The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion
The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion |
| Relegation worries? Just relax! Posted: 08 Mar 2013 05:08 PM PST
MARCH 9 — With the title race effectively already decided as Manchester United hold a 12-point lead with 10 games remaining, there is more interest to be found at the bottom of the English Premier League table, where the relegation battle is being closely contested between a number of concerned teams. QPR (20 points), Reading (23) and Aston Villa (24) currently occupy the bottom three, with Wigan (24), Southampton (27), Newcastle (30) and Sunderland (30) also in trouble. It's a similar story in Spain, where Barcelona remain 11 points clear of second-placed Atletico Madrid while the relegation places are being far more closely fought. Although Deportivo La Coruna (16 points), who travel to Barcelona this evening, appear to be doomed, the remaining two places could be filled by any number of clubs. Mallorca (21 points) and Celta Vigo (23) are currently in the drop zone, but Zaragoza (25), Granada (26), Osasuna (28) and Athletic Bilbao (29) are far from safe. I have personal experience of relegation, having worked in the media department at Reading when we went down in 2008; now Reading are in trouble again and will be looking to draw on the lessons of 2008 in an attempt to avoid a similar fate. In that respect, they're fortunate that manager Brian McDermott was part of Steve Coppell's coaching team five years ago; McDermott is an intelligent man and will have his own ideas about where mistakes were made then and how a happier outcome can be achieved this time. With the benefit of hindsight, I'd say the main reason Reading were relegated in 2008 is that the players were unable to escape the burden of pressure they found themselves living with for months on end. To perform at their best, sportsmen need to feel confident and relaxed. And while that kind of positive attitude cannot be artificially manufactured, its production can certainly be hindered by an excess of pressure. During the final few months of that season, Reading's players were unconsciously playing not to lose, rather than playing to win. They were playing with fear, frightened of making mistakes that could prove costly. They cared so much about the outcome of every game, and each moment of every game, that they became overtaken by tension, which is no mental state for anybody to execute any task to their highest capability. That was most evident in the decisive game that ultimately proved more important than any other, a 2-0 home defeat against fellow relegation candidates Fulham a month before the end of the season. Shortly before that game, Fulham had been practically written off, with manager Roy Hodgson — now in charge of England — even close to tears at one press conference as the Cottagers appeared to have accepted their fate. That state of affairs seemed to allow them to cast off the shackles of fear and pressure, and play with the freedom that resulted in them suddenly starting to win. When they travelled to Reading, they were in a positive "nothing to lose" frame of mind; Reading, contrarily, were paralysed by the fear of what would happen if they failed. Perhaps predictably, Reading produced one of their worst performances under Coppell's management and Fulham cantered to a 2-0 win that ultimately allowed them to avoid relegation at Reading's expense. Today, Reading face a similarly crucial fixture at home to Aston Villa, who are currently one point and one place above them. Although many variables will come into play, I believe one of the strongest determining factors in the game will be the element of fear. Which set of players can relax and play to their best of their ability; and which will be overcome by the tension of the occasion. Achieving the necessary positive mindset is an elusive challenge. Somehow, the players need to deny to themselves the importance of the game, relax and treat it as "only a game" — play for the sheer sake of playing, rather than playing to avoid mistakes. The psychology of sport remains an undervalued and understudied area, but this topic is addressed by the British writer Matthew Syed in his fascinating book Bounce. Syed describes his personal failure during the most important moment of his own career as an international table tennis player. Syed, like Reading five years ago, found himself overtaken by fear during the 2000 Olympics in Sydney and suffered from the dreaded phenomenon of "choking." He concluded that he had been thinking too much, trying too hard. It sounds counter-intuitive because you'd assume that sportsmen should try their very hardest in the games that matter the most. But the paradoxical truth is that the more you concentrate about a task that has previously come naturally, the more mistakes you will make. Try it yourself: throw a ball in the air and concentrate really hard on exactly what your arms and fingers are doing as you attempt to catch the ball; focus on the tiniest details of your physical movement; imagine that a million dollars rests on whether or not you catch it. You will find, I am sure, that you drop the ball far more often than if you just plucked it out of the air without thinking. That's what relegation battles do. Professional footballers are professional footballers because they are very good at playing football. That's purely logical. Put more precisely, they possess carefully honed skills that have been developed over many years to the extent that they have become natural. However, in moments of severe stress it's easy to start doubting those abilities, to start thinking about them too much and therefore to invite them to fail. So the lesson, perhaps, for Reading, Aston Villa and all the other relegation candidates, is not to worry too much. It's a game; just play it. That way, the outcome should look after itself. * This is the personal opinion of the columnist. | |
