‘Stoke City signing can make a big difference but I think he has the hardest role’
In Gary Rowett’s latest column for Stoke Sentinel, he talks the international break, key players and the former Stoke player who can be key to their hopes this season.
Now the international break is over, everybody is looking forward to the EFL resuming normal business with the Championship back in action this weekend.
I always found the international break and what you did in it mildly dependent on the start that you’ve had to the season. If you’ve had a tremendous start, it’s easier to be a bit more lenient with the players because you feel like that may be they’ve deserved it as a little bit of a reward in some ways.
I’ve done it before, perhaps not in the first international break because it comes too soon, but when you get to international break three or four, I’ve thrown in rewards based on results where the players would get an extra day off for every game they won. I’ve had it where if there is an extra two or three days off on the table and they can get away somewhere further for long, then you’ll be amazed at how well organised and how motivated a team can be.
Time and money are the usual key motivators for players as well as achievements, but the first international break is a strange one because you’re coming off the back of the transfer window.
When the window shuts you play your last game and this season the first break has come after just four games. You don’t need to give players too much of a rest but there’s always that feeling as a manager that if you can just have three days away from the group with your family, you can maybe use that time for a little bit of a mental reset, but also to review that start of the season and the window.
Sometimes it’s hard to review it objectively when you’re at work in an office with people knocking on your door all the time so I think that’s the first thing that most managers will do. I would normally give the players Sunday, Monday and Tuesday off and then we’d be in the rest of the week before they would usually have the weekend off too. When it comes to fitness, you start to decondition after about four days so you can at least give them three.
