Football never stops. Brian Clough despaired of the exhausting churn, the sense you could never enjoy a win because there was always another game – and that was before European group stages, Covid-afflicted calendars and winter World Cups. And it never stops changing: there are always new ideas or ways to thwart the old ideas. Standing still, as Peter Reid observed, is moving backwards.
That’s why the Hungarian double European Cup-winner Béla Guttmann spoke of the third year as being fatal for a coach. Your players get used to you, so your words lose their impact and minor irritations can become major frustrations. Other teams get used to you and work out strategies to counter you. Familiarity is stagnation is failure. That’s why the best managers, or at least those who aspire to build a dynasty, exist in a state of permanent evolution.
