by Liam Manning is 60 days into his mission to bring Premier League football to a south-west region deprived of the top tier for 44 years.
A whirlwind of back-to-back fixtures and recovery time in the mid-winter championship has allowed just nine full training sessions for the Bristol City head coach. However, a smattering of non-football comments raised by his players during a candid analysis this week assured the respected 38-year-old that the right philosophies are already hitting the mark.
“We were talking this morning about what we learned in December and the important things we learned,” says Manning, inviting Telegraph Sport into his office after a team summit at the club’s training base in rural Failand, North Somerset.
The players spoke of an encouraging month of three wins, two losses and two draws, and then an immensely frustrating recent defeat against Millwall. But in a frank exchange of views on bravery and priorities, players volunteered conversations they had with families going through real-life turbulence at Children’s Hospice South West.
“We spent some time with a lot of families and invited one of the guys, who unfortunately doesn’t have much time left, to spend some time with us,” Manning explained. “It really caught my attention that they raised this. We’re talking about football, about winning games, about losing games, and that was something that affected quite a few of them. “When there is grief in the family, the perspective is broader.”
Manning speaks from experience, having lost his own father at age 11. “I think that created a little bit of a fire in my stomach,” she says. “That was always my way of channeling it into football. And that has always been there.
“In football we are lucky. We are passionate, we are obsessive. Sometimes we are quite selfish about how we have to be in the industry. Then getting out of that bubble and having a broader perspective helps you when you come back in.”
For those who don’t know him, Manning’s career appears to be ahead of schedule. In November, after the relatively popular Nigel Pearson was sacked, few City fans had heard that the man had been snapped up from Oxford United, then flying high in League One. City’s delightful game against West Ham in the FA Cup on Sunday is another reminder of the rapid rise of Manning, who coached the Hammers Under-23s just four years ago.
However, childhood pain, career setbacks and real-world work have given Manning a unique route to emerge as one of England’s most promising under-40 coaches. “Every challenge, every setback, you have to take one or two paths,” he said. he said, having been released by Ipswich as a tough-tackling midfielder, aged 21. “Either you fight or you flee.”
“None of this is wasted if the attitude is focused on money”
For much of his 20s, every free hour was spent working at a school, playing part-time and then gaining various coaching qualifications. “I didn’t succeed as a player because I wasn’t good enough,” she admits. “But they offered me the job at the Ipswich academy because of the values I had as a person and the behaviors I showed as a youth team player.
“None of this is wasted if the attitude is focused on money. I worked as hard as I could constantly. I was really open to learning. He was completely committed to everything he did. “If I hadn’t shown that behavior, I don’t think they would have given me the opportunity to go train at the academy.”
Manning graduated from the Premier League Elite Coaching Accreditation Program and said he loved “cross-learning” with other sectors. She met with Google, Saatchi and Saatchi and the Lawn Tennis Association. “I also like the military: the processes, how they work, the communication, the clarity and the chain of command,” she said.
The openness to sharing ideas was music to the ears of City owner Steve Lansdown, the Bristol financial services billionaire who also has control of the Bristol Bears and Bristol Flyers rugby teams. Manning speaks regularly to Lansdown’s son Jon, who is now City chairman, and will be in the stands for games later this month when the schedule is “more lenient”.
There is an atmosphere of quiet confidence at City, despite a mixed reaction among fans to Pearson’s departure in the autumn. The club has significantly cut the wage bill since former chief executive Richard Gould admitted to Telegraph Sport that they had come dangerously close to breaching spending rules due to overspending under previous regimes. The sheer profits of a talent production factory, run by former player and manager Brian Tinnion, have helped enormously, most recently with the £25m sale of Alex Scott to Bournemouth.
As he settles into Ashton Gate, a stadium now fit to grace the premiership, Manning sees plenty of potential. “In addition to the academy, what matters is the profile of the team,” he says. “Look at someone who hasn’t been here like [midfielder] Jason Knight: the volume of games he has and his age [22].
“It’s almost where we want to go, but the way we want to do it and the strategy of how to get there, and that is young, moldable and coachable players, with the right balance of experience. Having that clarity of what the club is and how we want to get there was a great attraction.”
That said, he “expects” the club to have more business to do in the January transfer window. “We are working very hard to expand it, but sometimes these things can be out of our reach.”
Whoever City hires, Manning, one of many coaches who favor a mid-season break for his players, will keep a focus on the culture at the club, which he says needs to be talked about. “before we can move on to tactics.”
“When you talk about the game and the flow of it, it’s all about ‘can you focus for 95/100 minutes,'” he says.
The most obvious example of a model mentality is Declan Rice, whom Manning coached for several years as he made the step up to the first team at West Ham, although he is modest about his role with the England midfielder.
“A coach once told me ‘they’re all diamonds, we just polish them a little bit along the way,’” he explained. “Ultimately, it all depends on the player.”
However, he said Arsenal’s record £105m signing had levels of resilience that he now preaches to his City team. “We deal with challenges and setbacks in different ways and I think that’s definitely an issue that we’re going to face even more in the current situation in the world.”
Looking at his broader perspective, Manning says one of his biggest concerns is a “sense of entitlement” in society. He stays away from social media and instead relies on Chris Hogg, his candid assistant who accompanies him everywhere, to give him honest reviews and his wife Fran to put him up. in his place. With such adult prospects, this face of the future is excited to go toe-to-toe with the 60-year-old Moyes. “He’s a fantastic role model for someone like me,” adds Manning.
