Manchester City - Mentally Tough!

In winning their 1^st English Premier League title this year, Manchester City will forever be remembered for the dramatic way in which they finally clinched the title. By scoring 2 injury time goals to beat QPR 3-2, and clutch the title back from the grasp of Manchester United, many commentators have described the feat as winning in a style we are more used to seeing from United. To be successful, and to win in this manner, a team needs many mental attributes. A Premier League title race will be won only by the most resilient of teams. With this in mind, I’ve decided to take a look behind the headlines and attempt to interpret some of the statistics – to find out exactly what they tell us about the psychology of this Manchester City team.

Recently, the phrase “Mental Toughness” has entered the sporting vocabulary. Individuals or teams who achieve, in spite of hardships or extreme pressures, exhibit many traits which are characteristic of this idea of mental toughness. In a review of the scientific research on Mental toughness, Crust (2007) suggests it most often associated with a number of key factors:

• An unshakable self-belief
• Ability to rebound after failures
• Persistence or refusal to quit
• Staying focused
• Coping with adversity and pressure

I’m going to briefly look at each of these factors in turn for this Manchester City side.

An unshakable Self-belief. As the drama unfolded during last Sunday’s epic finale to the league season, many people, particularly Man City supporters felt we were witnessing a “typical City” performance. Get to the brink of success, only to throw it away. However, in the aftermath of their victory, players and officials alike have stressed – this is a new Man City, with a different mind-set and greater ambitions. So where did this new-found self-belief come from? For a club who have never won the Premier League title before – perhaps it is surprising that they have developed a trait normally associated with successful teams. Many wondered if United’s experience of “being down the road” before would be the telling difference between the sides. However, with 6 wins in their final 6 games, it was City who held their nerve best, while United showed their frailties with 2 defeats and 1 draw in their last 6. So, the question to ask is – where did City get their title winning belief from.

To attempt to answer this question, I find it interesting to look at some of the players City purchased over the last 2 seasons. Before the start of the 2011 season, in came World Cup winner, David Silva, and La Liga winner Yaya Toure. While Silva proved a hugely influential player all season, the importance of Toure over the closing stages of this season was particularly evident. However, it was City’s transfer policy before the start of this season which may have had a more telling influence. While the expensive signings continued with Sergio Aguero and Samir Nasri, to win an English Premier League title, City also invested in players with that winning experience. In came Gael Clichy, a previous winner with Arsenal, and Owen Hargreaves - a surprise for most observers at the time - but a Man Utd squad member for 3 EPL titles and one Champions League.  Add to that, Kolo Toure (once winner with Arsenal) and Carlos Tevez (twice winner with Man Utd – oh, and I don’t think it was a coincidence that he returned for City’s final 10 games of the season!) and City had enough players in their squad with the “know how” and self-belief to guide and direct those a little less accustomed to crossing the winning line.

Ability to rebound after failures. Individuals, or teams who tend to be successful do not focus on past mistakes or errors.  Their unshakable self-belief does not allow them to get too down or negative about failures. Instead, successful individuals use these situations as learning experiences, something from which they can improve and find motivation to drive them on further. This is a trait which has clearly evolved in this Manchester City team. Simple evidence of this comes from their EPL record this season. They never lost consecutive games and – perhaps more significantly – every defeat was followed by a win. Their worst run came between March 24th and April 8th, when 2 draws and a defeat to Arsenal saw them fall 8 points behind Man Utd. However, this blip was followed by a run of 6 wins in their final 6 games to reclaim top spot. 

Persistence or refusal to quit. While never giving up in the title race itself, this trait was most evident in the City players on the final day of the season. However, the ability of this side to score late goals has not been an unusual occurrence for City this season. Prior to last Sunday, they had already scored 14 of their 90 EPL goals within the last 5 minutes of games (see here) – more goals scored than in any other 5 minute period. During the same 5 minute period, Man Utd scored only 8 PL goals this season (Whats that you say about the title winning goal difference??). The importance of this cannot be understated. A quick look at the opposite end of the table shows how relegated Blackburn had the worst record within the last 10 minutes of games, scoring 5, while conceding 18! Those teams who tend to be successful develop a never say die attitude, and continue to the very end, always confident in their belief that they will succeed, no matter what the situation is. This belief is further reinforced by performing it on a regular basis! Man City captain, Vincent Kompany alluded to this in his post-match interview after beating QPR – affirming that he always believed City would score to win the game.

