[Albion] Potter - emotional intelligence:

[Deleted member 2719]

Great thread, emotional intelligence is a key skill in life, many everyday folk do not recognise this.

Take the top mods on this board, for example, they are absolutely clueless in this department.


Potter is king, long live the king.

 

[Change at Barnham]

Thanks for the post Happy Exile.

I'd be intrigued to know your thoughts on Neal Maupay's emotional intelligence.
I get the impression that he possibly over thinks every situation and finds it hard to accept that he's not perfect which causes a constant frustration in him. And then results in his 'Le Petite Shithouse' celebrations when things finally go to plan.
I'm convinced if could unburden himself of the pressure he puts himself under and just relaxes more that there is a 15 goal a season striker in there.
GP must be very frustrated that he's been unable to unlock Neal's full potential.

 

[Happy Exile]

Would you say Potter would not make a good England manager as he wouldn't get to work with the players on a daily basis?

I think it's probably the opposite - when a relationship is built on solid principles of trust and common understanding there's a bit of a residual effect that lasts a long time. There's research that shows giving someone a significantly positive experience in a work environment for example, that's done without expectation of reciprocation (another part of EI, giving without expectation), can have a tail of 5 years or more in which the recipient will gladly repay the value without you having to even reference whatever favour you did. (Provided you've not done anything in the meantime that's incongruent with your original behaviour...consistency is important.) From an England point of view I can imagine he'd not just go to watch players in games but check-in regularly with them too so each time they met up it'd be part of a continuum of a relationship. New players coming into the team would have to accept that as part of the deal but I doubt they'd have a problem with it. It'd be like bonus pastoral care. Fall out with Tuchel? Graham's on the phone to talk about your holiday in Florida and your dogs and give you space away from pressure cooker of your club because he cares about you as a human. Or even better, rings to ask your advice on something - football related or not, nothing better than that. Then when you all come together again there's no starting-over, it's more of the same. He's consistently demonstrated he's got your interests at heart so of course you respect him and you'll listen to him.

Potter got criticism on here when he apologised to the Man City bench after the LEGENDARY COMEBACK, especially when they'd behaved like twats, but I think it was a bit of a 4D chess move. Not only does he have exceptional integrity and professionalism but he's also aware he might be managing some of the City players one day either at Brighton or elsewhere. How do they think of him now? Undoubtedly as a quality coach who is honest, passionate, and who holds himself to high standards of behaviour. Who wouldn't want to play for someone like that? But also, that consistency piece: he's not just like that when he wants something from you, he's demonstrated he's like that all the time because even after that night and that performance he was humble enough. He's constantly building credit with people whether he manages them or not and again, research shows people who do that in any walk of life struggle the first year or two because people might question their motives or they don't have enough credit to get any benefit from it yet, but over time they almost always reach the top. See Fergie again - he was great at it. Total EI jedi moves with players and every United stakeholder (urgh, hate that word) thinking several steps ahead and never burning any bridges (though others may burn them for you, Stam for example).

 

[Deleted member 2719]

I think it's probably the opposite - when a relationship is built on solid principles of trust and common understanding there's a bit of a residual effect that lasts a long time. There's research that shows giving someone a significantly positive experience in a work environment for example, that's done without expectation of reciprocation (another part of EI, giving without expectation), can have a tail of 5 years or more in which the recipient will gladly repay the value without you having to even reference whatever favour you did. (Provided you've not done anything in the meantime that's incongruent with your original behaviour...consistency is important.) From an England point of view I can imagine he'd not just go to watch players in games but check-in regularly with them too so each time they met up it'd be part of a continuum of a relationship. New players coming into the team would have to accept that as part of the deal but I doubt they'd have a problem with it. It'd be like bonus pastoral care. Fall out with Tuchel? Graham's on the phone to talk about your holiday in Florida and your dogs and give you space away from pressure cooker of your club because he cares about you as a human. Or even better, rings to ask your advice on something - football related or not, nothing better than that. Then when you all come together again there's no starting-over, it's more of the same. He's consistently demonstrated he's got your interests at heart so of course you respect him and you'll listen to him.

