The paternity test of football management

The relationship of a football team's supporters with its manager can be somewhat parental. Just as a client's relationship with a psychotherapist can be somewhat parental. You are asked to respect experience and expertise. You are asked to essentially trust and hope in a guide towards progress or positive change. Parallels might also be drawn with religion, but we'll park that one for now and stick to football and therapy.

Over time, a relationship develops. There might be wins, success, and celebration. There might be defeats, adversity, dissent and rupture. There might be draws and indifference, half suppressed mutters of dissatisfaction. In football, there can be all of these in a short space of time, a rollercoaster of highly amplified emotions and opinions.

In the end there is usually disappointment. A manager is sacked and replaced with a new one, before the cycle begins again. Supporters and players will discuss if it was the right decision, if the decision was correct, premature, or far too late. Everything is wildly public and open to debate. Opinions are plentiful. The average Premier League manager's tenure is about two years, so nobody tends to stay for long.

And yet supporters always hope they will, craving a successful monogamous dynasty of the kind produced by Alex Ferguson at Manchester United, Arsene Wenger at Arsenal, or more recently Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool. Of course they want their dad-figure, who bought so much joy, to stick around. A difficult truth for many fans is that managers, staff and badge-kissing players are not monogamous when it comes to club affiliation. It's an industry like any other. The concept of loyalty is forever troublesome.

Psychotherapists Vs Football Managers

A critical difference between psychotherapists and football managers is performance measurability. The performance of football managers is measured most directly by how a team performs over the course of a season. Things are rather less transparent for a psychotherapist. The decision to continue the collaboration largely lies with the client, or it should. If it feels like it's helping, then it's helping. If it doesn't, then it's probably not. (Although there could be resistance worth exploring). It is all less easily measurable.     

In football, the common pattern is that when a team is considered to be underperforming, the manager will take responsibility, the collaboration will be terminated and they will be replaced. 

The Sacking of Ange Postecoglou

This was complicated by emotion in the recent sacking of Tottenham Hotspur manager Ange Postecoglou. The Australian was at the helm for the club's worst ever Premier League season, which saw them finish one position above relegation and record 22 defeats in 38 league games. For a season and a half, they did not perform well. But he helped steer the club, which had not won a trophy for 17 years, to a European cup. This was a very big deal.

A narrow and unattractive victory over Manchester United in the final prompted wild celebrations and an open top bus parade among thousands of euphoric fans. For some, there was the sense of a corner turned, a cup eventually won, the highest of emotional highs. The manager did what he said he was going to do in winning a cup in his second season. He was true to his word, therefore should be trusted? The club then lost its final Premier League match 4-1 to Brighton. But for many, that game and indeed much of the season no longer mattered. You wonder if it mattered less to fans who did not spend a considerable amount of time and money attending games over the season, or even those who did not watch many games.

When Tottenham finally announced that it had relieved Postecoglou of his duties after a unanimous decision by the club's board, a tide of sentiment from supporters appeared to support Postecoglou. Many, and seemingly most fans were shocked and upset with the decision to sack him. They were angry with the frequently vilified figure of club chairman Daniel Levy for sacking yet another manager. They believed that in winning the Europa League and qualifying for the Champions League, Postecoglou had earned the right to a third season.

The Power Of Emotion

The club statement said the board could not base its decision on emotion. But emotion is an enormous part of football. Football and sport allows people to emote in a way they feel unable to in other parts of their lives. My personal feeling was that most fans absolutely could base their decision on emotion. They could base it on gratitude for a tremendous party and a rare feeling of success and optimism. They could base it on a renewed commitment to the now trustworthy paternal personality of Postecoglou and his gift for quotable press conference soundbites, regardless of what had happened across the larger part of the season. Regardless of his own emotional post-match meltdowns with the media after poor performances. Regardless of his own confrontations with his side's supporters. Emotion is a valid and regular factor in most decision-making.

Daniel Levy and the Tottenham board were presented with an extremely awkward decision after the Europa League success. Should the result of a single football match decide the future of a manager who had overseen long-term underperformance? My personal view was no, (and had been for some time). In relieving Postecoglou of his duties, a pragmatic, emotionless, and rational decision was taken, supported by an sensibly proportionate body of evidence. It was psychologically fascinating that so many people so fiercely believed the opposite. It prompted ideas around classic psychology theories and ideologies: attachment, gratitude, trust, grief and loss, belief, commitment, short termism versus long termism, pain avoidance, emotional decision-making. It was a rich moment of communal psychodrama.

Accepting The Abusive Relationship

Before the Europa League final I made a spurious remark about the game feeling like an abusive partner taking you out for a fancy meal, and how success would feel hollow and strange and untrustworthy. To me, a Tottenham fan of 35ish years, it did feel like that, and it probably did to a certain fraction of fans. And yet to thousands of others, to the most audible majority, it did not feel one bit like that. Their belief in the manager skyrocketed because he did what he said he would do and won a trophy in his second season. Forget everything else. When he was sacked, they hurt badly at the perceived injustice inflicted upon their dad figure, just as a number of players appeared to hurt and support Postecoglou through their social media posts. It seemed that Postecoglou passed some kind of paternity test with flying colours, even if he didn't keep his job. 

If you repeatedly suffer a painful experience in one area of life, does an intense, short-term high give authority to the confident promise of an improved future? It is seductive, for sure, and you want to believe. And personal unmeasurable belief is key, as always. Or do you reject it based on the historic evidence? Or do you approach it a third way: accepting it with a grain of salt and the uncertain risk of pain, which is a difficult but inevitable part of the journey? Do most football supporters on some level accept it is an abusive and troubled relationship? It's that fire and friction and all those different opinions that are so enlivening. You will invariably face more pain and disappointment, or even mediocrity, than consistent glory and success. But that's ok. At least you are feeling something. A time-worn phrase of football fans is "it's the hope that kills you". And so we arrive back at questions of hope, trust, progress, change, and whatever works for you.

Best of luck to Thomas Frank, the new Tottenham manager.