A second statistic is also interesting to study here – how did both Manchester clubs teams react to falling behind in games. Clearly, going behind in a game asks serious questions of a team. How motivated are they to react? Can they maintain discipline and focus and do what is necessary to rescue something from the game? During the season, Man City won 3 games, and drew another 2 games from losing positions (gaining 11 points). In contrast, Man Utd never won a game after going behind, while getting a draw three times from a losing position (gaining 3 points). Clearly, Man City proved their determination to rescue points from losing positions – a belief finally, and memorably reaffirmed against QPR.

Staying focused. Perhaps to emphasise Manchester City’s focus, it is interesting to consider Man United’s results over the closing games of the season. After a 0-1 defeat to Arsenal on Sunday, April 8^th, Roberto Mancini conceded that the title race was over. On the same day, Man Utd beat  QPR 2-0 to go 8 points clear. It was United’s 8^th win in a row, and their 5^th consecutive clean sheet. While Mancini may have felt the title was lost - with 6 games to go there was still plenty of games left for either side to win. Whether Mancini’s concession caused the United players to lose focus or not is, of course, debatable. However, United lost their very next game (0-1 to Wigan) and while beating Aston Villa 4-0, lost the remainder of their 8 point margin with a 4-4 draw against Everton (despite leading 4-2) and a 0-1 defeat at Man City. City, in contrast, won their final 6 games after the Arsenal defeat. In the aftermath of their losing campaign, United manager Alex Ferguson suggested that the pain of losing in such a manner would prove a valuable learning experience for his younger players.

An additional factor important to consider here is the Carlos Tevez affair, and how it was handled by Roberto Mancini. One important leadership role within teams is to maintain the task-focus of group members. What this means in a team sport situation is that individuals remain focused on the goals of the team, sometimes supressing their own individual desires. This may include the desire to always start a game or play every minute, for example. What many might forget is that prior to Carlos Tevez's refusal to come on as a substitute, Edin Dzeko also complained to his manager very publicly after he was replaced by Nigel de Jong. Losing task-focus can be detrimental to a team, and this was clearly a time when some player's egos were in danger of damaging this focus. By deaing with Tevez in the harsh manner he did, I believe Mancini effectively set strong boundries for the players concerning what was acceptable, and re-established the task-focus of the group where individual needs did not come above team goals. The effective tactical usage of the same substitution - Nigel de Jong for an attacking player (Samir Nasri and Carlos Tevez himself) during critical stages in some of the final games of the season emphasise this point. Of course, whether this can now be maintained in a team which has achieved one of their greatest goals remains to be seen. I believe the coming months will see some significant movement in terms of "ego driven" players - but that is something to be written about on another day. Watch this space...

Coping with adversity and pressure. While the more experienced players in the Man City squad may have had a huge contribution to make in helping their team-mates cross the winning post, manager Roberto Mancini has certainly proved his worth to City over this season also. Three-time winner of the Italy’s Serie A title as a manager, Mancini certainly knew what it takes to win a league title. Repeatedly over the closing stages he helped his players cope with the pressure of the title race by iterating that Manchester United were still the title favourites. Even with just 2 games to go, and with everyone believing Man City had the title within their grasp, Mancini still insisted that United had two “easy” closing fixtures, while City’s games were more difficult! While many teams might have crumbled under the pressure – Mancini’s skilful management of both his squad, and the media hype surrounding their title bid certainly proved significant. In their time of greatest adversity - needing to win their final game from an impossible position, the City players remained calm, and persisted with their gameplan. They did not panic, they did not resort to a "hit and hope" mentality, but instead maintained their focus and self-belief. And while it is EXTREMELY difficult to say as a Manchester United supporter - this time, for proving their mental toughness, they fully deserved their title!