Potter got criticism on here when he apologised to the Man City bench after the LEGENDARY COMEBACK, especially when they'd behaved like twats, but I think it was a bit of a 4D chess move. Not only does he have exceptional integrity and professionalism but he's also aware he might be managing some of the City players one day either at Brighton or elsewhere. How do they think of him now? Undoubtedly as a quality coach who is honest, passionate, and who holds himself to high standards of behaviour. Who wouldn't want to play for someone like that? But also, that consistency piece: he's not just like that when he wants something from you, he's demonstrated he's like that all the time because even after that night and that performance he was humble enough. He's constantly building credit with people whether he manages them or not and again, research shows people who do that in any walk of life struggle the first year or two because people might question their motives or they don't have enough credit to get any benefit from it yet, but over time they almost always reach the top. See Fergie again - he was great at it. Total EI jedi moves with players and every United stakeholder (urgh, hate that word) thinking several steps ahead and never burning any bridges (though others may burn them for you, Stam for example).

I totally agree he is a true bigger picture man and Bloom spotted this immediately. As Bloom is the same.

 

[Happy Exile]

Thanks for the post Happy Exile.

I'd be intrigued to know your thoughts on Neal Maupay's emotional intelligence.
I get the impression that he possibly over thinks every situation and finds it hard to accept that he's not perfect which causes a constant frustration in him. And then results in his 'Le Petite Shithouse' celebrations when things finally go to plan.
I'm convinced if could unburden himself of the pressure he puts himself under and just relaxes more that there is a 15 goal a season striker in there.
GP must be very frustrated that he's been unable to unlock Neal's full potential.

Thank you. So, coming at this from very much an outside perspective I agree, I suspect he over-thinks everything and is incredibly sensitive to criticism. There's enormous amounts of work in sports psychology about how you can't think "don't slice it / don't miss" etc. Negative thinking in that way interrupts your instinctive, trained, practiced ability - most penalty players who miss the target or fluff badly it'll be because they are thinking "don't miss" or something along those lines. Gary Speed (scored 13, missed 2) used to say he never picked where he was going to shoot, he'd practiced it a million times so just went through the motions, he only thought what direction he'd run in to celebrate. I reckon Maupay is so worried about missing it becomes self-perpetuating which is why we see more instinctive goals from him than considered or planned ones - if he has time to think "don't miss" then he does.

Again, untrained (kind of - I have qualifications in counselling and mental health and my background is psychology but I'm confident there'll be better placed people on the board and you can never say too much from observing limited behaviour from afar), I suspect Maupay is very emotionally intelligent but might not have the mental maturity to handle it. He clearly reacts emotionally to situations, his behaviour looks full of a need for positive reinforcement but Potter might be only having limited success (if he is only having limited success) because ultimately the player has to reinforce it themselves - there's only so much someone else telling you something can make a difference if you don't actually believe it yourself.

You'd need to spend time with him to work out if that's what's going on - as a wild stab in the dark and rampant speculation unbased in anything but guesswork: from reading interviews with him, his habits, what others say about him, and about his early life he's incredibly bright - maybe the brainiest player in the squad. I'd definitely have him in my pub quiz team. He made his Ligue 1 debut at 16 years old and 32 days, was a first team regular until he tore a cruciate a few months later. Recovered, was dropped for 2 years, sold, did well but still then sent out on loan to Ligue 2 where he did well until injured again. Then Brentford, then us.

