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https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...ournemouth-is-how-to-reboot-himself-3rbt6q7w6
What happened at Barça was not that I failed to motivate them. No, I failed to seduce them. I had introduced a million tiny tactical innovations over the four years and the next step wasn’t going to be easy. The same thing will happen here at Bayern. After a few years I’ll no longer know how to seduce my players and that will be the time to leave.” Pep Guardiola in Pep Confidential.
Four days after the end of the Premier League season, his players at home or on holiday, Eddie Howe is back in his office in Bournemouth in deep reflection. What went right, and wrong over the past ten months? What next? And, a little unexpectedly, what would you do if you were Theresa May?
“How do you steer the country from where we are now?” Howe ponders. “I’m not talking about the politics, but leadership. How do you move it forward? How do you take the knocks and still keep your dignity, show resilience? I like to put myself in the shoes of leaders in any field and think how I’d handle it.”
If we put ourselves in Howe’s boots, the question is how do you keep refreshing your command when, at 41 years old, you are already the third longest-serving manager at any of the 92 clubs?
How do you, to tweak Guardiola’s language (it is hard to imagine Howe talking about “seducing” Callum Wilson), carry on inspiring your players and avoid familiarity becoming, if not contempt, then ennui when you have been at one club for more than 400 matches in two spells over more than a decade?
This rebooting is surely one of the more underestimated challenges in management. It strikes me that there is a misconception of Howe as sitting in a comfort zone down on the south coast when, actually, this job of constantly refreshing yourself is one of the most demanding.
Arsène Wenger struggled to do it over his last four or five years at Arsenal. Guardiola, for all his gifts, does not even try but, as he admits, prefers to move on before there is any chance of players (and perhaps fans) growing stale.
Compare Sir Alex Ferguson with his rivals and his most distinguishing quality was surely an ability to keep re-imagining his teams. “I do consider that a much bigger achievement than coming into a club for a couple of years,” Howe explains. “When you know every decision you make, every seed you plant you are going to yield the results, there’s no escape from that. It gives you a massive responsibility to get things right in the short and the long term.”
While his players have gone on holiday, Howe has taken the time to reflectSTU FORSTER/GETTY IMAGES
It is why Howe was in his office this week staring at charts and player appraisals, with no holiday in sight, after a season when Bournemouth finished 14th, two places down but one point up on 2017-18. The target of survival has been reached for a fourth campaign but another of the dangers of longevity is being taken for granted.
Even though this is Bournemouth’s only spell in the top division since their formation in 1919, the nature of people, and especially football people, is to wonder if it is enough. “I feel there’s been a lot of progression in withstanding injuries, blooding new players, the average age coming down, more wins and goals but I know how it is,” Howe smiles. “If you don’t keep succeeding, it’s a crisis.”
This week he has conducted individual debriefs with his players and in-depth reviews with coaching staff to see how they can try to climb back into the top half of the table. This time last year, counterattacking seemed substandard. They came back for pre-season ready to drill.
The obvious place to start now is with the concession of 70 goals, the third-worst record in the Premier League. Howe is looking at individuals and the system.
“I dread the day when I walk on to the training ground and don’t have any new ideas to give them,” he says. “That’s the day I will know I have stayed too long.”
As part of this process of improvement, Howe and his staff have been making visits around Europe. Howe has been to four clubs including Villarreal in Spain.
“Another small club that has punched above its weight so I wanted to see what they did that was the same and different,” he says. “There were so many lessons but, to give one little example, it was seeing the key hierarchy watching the under-13s. I knew they valued their academy but it was understanding how.”
At Bournemouth, they want to do more to bring through their own, especially with a new training ground in development, knowing that a club with comfortably the league’s lowest average attendance inside an 11,450-capacity ground is overly reliant on television income.
It puts pressure on Howe to make the most of the financial backing from Maxim Demin, the Russian owner, with £25 million spent on Jefferson Lerma and £19 million on Dominic Solanke the biggest purchases in the past 12 months. The best of them has been David Brooks, who, for £10 million from Sheffield United, has been one of the bargains of the season.
