Malky Mackay is truly one of a new breed of football managers in Britain. The way he has handled himself at Cardiff City may very well indicate he is approaching the top of that particular pyramid. When Arsene Wenger arrived at Arsenal in 1996 he ushered in a new era of coaching, training and attention to detail. His teams played attractive, modern football and he boasted players like Denis Berkamp, Thierry Henry, Robert Pires and Cesc Fabregas. Whatever you might think of the last eight trophyless years, the innovation he brought to the EPL has filtered down and improved just about everything about British football and coaching.
It didn’t change overnight and it also took foreign coaches like Mourhino at Chelsea and Benitez at Liverpool to add their style and expertise to the mix. Sir Alex Ferguson has successfully used foreign coaches like Dutchman Rene Meulenstein, first team coach since 2008 and of course Portuguese tactician Carlos Queiroz before him. The foreign coaches can be credited with bringing a more professional and scientific approach to the training and development of players. There has been a steady process of re-evaluation and learning both inside the Football Association and for the EPL clubs. The League Manager’s Association (LMA) has benefited greatly from the influx of foreign coaches.
Although 100% British in both playing and managerial career, David Moyes at Everton was one of the first old school types to understand and introduce the more focused, detail oriented demands of the modern game. It has taken a football generation of perhaps 10-15 years for players to come through into the coaching ranks with the practical experience and education needed and learned during this transition time. One of those is Malky Mackay.
The days of players heading off to the pub after a game or eating whatever they wanted for lunch is over. Players are paid a lot of money to be professional and to look after their bodies. It is now a requirement of the modern game not a suggestion. Just ask former Cardiff City and Welsh International Darcy Blake. When a manager or club sets those kind of standards you have to listen and learn. Mackay puts such great stock in fitness that any player who refuses, or cannot put into the training, recovery and physical well-being the time and effort needed, will not have a future at the club.
Mackay is a student of the game and also of the best practices from all sports. On his office wall you can see the ‘Pyramid of Success’ established by famed US basketball coach John Wooden. Mackay is an intelligent former center-half. That should make him a unique individual in itself, no disrespect to other former Cardiff greats like Don Murray or Phil Dwyer! Working in a bank in his early days as a footballer while playing for amateur team Queens Park, he learned valuable life lessons. His father is a former manager of Queens Park and young Malky had an opportunity to observe from first hand.
Winning in any league consists of many things. But success is not just winning it’s building and retaining a level of consistent development. For Cardiff City to win the Championship this year and be relegated next year would not be success. Promotion has to be followed by retaining that Premiership place and not just for one year but for ever.
The sum total of many parts are now required to do this. Back in the days when Jimmy Scoular managed the club he was a control freak. He took training, even played in training, scouted opponents and potential players, made the signings and negotiated with them, he was Cardiff City. He had his trusted sidekick Lew Clayton helping him as a physio and trainer. That means Clayton ran the players and gave them fitness work and also massaged their aching legs between games. Harry Parsons was the kit man. That was the staff.
Today the sports science department at Cardiff City boasts Richard Collinge as head, Nilton Terroso and physiotherapists Sean Connolly and Adam Rattenberry. Ian Lanning is the kit and equipment manager but has a far greater range of tasks than old Harry had, although I’m not sure he has to make the tea which was one of Harry’s primary duties. The fitness equipment available to the players at their Vale training base is night and day different compared to the ‘good old days’ under the Grandstand at Ninian Park. The current crop of players eat lunch at the club to make sure they are getting the proper food at the proper times. But perhaps the biggest difference over recent years has been the attention to recovery and prehabilitation. While rehabilitation looks after the injured player, proper attention to prehabilitation, preactivation and preparedness for training and games is equally as vital in limiting injury and long-term damage to what are after all, expensive athletes.
Performance analysis is another vital area of attention in the modern game. Simply watching the video of the last game to determine your view or confirm your suspicion that the center-back was caught napping on the corner-kick is long gone. Variant camera angles and the quality of the filming leaves little room for doubt. Computer analysis software tags every movement, every pass, dribble, shot, header, tackle and save, not to mention the all-important goals. Each player has access to his own performance statistics and highlight film. Team tactics and team shape can be easily monitored as well as defensive shape, attacking shape, counter-attacks and possession. Patterns of play can be viewed, evaluated and improved. Opposition scouting takes on a whole new level of importance. The unprepared teams who fail to take full advantage of modern technology and opportunity, will fail. Enda Barron, Martin Hodge and Graham Younger all do their part and are as important as the training ground coaches like David Kerslake and Joe McBride.