MASSIVE pinch of salt, but I'm going to make a totally unverifiable guess that at 16 when he got injured in a potentially career ending way the support from his club wasn't there for him. We're all a consequence of how we are treated and what we experience as we develop and at 16 we're still developing emotionally. One curse of brainy people is they second guess everything and over-analyse all the time. Where someone less smart and less analytical and more physical and less cerebral might have Maupay's early career and crack on, I'm guessing his inner voice was analysing the response he was getting, over-thinking the behaviour and actions from people and he was probably doubting he was good enough. If that was the case (big "if"), he'll be defaulting to that when under stress and when things go wrong - we all revert to type. The more he tries to prove people wrong, and it doesn't work, the more it exacerbates. It's the cliche that he's a "confidence player". And then the work the club will be doing with him will be rebuilding that inner voice so instead of analysing every reaction of us goons in the crowd, every frustrated gesture from a teammate for a misplaced pass, as being somehow evidence he's not good enough he's able to see it for what it is - a reaction to a moment in time, not a judgement on his quality. Depending how they are doing it it could be months or more of therapy alongside training. It's kind of giving his 16 year old self permission to be petulant and annoyed with how he was made to doubt himself then move on.

It'd be a big investment from the club to work on him that way but totally in keeping with Potter's ethos. And just to reiterate there's an enormous amount of speculation in what I've written, and none of it has basis in any info or reason to believe it's actually what's going on and I'm probably totally wrong.

 

[Swansman]

If you want to watch a dull video of GP talking leadership for about an hour, you can watch this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjAXQ4d7Bc0

GP parts starts at like 20 minutes.

 

[Machiavelli]

It's not often I read a thread on NSC and think I can actually offer anything more meaningful than a pitiful attempt at humour but this aligns a bit with what I do for a living. In a way I still find bizarre and with enormous imposter syndrome, (and this is impossible to talk about without sounding like it's an outtake from Twenty Twelve) part of what I get paid for is helping people in the corporate world develop emotional intelligence and use neuroscience and psychology to perform better - a lot of what I bring in to what I do is from sport but also the arts because cinema (for example) is amazing for all this too.

I could geek about it for DAYS but instead what I'll point out is the entirely obvious and that one of the key attributes of successful leadership is role-modelling of the behaviours you want to see in others. Combine that with emotional intelligence to bring the best out of people and consciously adapt to meet them where they need you rather than where you need them and it's basically a super-power. Read anything about Fergie at United and this was him too.

Like Fergie at United, Potter's been given time which is essential for it to work. So if we think about what behaviours Potter is role-modelling in public, and how that's going to be amplified massively in private with the players, you can also see how that now comes through them too in the way they play and talk and perform. It's in Potter's interviews too - he wants them to develop personally as well as professionally, he sees football as a means to players becoming better people too etc etc. Watching Potter is like a textbook in emotional intelligence training brought to glorious life - he'll be doing most of it innately I reckon, because he seems like a very decent bloke who just "gets" people, but the academic side he's got will absolutely give the confidence and evidence-base to press on when things are looking less pleasant if he's doubting himself.

There's masses and masses in emotional intelligence work about how you create a culture of trust in a team and you can see that in his work, and that rounded development of people and the seeing them as "more than their jobs" that Potter does is a huge part of it. You can see that trust then come through on the pitch. Want to play March or whoever out of position? That's the consequence of 12 months working on them as a full human being to build their trust in your judgement as well as their own judgement as much as it's working on them tactically as a player. Another biiiiiiiig part of that is constantly demonstrating you have someone's best interests at heart. So if you're an Albion player and working with Potter is helping you be a better husband / father / human and you can see how it's setting you up for life after the game too you're going to love him and trust him more than anything. It's no wonder they look such a happy bunch. It's not just the players Potter will be influencing and even working with either, it'll be the whole set up at the club he'll be driving, because if the security guy is happy, positive and focused on the same things as Trossard that actually makes a difference. Southgate, for whatever his faults, has done an amazing emotional intelligence job with England and knowing a bit about how he's used psychologists and organisation design specialists to map all the player touch-points (God, I hate corporate speak) it's similar to Brighton and Potter - everyone an England player encounters at any point in their time with the England team has the same ethos, attitude, values, approach, and common language talking about things (e.g. it's never "we'll try" unless by mistake, it's always "we will"...they never "understand" because that's hard to measure, they "demonstrate they can" etc etc). It's small things, but Southgate attributed some of the success in Russia with these changes and the fact the people who serve up food in the canteen are part of a whole experience for everyone that reinforces an attitude and approach.