| Posted: 08 Mar 2013 04:38 PM PST MARCH 9 — As I'm writing this, Tottenham Hotspur (Spurs) have just beaten Inter Milan 3-0 in the first leg of the last 16 round of the Europa League and following last weekend's 2-1 win over our traditional local rivals Arsenal we've found ourselves third in the English Premier League (EPL) with a two-point lead over fourth-placed Chelsea and a seven point advantage over Arsenal with 10 games to go now till the end of the EPL season. We're now 12 games unbeaten in the EPL too, which is the longest we've ever gone unbeaten since the EPL started. Gareth Bale is currently on fire with 12 goals in his last 11 games, single-handedly winning us games with breathtaking moments of solo genius and copious articles have been written by football pundits about how irresistible Spurs are right now to neutrals. There's even talk of a chase for second or third place in the EPL instead of our normal target of fourth place in order to secure a place in next season's Champions League. We were more or less in the same position last season, only with an even bigger point advantage over Arsenal, but all those chants of "mind the gap" by some overzealous Spurs fans unfortunately came to bite us in the backside as we slipped up and threw away our lead big time to let Arsenal overtake us into third place and ultimately losing our Champions League spot when Chelsea qualified as defending champions last season. The difference this season though is that we seem to be mentally stronger than last year, less likely to wilt under pressure the way we did in the run-up to the end of the season last year. The Spurs of last year would've probably pressed the panic button when Arsenal tried to throw everything at us the way they did last weekend after Spurs raced to a 2-0 lead against the run of play, but we somehow managed to keep our cool even after Arsenal pulled one goal back and started to apply pressure on us. Holding on to very slim leads and recovering from one or two goals down is something that we look quite capable of doing this year, and more than anyone let me be the first to say that this is an unusual position for Spurs fans to be in. This is not the Spurs that we're used to supporting. The Spurs that we know all these years are never safe, even with a 2-0 lead (remember that 5-2 thrashing by Arsenal?) or a 3-0 lead (Newcastle, Manchester City and probably more that I can't think of now). The Spurs that we all love and know before this will also seem to give up the fight if we find ourselves two or three goals down. So even when we look to have remedied those "endearing" qualities this season, the long-suffering Spurs fan in me still refuses to be that optimistic. Of course I hope we'll finish the season strongly and achieve our target of getting a Champions League spot and advance as far as we can in the Europa League, but we have a far more difficult run-in to the end of the season compared to our rivals. Even last week, when we had to face Lyon in the Europa League, sandwiched in between our away derby game to West Ham and last weekend's home game to Arsenal, the fixture list already looked daunting to me. We passed those tests with flying colours, but now after this home win against Inter Milan we have the in-form Liverpool away at Anfield followed by the second leg away to Inter. And if we do get through to the quarter finals of the Europa League (which seems likely after tonight's result, provided we don't suffer a meltdown next week), that first leg will be sandwiched between a surely difficult away trip to League Cup champions Swansea and a home game against fellow top-4 challengers Everton. Up next after the second leg of the quarter finals is an away trip to Chelsea. Now that is a busy and difficult run of fixtures that the Spurs of yore will no doubt screw up. When you also consider the fact that we actually have a weaker squad this year after selling both Luka Modric and Rafael Van Der Vaart without really replacing them with like for like creative players, it is quite remarkable how far new manager Andre Villas Boas have taken the club forward this year. And we still have only two senior strikers in the squad, which is not ideal for a club trying to compete for a Champions League place and in the Europa league. So it really is squeaky bum time till the end of the season for us Spurs fans, but should we achieve our targets, well what an achievement that would be! * This is the personal opinion of the columnist. |
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