My teenage daughter recently asked me “when you don’t pick someone do you tell them what they need to work on?”. It was a bit out of the blue coming from her and made me think about her expectations of me in this role. It was also a reminder that these players are all somebody’s child and as a parent you tend to want what is best for them.
I’ve always tried to have the difficult conversations with players because I think hiding or ignoring them doesn’t help anyone. My group are here to develop and improve so what good is there in not explaining decisions? It’s tough though and can often leave a manager feeling uncomfortable. Sometimes, the weight of one conversation distracts you from another and its easy to forget someone’s needs whilst juggling the others. A very likeable player recently hit some bad form. It would have been easy to allow him to free-fall and end up out of the squad but I didn’t want that to happen. I approached him with empathy and explained how I saw it, allowing for him to reply with his version of events. We then needed to work up a plan of action so he wasn’t left at a low point. I wanted to prevent him bottoming out. His next training session was good and he scored in his next appearance. We seemed to have turned a corner in performance and hopefully built further respect towards each other.
The maths alone prevents all of the lads getting in the squad each week so it’s often our principles that guide the decisions to leave someone out. If we look at form, attitude, training commitment, etc we can build a case for including a player but what use is that case if we don’t share it? How can others learn from it if we never talk them through it? I want a culture whereby players learn from the good work of others so feel it is imperative to put a spot light on positive traits. It should appear that I’m telling the group “this example is how I want you to behave”. I believe consistency is key to it and effective communication promotes it.
I’ve recently found myself talking to one lad about the longer-term plan. Giving him lots of opportunity now will increase his exposure but at the same time it builds him up to a level that isn’t sustainable just yet. Other developing players simply have more experience to offer and are closer to the first team currently. They therefore get priority and his opportunity is limited to when they are unavailable. I need him to understand this so he doesn’t apply too much pressure on himself and therefore not enjoy the experience. As cliché as it sounds, we are all on a journey and the fastest route isn’t always the most pleasant.
A while back, I had the displeasure of a parent questioning me because I hadn’t contacted her son to find out why he was declaring himself unavailable on our team app. In the moment, I found her rude and wanted to spell out an important lesson for playing adult football: behave like an adult! Reflecting on it now, she just wanted her son to have some special treatment and perhaps I could have found more time to establish our working practices. However, he continued to put ‘unavailable’ and then disappeared. It’s a shame but clearly I didn’t live up to the expectations that his mother had for me.
We regularly get in excess of 22 players at training. It’s wonderful to see the hunger and desire that these boys show. We always try to ensure training is as meaningful as possible by setting up games and scenarios whereby the whole group know exactly what we expect from each other on match day. We give them the script and then allow them time to show us that they understand it but when it comes to squad selection it’s based upon our feelings of trust. Can we trust Player A to do the job we’ve asked of him more than Player B? Trust is built in many ways and relates back to the character of the man as much as the technical ability. It’s subjective and for some players their learning with us will be limited by the number of opportunities we are able to afford them. It’s cruel for some and I’ll pledge to make some time to talk to them. For others, they’re now finding a safe space just outside of the first team squad where they know what is expected and are encouraged to develop enough quality in order to be trusted at Step 4.
For me, I’m going to explore further how my daughter (and others) expect me to behave when managing and coaching. I may have to shape their expectations but I’ll definitely have to understand them.
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