The "us against the world" team building of Mourinho has a limited shelf-life for trust which is why he always falls apart spectacularly. I love watching Tuchel constantly blaming things outside of his control too because it's going to implode massively soon (people who constantly feel they have no autonomy over their outcomes, as the Chelsea team will be feeling because it's never their fault, never sustain any kind of success - you can't be permanently angry and feeling powerless and if you're unaccountable for failure your brain will automatically cap how accountable you feel you can be for success...they might still win stuff, but not as much as they could have). I know Howe isn't popular but I reckon he's probably pretty good on EI. Moyes too. Klopp will be great at it. I suspect Arteta is rubbish. Lampard won't be good because he seems to have too much of an ego and victim complex, Gerrard though - like Guardiola - isn't worried about a bit of vulnerability occasionally so I think is probably good too. Rogers I reckon has read all the books and is good at applying it but doesn't have it innately so it'll always be management theory and not "lived".

Anyway. I'm geeking FOR DAYS if I don't stop now. It'll be a sad day when Potter goes, but again, if you listen to him he talks about how Bloom and Barber role-model behaviours (Barber's legendary accessibility to us randoms for example is amazing role-modelling of wanting to ensure we all feel valued even if we disagree about something - everyone feeling valued being a core of emotional intelligence) so we can be sure whoever the next manager is will be a continuation on a theme and style, and that can only be a good thing. From the bit of research I've done into it for work I think Liverpool are the closest Premier League club to us in that style of operating where emotional intelligence and "whole player" work is the norm, that's why I tipped Potter to be Klopp's successor unless he goes straight to the England manager job. I think he could walk into either and not have a big cultural rebuilding job and that'd suit Potter and either Liverpool or England a lot.

The only other thing I'll say, and I can do this with absolute authority on the topic, is that I wish I had Potter's beard.

Thanking you for this. Two things from me:
-- even despite this and despite Potter, I think emotional intelligence is a troublesome concept (but that's a long story or, in your terms, geekery)
-- you brought Fergie into the EI circle yet, at the same time, excluded Mourinho (I'd agree on that exclusion) and put him into the 'us against the world' box. My view is that Fergie was a master at that -- so the question is, what have I missed or got wrong on that?

 

[Dick Swiveller]

Shame it did really seem to click for Aaron Connolly, but I guess you can't reach everybody.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't stop it shagging around

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

It's not often I read a thread on NSC and think I can actually offer anything more meaningful than a pitiful attempt at humour but this aligns a bit with what I do for a living. I <snip>

The only other thing I'll say, and I can do this with absolute authority on the topic, is that I wish I had Potter's beard.

Brilliant post. Every time I hear a Brighton player interviewed, when they mention Potter they sound happy, but they don't go on about what a Jesus-like leader he is. I expect you will agree that this is because he makes the players think they understand what they are doing to be better. Quite different from having hero-worshipping devotion to a mesmeric and maverick leader who moves the players round like pieces on a chess board.

As an aside, I work at a UK top 6 university, teaching and running a research lab. Never in my 33 years here has anyone offered me any leadership. I am not part of a team. As long as I publish a bit and do sufficient hours of teaching and keep my nose clean I am left alone. I am not interested in vainglorious pursuit of my own majesty (unlike some colleagues, one who has an MBE and an eye on a knighthood), but those who are get rewarded by promotion and pay rises. Nobody is managed in terms of teaching delivery (quality). Nobody is measured on genuine research impact (publishing in 'top' journals is enough). And if you are able to raise a million quid a year from the MRC or equivalent you will be given a secret (illegal) contract that absolves you of teaching. When you send your kids to a 'top' university they will be tought mostly by people whose research careers have foundered, with the occasional appearance of a research star to give one lecture.....the academic equivalent of a Mourinho. And the only reason I haven't slipped into this nonsense is almost certainly because I'm a bit peculiar. The incentives in the HE sector are perverse, with fake measures of success based on league table measures of surrogates (such as numbers of first class degrees awarded, drop our rate, publication data and research grant income).

