Sports Psychology Blog
Have the FA have made a good choice?
I think the FA has made a good choice which could work out well: Sam Allardyce has his own brand of charisma and is good at making the best of what he's got in terms of players.
What he needs to work on are:
- Knowing that there's no harm in him or the players being under stress. (The research is that stress only harms you if you think it's harmful - otherwise we can thrive on it.)
- Getting the players to have a good time OFF the pitch in extended competitions. Morale is hugely important, and is not achieved simply by having alcohol free early nights or by giving access to WAGs (but is helped by not selecting morale-depleters in the squad even if they're skilful players).
Interesting times ahead for England.
Posted by William Davies on 21st July 2016
Why Leicester and not Arsenal?
There have been a number of “How did Leicester do it” articles already, so this is a “higher order” look at some of the explanations that have been put forward. I want to compare Leicester with some other teams, notably Arsenal, whose manager has come under most criticism for disappointing his demanding fans.
Explanation 1: “Claudio Ranieri is a nice guy.”
He is a nice guy but lots of football managers are nice guys so this isn’t an explanation. And I guess he’s probably been a nice guy all his life and this is the first time he’s won a domestic league, so it’s nice that he’s nice but we can’t have it as an explanation for Leicester’s success.
Explanation 2: “Leicester’s got a brilliant talent scout.”
They probably have – or did have. But man for man, Leicester players are no better than those of Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United, et cetera. So the idea that Leicester have recruited all the best players doesn’t really wash, especially as many of them have been elsewhere and not been stars.
Explanation 3: “It’s their amazing team spirit.”
We’ve got a chicken and egg problem here because, when a team is having a lot of success, what you think? Yes, they tend to think very well of each other, their team spirit is great. So maybe the success causes the great team spirit rather than vice versa. Having said that, support and encouragement do work a lot better in football than criticism and pressure. The test will come when Leicester have a seriously bad patch; hopefully the team spirit will persist through that and get them out the other side. We’ll see.
Explanation 4: “Richard III got buried in Leicester.”
This has been said, tongue in cheek, by people who are more interested in Richard III than in soccer. But there is a grain of truth in it: it has to go down as a ‘marginal gain’. Just like the success of Leicester Tigers and of Leicester snooker players, it shows that Leicester is a significant place and maybe – just maybe – it’s not beyond the bounds of possibility that their football team could win the Premiership. It’s marginal, but the Premiership is won and lost on a series of marginal differences.
Explanation 5: “The owners are very supportive.”
This comes directly from Ranieri, and it is important. Southampton are the best illustration; it doesn’t matter how many of their players go elsewhere, or even how many of their managers go elsewhere, Southampton remains in contention. You might be able to think of owners and boards who don’t have the same effect, but let’s not go there.
Explanation 6: “It’s down to the great supporters.”
This is an important factor. Not only were the fans in the King Power stadium ready and willing to support but, once there was a bit of success coming through, Leicester people everywhere were rooting for the team, whether they knew anything about soccer or not. And then, Leicester quickly became everybody’s second favourite team, people the world over wanted Leicester to do well. Does this affect the players? Of course it does. Compare it with the situation at the Emirates where there is a minority of fans with banners prepared, always ready to criticise. There was a great backfire recently when Arsenal played West Bromwich Albion and critical fans boycotted the match. The result was that the Arsenal team knew that everybody in the stadium was properly on their side so they promptly went on beat West Brom, a feat which was beyond Spurs the following week.
Explanation 7: “Claudio had a plan.”
Actually he had two plans. Plan A was to score more goals than the other team. Plan B was to stop the other team scoring and try to sneak a goal. But these are not new plans. What they were, however, was clear and simple. Of course I am oversimplifying it and what I’ve described here are not plans they are aims. And you need a plan to achieve those aims. We can’t know what Claudio’s plans for achieving those aims were, but I bet they were simple. It always worries me when I see a football manager taking notes during a game. Football matches are so frenetic that anything that requires writing down is too complicated to work. But then again, lots of managers have simple aims and simple plans, so I’m not convinced that this is where the real action was.
Explanation 8: “Leicester players are very fit, very hard-working, and very robust.”
This is an obviously important factor, and the most important one is the robustness. Every player in the Premiership is very fit and works hard, but some are more robust than others. I wonder what the outcome of the league would have been if neither Sanchez nor Cazorla, nor Willshire had been injured in the Arsenal team. But the point is that they were. There is a learning point here: every manager knows you cannot have a bad personality in the team because it affects the whole team, but not every manager knows that you cannot have injury-prone players. But you can’t.
Explanation 9: Playfulness.
No, I’ve not really seen this as an explanation, but I’m sure it is part of it. Playfulness sounds like a word I’ve invented for it but it is a concept that is researched and written about; less in sports psychology than in other areas of psychology. I’m sure it has been relevant for Leicester, and if you look at the players there are one or two who literally laugh with delight during the game, not just when things are going well but when they are under pressure too. Claudio plays his part in this: he’ll have a good incentive scheme worked out but when he wants an extra incentive it isn’t extra money, it’s pizza. Arsene Wenger is indisputably a great manager but I’m not convinced that playfulness is his strong suit. It doesn’t matter though, not everything has to be done by the manager, and Santi Cazorla has a good line in playfulness on the pitch. Arsenal will have missed that.
Explanation 10: Make the team suit the individuals.
Some managers have a blueprint for success and try and fit the available players into that blueprint. Other managers look at their players’ strengths and find a plan to use those strengths to best effect. I favour the latter strategy and it looks to me that Claudio does too. Come to that I believe Arsene Wenger has got the balance pretty much right as well.
Explanation 11: Claudio gets his players ‘up for it’, whereas Arsenal?
Getting players ‘up for it’ is certainly important, but it’s not all down to the manager. It’s a lot easier to be “up for it” when everybody is delighted with any success you get than when you know a portion of the spectators are just waiting for you to put a foot wrong.
Explanation 12: But hold on – didn’t Arsenal beat Leicester home and away? So why didn’t they win the league?
It’s a question of getting up for it again. With the greatest of respect to everyone, if you support or play for Stoke, or Bournemouth, or Swansea, or anywhere else, having Leicester arrive is not quite like having Arsenal come to town. Never mind, it will be next year - everyone will be keen to test themselves against the champions. Personally, I’m hoping that we’ll see Real Madrid at the King Power; one way or another, Leicester are as they say, ‘the real deal’.
Posted by William Davies on 5th May 2016
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Dr William Davies and Dr John Gardner became the first professional psychologists in English top flight football when Sir Bobby Robson employed them as consultants in 1981 at Ipswich Town. Since that time William Davies has built up the UK’s most successful enterprise providing psychological training to the NHS and related organisations.
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