Football is about feeling

I enjoy everything about being a manager.

It doesn’t feel like a job to me, because it is what I love to do every single day. It is my passion and obsession, in a healthy way. I am a football obsessive.

It is not about focusing on how good we are, it is about always asking: “Are we getting better?” That has to be at the forefront of every single conversation that I have. As manager, I am not there to pat everyone on the back every day and tell them how good they are. I am there to help us get better. 

The easiest way for me to do that is to bring people back to their personal journey. That applied when I was coaching 10-year-old kids, and it is the same managing international players in their 20s and 30s. I am talking about the need to consider where they are going, how we are helping them on that journey, and how they are helping the team. It is a big responsibility they have, but we are there to help them train and play at their best.

Before I became a first-team assistant and then head coach, my background had been working in development at Chelsea and Liverpool. When you are a youth coach, it is always about the individual and making training bespoke to them. I have taken that to first-team level.

When I was Liverpool Under-23s coach, we had Trent Alexander-Arnold coming through at 17 years old. In the same group, we would have players coming down from the first team like Mario Balotelli, Mamadou Sakho and José Enrique. The question was how to manage a group of maybe 25 players like that, with different personal journeys? I could end up trying to spin lots of plates with only two hands, so I needed staff who can work with me.

“What we talk about is the concept of ‘you versus yourself’”

I spent a lot of time studying coaching set-ups in the NFL, and how they oversee groups of 50 players. Everyone has a role to play, and there is buy-in from the linebackers right through to the reserve quarterback. Squads are larger than ever in modern football; you have to manage a lot of roles, personalities and physical states. 

That is why I have what I call unit coaches. That means some of my coaches will look after the goalkeepers, some the defenders, others the midfielders or the forwards. I like to work with a specialist focus and it is a real team effort from the staff. Each unit coach is an assistant manager of equal importance, and there is no hierarchy.

Likewise with the heads of department for analysis and sport science. Splitting it this way allows for time and attention to be dedicated to the needs of positions, but it also means the expertise and strengths of coaches can be then tailored to individuals and specific roles.

And what we talk about, every day with the players, is the concept of ‘you versus yourself’. The first thing is identity. What is your identity as a player? Where are you going? What type of player are you? What are you giving this team? It’s about self-awareness.

The second thing is self-management. You have an identity, but how are we managing that? What are your daily rituals? What does your training look like? Those two things are very personal. I can provide a player with a bespoke training week, but they have to own it

Third is how does that fit inside our team? You have this identity and self-awareness, as well as self-management with all these daily rituals to enhance it. But what is your awareness of the team and your teammates? How does that fit inside what we are trying to do?

“I always talk about responsibility with the players”

Next there is relationship management – how do people perceive you and how do you perceive others? Would your teammates pick you? That is a great question for any player. The last thing is to take responsibility. So instead of juggling all of this, I use all my staff as coaching lieutenants.

The reality with giving a player clarity on their role inside the team is that 80 per cent of the work is done off the pitch. They aren’t always going to love me when I give them that clarity. They will either like it, or it will set them a challenge. But the important thing is that clarity gives peace of mind – and peace of mind gives players the ability to perform.

My  job as a coach is to ask each player when was the last time they were impressed with themselves. When was the last time they were the best version of themselves? I always talk about responsibility with the players; responsibility to their dream, their name, their family, whatever it is. How they invest in that is very personal.

The players I have been fortunate to work with have had huge responsibilities at big clubs. So I ask: “What are we doing about that every day? We can do our best for you as coaches, but it is your dream so you need to own it.”

It is very player-friendly, in that sense. And it is an interesting way of managing, because it is taking what I learned in elite development into the performance environment. 

I am proud to have helped develop some players who are household names, but there were a lot of people who worked with them on their journeys and they had a parent support network around them as well. So my biggest pride is probably in the achievements of the teams I have worked with. I went into QPR as a first-time head coach and without spending any money in the transfer window. Within 15 games we were top of the Championship, with a team that had struggled at the back end of the previous season.

