Stephen Rands: Is it time to stop ‘dumbing down’ analysis?

Calling Still’s post-match analysis “passionate, intelligent, and full of clarity”, Rands continued on LinkedIn: “Every time I see these moments praised, I come back to the same question: If the game is demanding longer periods of focus – with ball-in-play time increasing due to broadcasters and rule changes – why are we obsessed with making meetings shorter?

“Everyone, including myself, has been chasing ‘quick and concise’. But should we be?

“Modern players are more academically minded than ever. Many have grown up with analysis embedded in their development. They’re not afraid of depth – in fact, they expect it.

“Maybe it’s time we stop dumbing it down and start asking: ‘How do we stretch attention spans, not shrink them? How do we engage players for 90 minutes – not just 90 seconds?'”

Still told Sky Sports that the video of reminders he shows his players at the team hotel before leaving for a match lasts for about seven minutes.

Rands added: “Most of the meetings I lead rarely go beyond 12 minutes. Clarity and timing are key. That said, it’s interesting that some of the most decorated coaches I’ve worked alongside don’t always chase ‘short’. They embrace depth – and many of the elite players I’ve been fortunate to work with respond well to that too.

“It’s not always about length. It’s about value.”

Jose Mourinho’s former Assistant Rui Faria, who won league titles in Portugal, England, Italy and Spain, has previously spoken to TGG about the importance of training focus and concentration. 

“Intensity is usually a word associated with fitness, but it needs to be understood as a mental intensity, as intensity of concentration,” Faria told Episode #43 of the TGG Podcast.

“When you are preparing sessions of one-and-a-half hours, you want to demand concentration. Why? Because you are passing information and ideas.

“Concentration is something you train. If you are not used to reading, you take a book and read two or three pages and when you go to the fourth or fifth page you don’t remember any more. Why? Because your level of concentration is not high.

“But if you do it every day, you arrive to a moment where you read 20 pages and still are OK to remember everything. This works the same way if you are training and teaching and passing information to players. If you demand intensity of concentration, that will be related to everything.

“In an important session you need to demand maximum concentration and that will bring maximum performance from the players. One of the secrets to success is the way you work mentally with players: the confidence you give, the motivation. Playing well, in my opinion, is a state of mind.”

Rands, who worked for Manchester City for seven years, going on to become their Head of Analysis, added: “In elite environments, where pitch time is limited and physical demands are sky-high, the meeting room becomes a training space in its own right, not to replicate the pitch, but to prepare for it.

“I’ve seen players switch off in meetings – but I’ve also seen them switch on when the messaging is clear, purposeful, and connected to what they’re about to face. It’s not about replicating the game; it’s about equipping them for it, and sometimes that means training the brain as much as the body.”

Still says part of motivating players is make them believe that what they are being told to do “is for their own interests”.

The Englishman said: “You make it a collective unit by saying [to individuals]: ‘he’s doing this for you, so you’ve got to do this for him and if we all do that together, then we’ve got a fair chance of doing something interesting at the end of it’.”