Brooks, signed for £10m last summer, has proved to be a bargainJOHN SIBLEY/REUTERS
But, even with mitigating factors such as Lewis Cook missing through injury since before Christmas, there was frustration. In April, after a slide from sixth place after ten games, into the bottom half, there were even some boos at the end of the home defeat by Burnley. Howe talked frankly then about not recognising his team.
“I’ve always coached them to be brave, take responsibility, try to control the game with the ball,” he says. “The players know it but, in the heat of the battle, under pressure, it can get lost.
“The reality is that we can never afford to think we are established. The supporters can’t take it for granted and I don’t think they do because of our history and the tough battle to get here. We should be savouring every moment.”
Given that, at the end of 2008, Howe took over a club in chaos with 17 points deducted for entering administration and grave danger of tumbling out of League Two, sometimes it feels necessary to remind ourselves of how far Bournemouth, and their manager, have come. Perhaps in being there so long, apart from an 18-month spell at Burnley, the danger is that he is taken for granted. He was not interviewed when the FA went for Sam Allardyce as the England manager in the summer of 2016 despite being one of only a few English managers in the Premier League.
For all the plaudits for leading Bournemouth up through the divisions, he says that it has been at least a couple of years since there was an inquiry for him. “To be honest, I can’t remember the last one,” he says. “Obviously there aren’t many clubs above us these days, which I take as a compliment.
“And maybe people see me being very settled here, which I am. Not thinking the grass is greener is, to me, a strength of character. But that’s not lacking ambition, and I have to make that clear many, many times.
“I couldn’t be more ambitious for this club. A training ground being built, maybe a new stadium. And it’s a squad I’ve built over many years. One of the hardest things in management is to build a club; to see the results over time; to see potential, invest in people, develop them. That’s hugely satisfying but also challenging to keep inspiring, creating new messages.”
It is why, in the frenzied, turbulent world of management, Howe’s unusual longevity at one club should not be mistaken for a soft ride. Sitting in that office, making plans, it feels to him like anything but standing still.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...ournemouth-is-how-to-reboot-himself-3rbt6q7w6
What happened at Barça was not that I failed to motivate them. No, I failed to seduce them. I had introduced a million tiny tactical innovations over the four years and the next step wasn’t going to be easy. The same thing will happen here at Bayern. After a few years I’ll no longer know how to seduce my players and that will be the time to leave.” Pep Guardiola in Pep Confidential.
Four days after the end of the Premier League season, his players at home or on holiday, Eddie Howe is back in his office in Bournemouth in deep reflection. What went right, and wrong over the past ten months? What next? And, a little unexpectedly, what would you do if you were Theresa May?
“How do you steer the country from where we are now?” Howe ponders. “I’m not talking about the politics, but leadership. How do you move it forward? How do you take the knocks and still keep your dignity, show resilience? I like to put myself in the shoes of leaders in any field and think how I’d handle it.”
If we put ourselves in Howe’s boots, the question is how do you keep refreshing your command when, at 41 years old, you are already the third longest-serving manager at any of the 92 clubs?
How do you, to tweak Guardiola’s language (it is hard to imagine Howe talking about “seducing” Callum Wilson), carry on inspiring your players and avoid familiarity becoming, if not contempt, then ennui when you have been at one club for more than 400 matches in two spells over more than a decade?
This rebooting is surely one of the more underestimated challenges in management. It strikes me that there is a misconception of Howe as sitting in a comfort zone down on the south coast when, actually, this job of constantly refreshing yourself is one of the most demanding.
Arsène Wenger struggled to do it over his last four or five years at Arsenal. Guardiola, for all his gifts, does not even try but, as he admits, prefers to move on before there is any chance of players (and perhaps fans) growing stale.
Compare Sir Alex Ferguson with his rivals and his most distinguishing quality was surely an ability to keep re-imagining his teams. “I do consider that a much bigger achievement than coming into a club for a couple of years,” Howe explains. “When you know every decision you make, every seed you plant you are going to yield the results, there’s no escape from that. It gives you a massive responsibility to get things right in the short and the long term.”