“It is more than just turning up with a tactics board or throwing money at transfers”

I am also very proud of my season as assistant to Steven Gerrard at Rangers, when we went invincible in the Scottish Premiership. And winning 18 and drawing one of my first 20 games in charge when I went back to Ibrox as head coach.

I also take pride in what coaches who have worked alongside me have gone on to achieve, because of the relationships which develop with staff behind the scenes. Pep Lijnders is a really close friend who I helped recruit for Liverpool, and he has gone on to do so well – first with Jürgen Klopp at Liverpool, and now at Manchester City with Pep Guardiola.

More recently I had a young first-team coach at Rangers, Harry Watling, who was attending my soccer schools as a child. He was with me at QPR and is now assistant to Rob Edwards at Middlesbrough. Zeb Jacobs is another that I recruited for Rangers at 27; he is now Feyenoord academy manager. Cameron Campbell joined as an Under-18s coach and is now first-team coach at Tottenham. Working alongside top coaches is something I really enjoy.

Football is about feeling just as it is those relationships. For players it is their feeling about the way the team plays, about their journey, about how valued they feel within the team, and the relationships that form off the back of that. Regardless of tactics and the amount of money a club spends, feelings and relationships must be strong for a team to have success. That is why having staff who have come from a development background is important to me, and why having a development model inside a club is important. This is helped by having stability.

For my next job I am seeking some stability in an unstable industry. I know that the things I want to implement take a little bit of time – time that could be as simple as a pre-season period, or a period where I am getting to know the players. The point is that it is more than just turning up with a tactics board or throwing money at transfers.

More and more, we are seeing sporting directors hired to implement a model – and I welcome working with them. As a head coach I have worked with Les Ferdinand and Ross Wilson – two completely different people, but both sporting directors I had fantastic relationships with.

“I always have in my mind that I will also be managing an institution that has more than 100 years of history”

The moment at Rangers that I didn’t have that person there to talk about the wider club, it became difficult. Then you are talking less about football and more about boardroom matters. I need to be focused on the football; my responsibility is to get the best out of people on that side.

Tactically, I am hugely influenced by the 16 years I spent at Chelsea and Liverpool, and the standards of those clubs. It played a huge part in my development as a coach, and is where many of my beliefs come from. They are clubs who want to take the initiative and play with the ball in the opponents’ half. That is how I want to play football.

I want to be the team dominating possession, but I want to play in the opponents’ half. I want to play up by their goal and overload around their centre-halves. Playing with maximum width is also really important, whether that is to dribble 1v1 or go outside and cross. Subsequently, whether working as an assistant or manager, I have been able to influence that in the clubs I have gone on to work for. 

When I go into any club, one of the first things I need to be excited about is the squad I am  going to work with. Whenever I talk to a club, it is because I see something in that squad that I can work with. But I always have in my mind that I will also be managing an institution that has more than 100 years of history and culture. So it has to be a combination of my ideas, the club’s culture, and the players available. 

It is very important to be flexible, although defensively I set rules and try not to change the rules of how my team defends. I want all the players to adhere to it, because it is a way of getting the ball back. If I can give real clarity on that, it gives a calmness to the team. Again, clarity gives peace of mind, which enables the players to go and perform.

“I only see first base with the ball as being inside the opponents’ half”

In possession it is different, because playing with the ball is more about principles. I want to occupy certain spaces and have to get my best players on the ball as much as possible. There are some clear principles, like working with maximum width. The length of the pitch is probably 40 yards with the offside rule, but width is always there and that opens up spaces.

I like to have my centre-halves on the ball as little as possible, because I want the ball to get to my attacking players. So I like midfielders to come and take the ball, ultimately to play forward, where the key is to overload around the other team’s centre-backs.