In football there are real measures of success, starting with survival, and ending with trophies. In between there is entertainment-engagement, momentum, demonstration of courage and commitment, and of course real financial acumen. None of that exists in the university sector, with staff dancing the watusi for block grants from HMG, not financially independent, and always second guessing how to game the system. Meanwhile the staff and students operate in a partial vacuum, with all achievements due to the goodwill and skill of some of the staff and students, despite the system.

 

[Happy Exile]

Thanking you for this. Two things from me:
-- even despite this and despite Potter, I think emotional intelligence is a troublesome concept (but that's a long story or, in your terms, geekery)
-- you brought Fergie into the EI circle yet, at the same time, excluded Mourinho (I'd agree on that exclusion) and put him into the 'us against the world' box. My view is that Fergie was a master at that -- so the question is, what have I missed or got wrong on that?

Yep - I get that. So, from how I see things Fergie worked incredibly hard to understand his players at a deeper level than pure performance. There's countless stories of how much he did to help players, staff around the team, how he'd ring academy players he'd released years after their careers ended just to see how they were doing - he genuinely cared about them and knew that to get the best out of everyone he had to see them as more than their job. It's that thing I mentioned in one of my over-long replies about how building credit not because it might be useful (though it might be), but because it's the right thing to do always pays off. I don't know how unique this was to his approach, maybe it wasn't but he did background checks into players before signing them and tried to find players from impoverished or troubled backgrounds both because he felt they'd have motivation to fight and succeed and because he'd be able to identify what they needed from him and where he could add value to get the most out of them. Father figure for Ronaldo being maybe the most obvious example - that's not something that happened by accident, that's Fergie working out how to meet Ronaldo where he needed him to be, rather than the other way around. It's quite interesting watching Rooney's journey and some of the Fergie traits coming through, particularly around looking after staff and fringe/released team members.

Where Mourinho's siege mentality comes from a position of conflict and attack, my perception of Fergie's is that it came from a position of protection and defence - that's different. Protection reinforces the trust you've already built up and bonds people to work for each other because they can see you're all on the same side (though it's not a long-term approach), while conflict pits everyone as a threat. Purely my perception, but maaaaaaaaybe reinforced a bit by how Mourinho would quite happily throw players under a bus in public (ie. they are a threat to our siege and the weak link) where Fergie kept it all in-house and made it about other people while protecting his team. Fergie knew trust was everything, I'm not sure anyone would trust Mourinho.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Yep - I get that. So, from how I see things Fergie worked incredibly hard to understand his players at a deeper level than pure performance. There's countless stories of how much he did to help players, staff around the team, how he'd ring academy players he'd released years after their careers ended just to see how they were doing - he genuinely cared about them and knew that to get the best out of everyone he had to see them as more than their job. It's that thing I mentioned in one of my over-long replies about how building credit not because it might be useful (though it might be), but because it's the right thing to do always pays off. I don't know how unique this was to his approach, maybe it wasn't but he did background checks into players before signing them and tried to find players from impoverished or troubled backgrounds both because he felt they'd have motivation to fight and succeed and because he'd be able to identify what they needed from him and where he could add value to get the most out of them. Father figure for Ronaldo being maybe the most obvious example - that's not something that happened by accident, that's Fergie working out how to meet Ronaldo where he needed him to be, rather than the other way around. It's quite interesting watching Rooney's journey and some of the Fergie traits coming through, particularly around looking after staff and fringe/released team members.

Where Mourinho's siege mentality comes from a position of conflict and attack, my perception of Fergie's is that it came from a position of protection and defence - that's different. Protection reinforces the trust you've already built up and bonds people to work for each other because they can see you're all on the same side (though it's not a long-term approach), while conflict pits everyone as a threat. Purely my perception, but maaaaaaaaybe reinforced a bit by how Mourinho would quite happily throw players under a bus in public (ie. they are a threat to our siege and the weak link) where Fergie kept it all in-house and made it about other people while protecting his team. Fergie knew trust was everything, I'm not sure anyone would trust Mourinho.

