the goalfood interview: sean o'driscoll - the quiet man

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If you look at the two differing halves of your season can you tell what happened to make things go well?
No. Our performances throughout the season have been really, really consistent – we couldn’t score goals and we were giving away goals, which is how you lose games. We played QPR in the third game of the season and Iain Dowie changed the way he played. We were a brand new team into the Championship and afterwards I said to Iain what did you play 4-5-1 against us? And he said he’d seen us play and he didn’t think he could match our midfield (having a squad with zillions of midfielders and bugger all strikers may also have contributed – London W12 Ed.). That used to happen in League One but it didn’t happen much in the Championship. Most teams played 4-4-2 against us. We gave a goal away in the QPR game because Richie Wellens threw the ball back to a QPR player who had a free kick in his own half. He placed it, next fella whacked it and they scored off that. It might have been crap marking when the ball went in but it’s naive to give the ball back in this league. It meant that Richie was out of position and it gave the opposition an opportunity. We had to tweak those sorts of things.

We had a similar thing at the back end of the season against Preston when one of my centre halves kicked the ball out of play but instead of putting it into row Z, he put it out of play accidentally chipping it to one of their subs who sent it back to the player, the throw was taken quickly, bang, ball in the box, goal.

When we sat down and looked at performances we couldn’t score goals. So we thought we’ll either spend millions on a new striker or nurture the ones we’d got. We couldn’t buy one so we nurtured ours. We took the focus away from scoring goals. We create lots of chances and to create chances you’ve got to pass and move. To pass and move you’ve got to have an understanding of what you’re doing and your role and responsibilities. So although we didn’t have the end product we could say that we were doing the three things that lead up to the end product really well. We did those things right and we told the strikers ‘don’t be afraid to miss’. Then we scored a goal against Forest on Boxing Day. It involved 19 passes and the striker chipped the goalkeeper and from that moment on they believed they were going to score.

Was that the turning point of the season in your view?
The goal certainly was because we’d been passing very well all season but just not scoring. After that instead of going into games hoping we were going to win the players believed they were going to win. You can tell people they can do it till you’re blue in the face but that belief only comes from winning.

We also keep the players on the pitch afterwards. We believe warm down and hydration after a performance is very important. We found that once they’d come off the pitch and got into the changing rooms we’d lost people to various things and it was more difficult. We do that every game unless a steward tells us we’ve got to get off.

You mentioned that you thought yourselves and Swansea were the only teams in the Championship playing a different type of game. What did you mean?
We were in League One trying to do the things that we wanted to do. But people told us we shouldn’t be doing this or that and you’ll never get out of this division playing football and you’ve got to bang the ball forward instead. Once, we were 5-1 up against Lincoln in the Johnsons Paint Trophy and we were booed by our own fans because we kept the ball and passed it around, we had a league game on Saturday and we didn’t want to expend any more energy than we had to. That’s typical. Then Swansea came here and beat us 4-1 and they were tremendous and all our players went f*****g h*** they play football. We took a lot of positives out of that match because we thought everyone’s telling us you can’t play good football to get out of the division but not only can you do it but if you do it properly you can walk the league.

Do you think Swansea deserved more rewards for their style of football this season?
I said to Roberto they drew too many games. Had we drawn some of the ones we’d lost we’d have been much better off. The problem is that the more you pass the ball the more chance you have of losing possession so it’s a dangerous way to play in the English league especially the way our league is organised. We know that the way we pass the ball means that we will lose games. We don’t like it but we have to accept that it’s part and parcel of the way we play. We have to sharpen up on certain things. Our players have to become more tactically aware. They have to know that if teams come here and play 4-5-1 against us and we try to play through their midfield we will walk into their trap.

Birmingham came here and played 4-5-1 and we had a message up on our changing room board which was the last thing the players saw before they went out and it said: DO NOT PLAY THROUGH MIDFIELD. I told them if we bypassed their midfield Birmingham’s game plan was out of the window. But they did play through the middle. I had absolutely no problem with them trying but once they tried and failed they became discouraged so what was the point in doing it in the first place. I didn’t mind that we lost the game but I thought we lost it through being naive. That’s a basic thing and it’s common sense.

And then when things don’t go your way people’s body language changes. A player takes a shot which hits the corner flag and the crowd moan and everyone walks back with their heads down thinking we’re all crap and other players feed off that. As a team we should be saying he took responsibility for that shot, it was a crap shot and he doesn’t need to be told that, but the positive is that he got himself into a position and took the responsibility for a shot. So if everyone supported and praised him then the whole atmosphere changes.

I’ve watched team after team after team this season all behaving the same way. It’s all negative and I think it’s a strange way for sports teams to behave. You can be disappointed but still be positive in the way you do things. So if the ball goes out for a goalkick because your striker’s hit the ball way over the goal, the next step is a goalkick and if we all get back into position and regain possession quickly then we’re off on the attack again and if we all have that mentality you forget about the shot and get on to the next stage of play.

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