It is no coincidence that in these two areas of the modern game, Malky Mackay is the modern manager. Sports Science, Performance Analysis and training ground coaching are invariably interconnected. Each of these departments are equally important in the modern game. Yet the biggest and most important department of all is without doubt the recruiting of players. Whether it is Fraizer Campbell or Ben Nugent each pipeline, be it from the Academy or from the Premier League requires impeccable focus and vision. Mark Stow is Cardiff City’s Chief Scout. Stow travels all of Europe looking at players and following up leads. Graham Younger as the recruitment analyst helps with this as well.
However good the other departments are, if you don’t have the players to succeed with you cannot do what you are hoping to do, be that win promotion or consolidate in the Premier League. Your team can only be as good as the players you sign. If everything is right then the chances of success are high. Less than adequate performance in any area of the club and the players may not be able to perform to their best. It’s a thin line between success and failure, ask Dave Jones about that. It is Malky Mackay’s job to make sure all of these integral parts of the club are functioning at the highest level. Who can say he isn’t doing that? The modern manager is more a CEO than a dressing room motivator.
Where in the old days the manager was the club, win lose or draw, today in the modern game he can’t be. Resounding, motivational speeches in the dressing room are a small part of the puzzle when one time it seemed like the anser to all problems. Managers still get fired for poor team performances just as regularly as before but the component parts that bring about that firing are far more complex than ever. A quick look at the manager changes in the Championship will reveal the firings haven’t changed, just the cause. Yet managers need more time now than ever before to get familiar with a club and to construct a new culture or make long-term changes. A winning season should no longer be seen as a successful one. Success is more than a season, more than a manager. Success is a framework and a team at work off the field as well as on it. In Malky Mackay we have a modern manager who knows this and is showing by his actions just what it takes to succeed. For fans it will always be about the last game but for manager’s it shouldn’t be.
How much credit the current Cardiff City ownership gets for hiring Mackay is open to debate. It seems almost surreal to believe they were going to make Alan Shearer the replacement for Dave Jones. Maybe they were, maybe they weren’t, who knows? Everyone is entitled to making a mistake or two. Luckily or not, Vincent Tan got Malky Mackay. Full credit to the Malaysian businessman for backing his man in the transfer market. Talking about mistakes as mistakes go, was Mackay truly prepared to buy David Goodwillie? How poor does that potential signing appear when you look back at it now? For all of Mackay’s group ethic and good character stories here’s one that doesn’t fit the mold. Maybe Mackay got lucky when the Scot chose Blackburn Rovers. Let’s hope he doesn’t come back to haunt us anytime soon.
The arrival of the modern manager crept in upon us. Old diehards like Neil Warnock are slowly disappearing. The new breed of manager is much more intelligent, articulate and understanding of the progression of the game in all its components and structure. Part of Sir Alex’s good fortune has been his ability to adapt and to learn from overseas. There is a sole Welshman in the EPL who has done the same. Despite what anyone thinks of Stoke’s style of play, Tony Pulis is a modern-day manager. He has brought success to the Potteries developing as a manager as he did so.
As an anecdote to this article I remember something that stood out for me as a stark contrast dividing the modern game from the old world of football. During John Toshack’s time in charge of Wales he was harshly criticised by current football pundit Robbie Savage. In 2005, Savage slammed Toshack’s training methods after insisting his own exclusion from the Wales squad was down to a personality clash. ‘We had fried bananas to start the meals which no-one’s ever heard of. There were no carbohydrates…we were all sneaking out to the petrol station to buy chocolate because we were starving”. Savage also added ‘He’s (Toshack) living in the dark ages with his food and his training methods”. Savage was eating plantains not bananas. Plantains are one of the very best of nutritional sources for athletes. It is more vegetable than fruit. I won’t go into the value of the plantain here but enough to say that Robbie was certainly uneducated on the matter. Savage’s other dissatisfaction with the training methods were down to the lack of action on the training ground because players were allowed to rest and recover after their weekend club games instead of kicking lumps out of one another. I’m not surprised Savage has gone into pseudo-journalism rather than coaching.
In 2005 while Robbie Savage was disrupting the Welsh team for his own ends, center-half Malky Mackay was to begin the season that would lead to his third successful promotion from the Championship to the Premier League. At Watford he would also take his first steps into coaching and in 2008 took on the role of caretaker manager after the firing of Aidy Boothroyd. He was eventually given the job on a permanent basis, learning the managerial ropes at Vicarage Road before accepting the position of manager at Cardiff City. Today’s modern manager had been learning and developing all the while as his playing career was coming to an end. His early days in the real world of banking and the guidance of his father in Scotland were preparing his path even years ahead of this.
It’s to Cardiff City’s delight and good fortune that a modern-day manager of Mackay’s now obvious pedigree decided that Vincent Tan’s offer was the right one for him. Blue or red, Bluebird or Dragon red, Mackay knows the times have moved on and with them he has sailed, his flag tied to the Cardiff City mainsail, his destination, success. Let’s hope these last 15 games prove him to be the man for the age.