Very interesting. I recall the early days of Mourinho how he succeeds in treating all his diverse players (diverse in terms of talents and personality) equally ('the same'). He laughed and said 'I treat them all differently'. What he created at Chelsea the first time round was spectacular.

So how did he come to fail? I think he has a tendency to become a nasty bully. Digging out players in public. Catastrophic changes in fortune - how did Terry go from an ever present captain of a championship winning side, to not in the squad overnight? Did he say something. Mourinho certainly lost the squad at more than one club.

I found Mourinho brittle and fragile. I really liked him initially, then I found him disturbing. A sad figure even.

Fergie had all the qualities you described. Genuinely caring. And very secure in his skin. Married across the religious divide. Yes, he had feuds with parts of the media, but you can see him chuckling about it in private, his players never being affected by it with it never brought into the dressing room, whereas you can see Mourhino poisoning the whole well with his anger and spite when he lost the plot, which he did far too easily.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

How very sad a reaction.

Come on. He was joking. Jokes are allowed

 

[Dorset Seagull]

I think it's probably the opposite - when a relationship is built on solid principles of trust and common understanding there's a bit of a residual effect that lasts a long time. There's research that shows giving someone a significantly positive experience in a work environment for example, that's done without expectation of reciprocation (another part of EI, giving without expectation), can have a tail of 5 years or more in which the recipient will gladly repay the value without you having to even reference whatever favour you did. (Provided you've not done anything in the meantime that's incongruent with your original behaviour...consistency is important.) From an England point of view I can imagine he'd not just go to watch players in games but check-in regularly with them too so each time they met up it'd be part of a continuum of a relationship. New players coming into the team would have to accept that as part of the deal but I doubt they'd have a problem with it. It'd be like bonus pastoral care. Fall out with Tuchel? Graham's on the phone to talk about your holiday in Florida and your dogs and give you space away from pressure cooker of your club because he cares about you as a human. Or even better, rings to ask your advice on something - football related or not, nothing better than that. Then when you all come together again there's no starting-over, it's more of the same. He's consistently demonstrated he's got your interests at heart so of course you respect him and you'll listen to him.

Potter got criticism on here when he apologised to the Man City bench after the LEGENDARY COMEBACK, especially when they'd behaved like twats, but I think it was a bit of a 4D chess move. Not only does he have exceptional integrity and professionalism but he's also aware he might be managing some of the City players one day either at Brighton or elsewhere. How do they think of him now? Undoubtedly as a quality coach who is honest, passionate, and who holds himself to high standards of behaviour. Who wouldn't want to play for someone like that? But also, that consistency piece: he's not just like that when he wants something from you, he's demonstrated he's like that all the time because even after that night and that performance he was humble enough. He's constantly building credit with people whether he manages them or not and again, research shows people who do that in any walk of life struggle the first year or two because people might question their motives or they don't have enough credit to get any benefit from it yet, but over time they almost always reach the top. See Fergie again - he was great at it. Total EI jedi moves with players and every United stakeholder (urgh, hate that word) thinking several steps ahead and never burning any bridges (though others may burn them for you, Stam for example).

All of the above suggests that it was an out of character mistake to have a pop at the fans after the Leeds game as this wasn’t getting them onside? Thoughts?