While his players have gone on holiday, Howe has taken the time to reflectSTU FORSTER/GETTY IMAGES
It is why Howe was in his office this week staring at charts and player appraisals, with no holiday in sight, after a season when Bournemouth finished 14th, two places down but one point up on 2017-18. The target of survival has been reached for a fourth campaign but another of the dangers of longevity is being taken for granted.
Even though this is Bournemouth’s only spell in the top division since their formation in 1919, the nature of people, and especially football people, is to wonder if it is enough. “I feel there’s been a lot of progression in withstanding injuries, blooding new players, the average age coming down, more wins and goals but I know how it is,” Howe smiles. “If you don’t keep succeeding, it’s a crisis.”
This week he has conducted individual debriefs with his players and in-depth reviews with coaching staff to see how they can try to climb back into the top half of the table. This time last year, counterattacking seemed substandard. They came back for pre-season ready to drill.
The obvious place to start now is with the concession of 70 goals, the third-worst record in the Premier League. Howe is looking at individuals and the system.
“I dread the day when I walk on to the training ground and don’t have any new ideas to give them,” he says. “That’s the day I will know I have stayed too long.”
As part of this process of improvement, Howe and his staff have been making visits around Europe. Howe has been to four clubs including Villarreal in Spain.
“Another small club that has punched above its weight so I wanted to see what they did that was the same and different,” he says. “There were so many lessons but, to give one little example, it was seeing the key hierarchy watching the under-13s. I knew they valued their academy but it was understanding how.”
At Bournemouth, they want to do more to bring through their own, especially with a new training ground in development, knowing that a club with comfortably the league’s lowest average attendance inside an 11,450-capacity ground is overly reliant on television income.
It puts pressure on Howe to make the most of the financial backing from Maxim Demin, the Russian owner, with £25 million spent on Jefferson Lerma and £19 million on Dominic Solanke the biggest purchases in the past 12 months. The best of them has been David Brooks, who, for £10 million from Sheffield United, has been one of the bargains of the season.
Brooks, signed for £10m last summer, has proved to be a bargainJOHN SIBLEY/REUTERS
But, even with mitigating factors such as Lewis Cook missing through injury since before Christmas, there was frustration. In April, after a slide from sixth place after ten games, into the bottom half, there were even some boos at the end of the home defeat by Burnley. Howe talked frankly then about not recognising his team.
“I’ve always coached them to be brave, take responsibility, try to control the game with the ball,” he says. “The players know it but, in the heat of the battle, under pressure, it can get lost.
“The reality is that we can never afford to think we are established. The supporters can’t take it for granted and I don’t think they do because of our history and the tough battle to get here. We should be savouring every moment.”
Given that, at the end of 2008, Howe took over a club in chaos with 17 points deducted for entering administration and grave danger of tumbling out of League Two, sometimes it feels necessary to remind ourselves of how far Bournemouth, and their manager, have come. Perhaps in being there so long, apart from an 18-month spell at Burnley, the danger is that he is taken for granted. He was not interviewed when the FA went for Sam Allardyce as the England manager in the summer of 2016 despite being one of only a few English managers in the Premier League.
For all the plaudits for leading Bournemouth up through the divisions, he says that it has been at least a couple of years since there was an inquiry for him. “To be honest, I can’t remember the last one,” he says. “Obviously there aren’t many clubs above us these days, which I take as a compliment.
“And maybe people see me being very settled here, which I am. Not thinking the grass is greener is, to me, a strength of character. But that’s not lacking ambition, and I have to make that clear many, many times.
“I couldn’t be more ambitious for this club. A training ground being built, maybe a new stadium. And it’s a squad I’ve built over many years. One of the hardest things in management is to build a club; to see the results over time; to see potential, invest in people, develop them. That’s hugely satisfying but also challenging to keep inspiring, creating new messages.”
It is why, in the frenzied, turbulent world of management, Howe’s unusual longevity at one club should not be mistaken for a soft ride. Sitting in that office, making plans, it feels to him like anything but standing still.
