uses his feedback for this purpose: ‘When
managers talk to players, they should make sure it’s the players that feel better for the conversation and not the manager. The manager has got something off his chest and he’s pleased,
but if the bloke feels attacked then he is worse off. When you shout a name and the player responds, he’s effectively saying “I want the knowledge – what are you going to tell
me?” It might be that he’s playing too far up the pitch or needs to play a bit quicker. You don’t say “What the bloody hell are you doing that for? You’ve just given
that away!” He knows he’s given the ball away, and shouting at him is not going to help him at all.

‘That’s the key thing: can you say something of benefit to the player? That’s very difficult to do. It’s a very passionate game, and when managers are leaping about on
the sidelines, I don’t think it helps their players. Commentators say, “Oh, he’s showing great passion, players must be impressed by that.” Actually, a lot of players
pretend they haven’t heard the manager when he’s shouting from the sidelines! They’ve done that to me. They don’t want to hear me, and I’ve spoken to them about it
afterwards, but I’ve got past that. I think most of them now appreciate that I’m trying to help them, which perhaps I wasn’t in the past. We all still get it wrong sometimes, but
at least if we’re conscious of the fact that it’s not the best way of behaving, we might be able to do something about it.’

Build a strong dressing room

Feedback helps to build a strong dressing room. This is a place where players feel at home, can speak honestly, are unafraid, don’t get beaten up.

Wenger is committed to a strong dressing room – through a strong captain: ‘The captain is basically the messenger of the manager. I always think that when a relationship between a
captain and a manager is strong, it makes the team stronger and it makes the manager stronger. When that relationship splits, the club is in trouble because there is nothing worse for the team than
to get two different messages from two different leaders. That’s why I believe that for a manager it is important to spend time with the captain. We speak about what he thinks the team needs,
and about any special difficulties inside the dressing room. He mustn’t tell you everything, and usually they don’t – there are normally some things they don’t want to tell
you that belong specifically to the dressing room and I respect that. However, there needs to be trust and that trust is built by going through a season together. That relationship is the
difference between losing six games on the trot and only losing two or three – with that solidarity, they get together to turn it around.’

David Moyes admits his gratitude to former Everton captain Phil Neville for strong leadership: ‘I found him an incredible leader behind the scenes with the players. He’s somebody who
I could speak with. I could ask how he thought things were; I could ask him personally what did he think about what we’d done. But more importantly he is the one who would keep the players in
line; he’s the one who would lead from the front of the training. He trains every day, does his best every day. So there is an example being set by this player for all the young players to
look to and say: “This is the standard and the level I have to train at and the level of professionalism if I want to play internationally. And if I want longevity as well, I have to look
after my body, make sure my training is correct, listen, and learn.”’

Martin Jol builds a strong dressing room by creating a team spine: ‘It can be the goalkeeper – it doesn’t have to be but it could be – it’s always at the centre at
the back, it’s in midfield and it’s up front. So it’s a spine, and in my spine I always try to have strong, experienced players. In the perfect world I would get my spine of
players in for a conversation every three or four weeks. (Last year it happened only twice!) Then, of course, the captain is important. You can’t always choose your own captain, of course. In
Germany I could, but at Tottenham, Ledley King was already the club captain. He’s a very good guy, so I absolutely didn’t want to change it – but I can imagine that if [the
existing captain] is a strong fan of the former manager, you could end up with a problem in creating a new, different football culture.’