From time to time it’s good to focus on managers who are normally under the radar. The FA cup gives us just that opportunity and here are three performances from Managers outside the top flight that highlight talented approaches to inspiration and management quality to keep a look out for in the future.
Dougie Freedman : Bolton Manager
For a Bolton side 16th in the Championship this was a memorable and confidence boosting victory against Premiership Sunderland. Manager Dougie Freedman takes full advantage of the opportunity to lift his sides belief and mental strength for the rest of the Championship campaign. With impress Formula style Language he picks up on a number of qualities and strengths his players showed to win the match.
From a 2-0 lead I’m disappointed but overall I’m thrilled with the result because I thought we showed great commitment and desire at the end to defend for our lives … for the first 60 minutes I thought we controlled the game and we played a style of football I like to play … it was a great tie to watch and in the end we had to dig in and defend …
Saying he’s disappointed not to win is a useful line because it suggests his team deserved the victory. He deals well with the adversity of being outplayed for the last 40 minutes by stressing their determination in defence.
Ian Miller : Huddersfield
Ian Miller does even more to take advantage of the boost in confidence a good win can do for his teams league performance. These teams are only two places apart, (15th & 17th respectively), in the championship so this was no giant killing. It is though a sign of a promising manager who is keen to build confidence, belief and mental strength in his side.
He focuses on the team and also on his goal scorers. Non of the side will feel overlooked and he has taken care to build up two players as having permanent, general and internal goal scoring quality. For a team who may not have the funds to bring in expensive talent this is a clever tactic and done with some skill as he implies that they are as good as the big money signings at other clubs.
Today we played as a team. There were some good individual performances but it was about the team performance … Jermaine Beckford can score goals. He’s a natural goalscorer. I knew him from his time at Leeds and when he’s smiling and happy, he’s a threat … lately, he’s just not had enough games due to injuries. But if you can get him and James Vaughan on the pitch they are a potent threat. The best in the Championship? I don’t know … there’s lots of teams spending mega money but they will certainly do for Huddersfield. They will both score goals …
Paul Buckle : Luton Town
The best of this trio is Paul Buckle and how he frames the win his Conference Premier team earned against Championship Wolves. His interview is full of impress Formula language. He talks about the quality of their play in permanent, general and internal terms. The one setback, (Wolves having the first chance), he uses to focus on how well they recovered and went on to pose their own threat.
Proud of the players … deserved it today …well organised, good work ethic, hard to break down and we took our chance. They had the first chance … we recovered well … in the end you have to give credit to our players … we went right up to the very end and in the end probably could’ve scored a couple more … This is a great day, I want the players to enjoy this, it’s not every day you can beat a team like Wolves especially with the distance between the two clubs, (Conference Premier to Championship).
A good read! I’m always interested in how coaches often pick up on things the team has done well after wins that I’m sure they tell the players to do (“good shape, hard to break down, play the football I like” etc) almost as if to show the players “if you do as I say, we win.” Whereas when they lose its more the players didn’t do this or that, probably which they were asked to by the coach/manager. Really makes you think about the psychology behind the words