Coaches – certainly young coaches – have at times been obsessed with playing out. I only see first base with the ball as being inside the opponents’ half. That was part of my learning coming through and coaching possession-dominant teams. The other team wants my centre-halves to be in possession, so how quickly can I get them off the ball and play to my attacking players?

There are other key insights from the modern game. For example, these days you don’t only need dribblers outside the pitch. You need them inside, closer to the goal. That is something I love, and a lot of the ideas I have come from working with young players in the development ages. There, I liked to develop young players who are good at dribbling, 1v1s and little combinations, and I have taken that to first-team level.

As Rangers manager I had two fantastic full-backs in Borna Barisic (above) and James Tavernier, who regularly got double figures for assists each season. That allowed us to use them as our width, freeing up players like Ryan Kent, Joe Aribo, Malik Tillman, Todd Cantwell and Ianis Hagi to operate closer to goal and overload the opposition centre-backs. 

Jermain Defoe spoke a little about the tactics I implemented when I worked with him at Rangers, getting two wide players closer to him to overload around the centre-backs. It gives a team the best of both worlds. We can go outside to cross if they block the middle, or we can go straight into those little pockets and get 3v2s and 4v3s around their centre-backs.

“Good clubs also produce good staff”

It was different when I went to QPR. The history and culture of that club is around mavericks – the likes of Rodney Marsh, Stan Bowles and Adel Taarabt. And we had two young players there, in Ilias Chair and Chris Willock, who were very exciting. I wanted to build around them, so we recruited full-backs to complement the style. Ethan Laird came on loan from Manchester United and could cover the right wing, which allowed Willock to come inside. Kenneth Paal – a former winger from the Dutch youth teams who was technically very good and we got on a free – came in at left-back to give Chair the same freedom. 

I have to see a little bit of myself in a club, and those boys just took my ideas and ran with it. Some of the goals they scored and the way they played was fantastic.

When I went into Sunderland they had Jack Clarke and Paddy Roberts, who I thought were going to be very similar in terms of allowing me to put players inside the pitch and do very well. Unfortunately we lost Paddy in my second game there to an injury; he only played 10 minutes for me after that, but Jack was fantastic.

In my teams I look for these relationships that I can develop. When we are attacking, it is about who our best players are and how we are going to get them the ball so they can influence the game. That is a conversation I have with players in my first days at a club.

When I go into any club, I always want to look at which players they have coming through. Good clubs also produce good staff, so I also want to know who the people are in the building with the potential to go on a journey with. I take the status of the club away and look at what is inside that will make me jump out of bed every morning to go into work. 

And I always say that yes, as a manager you have your ideas, but clubs have a culture and a history that you have to adhere to and enhance. Along with the group of players, how does this mix all come together? I have certainly seen how it can work well. Going back to my time at Chelsea and Liverpool, if ownership is aligned with the management of the team, the players and the fans, a team will take off.

“I have worked for clubs where the demand is to win. I love this expectation”

As a manager, delegation is really important because it is not possible to do everything. I was very fortunate with Steven Gerrard, in that he never made me feel like an assistant. He allowed me to lead a lot of the training and meetings, which gave me so much that prepared me for management.

Everything I have done on my journey, I needed to do because it helped me to get to where I am today. Going right back to the time when I was coaching women’s football, coaching at Chelsea’s academy, playing non-league and coaching a men’s Sunday league team at the same time. All of that helped me develop at that particular time.

I have worked for clubs where the demand is to win. I love the expectation and intensity that comes with these types of clubs. It is where you want to be, working inside a club where the players’, fans’ and outside expectation is to win.

Fast-forward a few years, and I was an assistant manager in the Premier League at Aston Villa. Then came the step to being QPR manager. That job was very high-profile very quickly, because of how well we did and some of the circumstances in the background. Then I took on two huge jobs at Rangers and Sunderland. All of which means that I now understand a lot more about what it takes to be front and centre.

As a young head coach, I feel so much stronger for the experiences that I’ve had, dealing with the pressures of first-team management. For me, pressure is a privilege that I welcome.