 

[Machiavelli]

Yep - I get that. So, from how I see things Fergie worked incredibly hard to understand his players at a deeper level than pure performance. There's countless stories of how much he did to help players, staff around the team, how he'd ring academy players he'd released years after their careers ended just to see how they were doing - he genuinely cared about them and knew that to get the best out of everyone he had to see them as more than their job. It's that thing I mentioned in one of my over-long replies about how building credit not because it might be useful (though it might be), but because it's the right thing to do always pays off. I don't know how unique this was to his approach, maybe it wasn't but he did background checks into players before signing them and tried to find players from impoverished or troubled backgrounds both because he felt they'd have motivation to fight and succeed and because he'd be able to identify what they needed from him and where he could add value to get the most out of them. Father figure for Ronaldo being maybe the most obvious example - that's not something that happened by accident, that's Fergie working out how to meet Ronaldo where he needed him to be, rather than the other way around. It's quite interesting watching Rooney's journey and some of the Fergie traits coming through, particularly around looking after staff and fringe/released team members.

Where Mourinho's siege mentality comes from a position of conflict and attack, my perception of Fergie's is that it came from a position of protection and defence - that's different. Protection reinforces the trust you've already built up and bonds people to work for each other because they can see you're all on the same side (though it's not a long-term approach), while conflict pits everyone as a threat. Purely my perception, but maaaaaaaaybe reinforced a bit by how Mourinho would quite happily throw players under a bus in public (ie. they are a threat to our siege and the weak link) where Fergie kept it all in-house and made it about other people while protecting his team. Fergie knew trust was everything, I'm not sure anyone would trust Mourinho.

Thank you. Pretty sure I agree with all that.

 

[Machiavelli]

All of the above suggests that it was an out of character mistake to have a pop at the fans after the Leeds game as this wasn’t getting them onside? Thoughts?

It was a mistake, but not necessarily out of character. To suggest that it was in-character indicates that even projecting himself as EI and as a role model is a project and a struggle, and he doesn't always reach his standards and/or expectations.

 

[Happy Exile]

All of the above suggests that it was an out of character mistake to have a pop at the fans after the Leeds game as this wasn’t getting them onside? Thoughts?

That's a really good point. I think we can say he's human and it'll happen. But also I've just watched the video and he was asked what he'd like to say to the fans who booed. He's clearly annoyed, but he doesn't let himself down at all. Firstly he doesn't say anything that's unfair or untrue, but he also validates the booing people - "they are entitled to their opinion but I completely disagree with them..." then he explains why, suggesting they don't understand what it is the team is trying to do, then he internalises it "maybe I need a history lesson..."

Clearly the media then had a field day, he held up the support away as a positive example, but as far as I can tell he doesn't criticise anyone, and it's targeted specifically at the fans who booed. I think he's quite careful even while being annoyed - if we, as fans, choose to see it as a dig at us whether we booed or not it's our call.

 

[Happy Exile]

Very interesting. I recall the early days of Mourinho how he succeeds in treating all his diverse players (diverse in terms of talents and personality) equally ('the same'). He laughed and said 'I treat them all differently'. What he created at Chelsea the first time round was spectacular.

So how did he come to fail? I think he has a tendency to become a nasty bully. Digging out players in public. Catastrophic changes in fortune - how did Terry go from an ever present captain of a championship winning side, to not in the squad overnight? Did he say something. Mourinho certainly lost the squad at more than one club.

I found Mourinho brittle and fragile. I really liked him initially, then I found him disturbing. A sad figure even.

Fergie had all the qualities you described. Genuinely caring. And very secure in his skin. Married across the religious divide. Yes, he had feuds with parts of the media, but you can see him chuckling about it in private, his players never being affected by it with it never brought into the dressing room, whereas you can see Mourhino poisoning the whole well with his anger and spite when he lost the plot, which he did far too easily.

Thanks for all you've shared on this thread - really interesting to read. Totally agree on Mourinho, at first he came across as self-aware and even gently self-mocking at times but increasingly seemed bitter and disinterested. Sad is definitely the word.

 

[Stato]

I want him to adopt me.

If he is happy to adopt fans, then make sure you bagsy the top bunk. Your new adopted brother may be careless over where he drops his used pizza boxes.

 

[DavidinSouthampton]

Get a grip man it was a joke lol It was a long post tho.

Fair enough!

 

[DavidinSouthampton]

Come on. He was joking. Jokes are allowed

I didn’t realise he was joking! Where’s the smiley face?