He's only been in Office at Hibs for three months but Lee Johnson’s offbeat management style has already singled him out as a bit different.
Whether it’s hiring a sniper to motivate his players to shoot up the table or bringing in the Red Arrows to get them flying, the Easter Road boss will stop at nothing in his pursuit of excellence. In his own words he can look “a bit David Brent” at times. To be clear, the 41-year-old is referring to an app he has developed himself which details and documents his ever-evolving ideas and understanding of the game.
This is what Johnson likens - tongue in cheek - to Brent. But unlike the fictional TV character, he is deadly serious about what he believes can be gained from his ideology. From pitting his wits against tactical masterminds including Pep Guardiola, Jose Mourinho and - his favourite - Marcelo Bielsa - Johnson admits he is a sponge when it comes to picking up ideas on the beautiful game.
He’s “stolen” bits from them all and jokes there’s an “underground black market” for tactical documents in football. But his is unique to what he wants from Hibs. The high-intensity foundation of his game plan worked a treat as Rangers were knocked out their stride in Saturday’s 2-2 draw.
And giving an insight into his principles, Johnson said: "To be a good ball team in possession you've got to win the ball back quickly and know what you're going to do with it.
"I'm not one who wants 60, 70 per cent possession. I want the ability to be able to use our speed in transition, our energy, and we have a lot of young players so that youthful spirit.
"I try to take stuff from everybody. One that stands out for me is Marcelo Bielsa. I've managed against Pep Guardiola, Jose Mourinho, and I've learned super amounts from them but Bielsa was a proper education.
“That was interesting. That meant I had to study what he'd done for a year because it was ridiculous.
"We would normally execute 14, 15 patterns of play per half, but definitely per game, but against his Leeds team, in four games, we didn't execute one. We still had chances but they were long balls over the top so that was interesting.
"You try to draw from all these tacticians, you watch videos, all these little ideas you can build in to your playing style and help the lads accentuate their best qualities.”
That’s where the app comes in. With a little help from a Dyson engineer who just happens to live downstairs from the Hibs boss he hopes the app can also help hoover up fresh talent.
He said: “There's a bit of an underground black market in footballing documents. It's quite interesting because I actually built an app.
"It's an evolving document and I can control who sees it and I can delete things, whereas a PowerPoint gets shared everywhere. So I've got Guardiola, Mourinho, Brendan Rodgers, all their philosophies, their training videos, they're all there.
“It’s effectively my playing philosophy. While I’m not at a club I’ll use that as a CV. What happens now I’m at a club is that everything Lee Johnson comes out of it - it’s a bit David Brent with pictures all over it - and everything Hibs goes in.
“The recruitment video goes on the front rather than my history and there will be clips from every part of our philosophy get put in there. It’s a reference for coaches to talk to players. The best practice for each position - so what does the perfect game for a number 10 look like and here’s you guys actually doing it.
“That then works when you bring in players - for example Jair Tavares had never had a manager, only sporting directors. So I sent him the app showing him exactly how I want him to play and how he fits in, the metrics we looked at to add him to the list.
“Where we see his development, that becomes important especially when players have six or seven options. It becomes a bit of a string to the bow.
“It has been an evolution. A guy who lives below me is a genius. He is an engineer for Dyson and I can literally fire him across the video and he will make it look good.”
Johnson hasn’t hung about in the transfer market this summer. Tavares was one of 12 new signings with scope for more in the coming 10 days. And Johnson said: “Players sign for the club but they also sign for the manager. It’s about building up trust. Does he know me and what I can and can’t do?
“How can we add value to the player? At Bristol we were selling £95million of player. It’s a big effort from everybody as a collective to make big trades like that to allow you to go again and invest in the club.”
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