adminLONDON. — In the final extracts from a new book revealing the secrets of soccer management, David Moyes, Arsène Wenger and Brendan Rodgers explain how to punish bad behaviour, cope in a crisis and why dropping players is the hardest task of all.
DAVID MOYES On maintaining discipline
The new Manchester United manager — who has grappled with the problem of Wayne Rooney wanting to quit the club ever since taking charge — offers an insight into how he confronts ill-discipline.
“Discipline has to come from within. If that were not so, I wouldn’t have it myself. I treat people with respect and I expect the same respect back.
“If someone lets me down at any time, then it makes the relationship harder to work with.
“It’s much more likely to be someone turning up late for training, maybe somebody saying something through the media which they shouldn’t have done, maybe a tweet, maybe while they are away on international duty which causes you problems.
“The overall discipline of the players is much improved against previous generations. The style of leadership is different to years gone by. Maybe leaders needed to be stricter then. In the world we are in now, players can’t really step over the mark because there will be so much to lose — their work is worth too much to them.
“With camera phones and instant media, players have to be much more self-disciplined. 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.”
On self-improvement
Moyes’s hunger for managerial knowledge is still voracious — even going as far as staying in a Ukrainian youth hostel during Euro 2012 when he was too late to book a hotel.
“You can read books and you can learn and you can pick up things, but I had a real passion.
“I wanted to get out on the road and I wanted to find new things.
“I qualified as a coach very young, but my reason for becoming a coach was really to become a better player. Then the more I went on the coaching courses, the more I started to think I really enjoy being around people who talk about football. I couldn’t wait to be standing at the side listening in — talking to the Scottish coaches about football.
“There was a period of time (around the 1998 World Cup) when I wasn’t a wealthy footballer by certain standards.
“To be fair, I had support from the English Professional Footballers’ Association, who helped pay for my tickets to the games because they understood that I was trying to be involved with some coaching in the national side and they helped with funding. But I just didn’t have that level of cash to be in a different hotel each night. So I hired a car and I drove myself, two or three times sleeping in the car. That year I had gone to a lot of the countries to ask if I could go and watch training, but found that it’s not easy to get into the international training camps — they can be a bit guarded and security conscious.
“Strangely enough the only people who said I could come and watch were Craig Brown and his team at the Scotland camp. No disrespect but, in truth, the last people I wanted to see were Scotland — I knew these guys pretty well already! But I ended up going and watching Scotland training and preparing for the World Cup and it was very valuable.
“Just because you get your job, you can’t put your feet under the table and say: ‘I’ve made it now and this is it.’
“Self-learning and self-development is essential for me.
“I watch a lot of football just because I know there are a lot of things I can pick up. If I was out of work I’d go to South America and have a look at what they are doing — at why so many players now in Europe and the Champions League are from Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina.
“I’d love to get out there for a couple of months and see if there’s anything that maybe I’m missing and that I could introduce to what we do.
“There are other things happening closer to home too. When I see how Spain have improved, and how Germany are bringing on all their younger players on a conveyor belt — there is so much I would like to do given more time. I don’t think I’ll ever find the complete answer to all of it, but to go and have a look is always a good beginning.”
ARSÈNE WENGER Crisis management
In August 2011, Wenger suffered the worst defeat of his managerial career, an 8-2 thrashing at Manchester United which prompted suggestions his tenure at Arsenal was in jeopardy.
He describes how he battled to save his season.
“We were titanically bad. When you go out of a game like that you know that you face a storm. The storm is in the media, the fans, the disappointment that you will have to stand up to.
“We have gone from a vertical society to a horizontal society where everybody has an opinion about every decision you make, everybody has an opinion on the internet straight away.” — The Telegraph.
Online Reporter