What does a manager do on their first day at a new club? -

Nerves, expectations, first impressions and being yourself — so long as it is who they hoped for.

Day one in any job comes with nervous energy. When it comes to football managers, it comes with so much more.

The coming hours will see you thrust in front of a group of people setting you an immediate challenge; it could make or break your story.

Russell Martin embarked on his first day at the helm with Southampton last week, Ange Postecoglou took charge at Tottenham a few days ago, and Daniel Farke will do likewise, after being unveiled as Leeds United manager yesterday evening.

So what does your first day as manager at your new club look like; where future success is the only focus and your eventual sacking the most likely outcome?

All you hope is for it to go better than Leroy Rosenior’s 11-minute reign at Torquay United, whose unveiling press conference was immediately followed by chairman Mike Bateson selling the club and the new owners relieving Rosenior of his duties.

Let The Athletic take you through day one in the life of a manager…

So much will have been discussed by the time you are offered and accepted the job. The homework begins once you are preparing for your interviews and carries on to day one.

Your new bosses will expect you to know the squad, the key figures above you and the staff. You will have discussed potential signings and backroom team: those inherited and who you want to bring in.

“That first day is when you should be executing the plan you had when you knew you’d get the job,” says Micky Mellon, who has won promotions with Tranmere Rovers and managed Fleetwood Town, Shrewsbury Town and Dundee United. “It’s seeing people for the first time, getting aware of the environment you’ll work in, finding out who everybody is and what their job is about.”

Mellon, 51, has managed four clubs, including Tranmere twice (Photo: Steve Welsh/PA Images via Getty Images)

Timing has a role. Clubs are keen to make an appointment before players return from the summer break so day one for the boss is not amid the usually manic return to pre-season. The new manager then gets more time to speak to the club’s executives. But even if the players are back, that executive meeting will happen and is expected to deliver significant detail on the manager’s plans for the coming weeks, down to what will happen each day.

High detail is expected of a younger, high-potential appointment such as Notts County’s Luke Williams. Those with more significant past experience are more likely to back their past record by looking around and assessing their new surroundings.

Either way, day one is unlikely to be totally alien. “Part of your job is to make sure people are where they need to be,” former England Under-21 and Watford manager Aidy Boothroyd says.

“You’ve got to do a certain amount of looking around and hopefully before it’s been announced, you can get around the club and get a feel for the place. Initially, I keep out of the way and just have a little look at the cars; see who’s going to park in the head coach’s space. Somebody always does that.”

As well as detailed planning, you need to be aware of the expectations to make an immediate impact. Those who appointed you will be keen to feel they have made the right choice.

Adrian Bevington, former Club England managing director at the FA and executive at Middlesbrough, tells The Athletic: “On day one, simplistically, the coach wants to give a bounce and the staff need a bounce. You want the end of it to be a really uplifting experience for everybody. You want the canteen buzzing and as many people at the training ground to say they’ve met the new coach. As a senior executive around that environment, you make sure that happens.

“Kit managers, masseurs, medical staff; you want them immediately engaged and impressed because they will be the people spending significant time around the players. You want the players to be told this new manager is impressive and they’re going to like them.

“The great managers are very good at remembering people’s names. A lot of people at football clubs work excessive hours because it’s vocational. If they then feel their family is respected by the senior people, it goes a long way. I remember when Sven-Goran Eriksson took over England, one of the first things he said at the first dinner we had was he wanted to know more about the masseurs and kit staff, because to him they were so important. It was where players congregated and that environment had to be a positive one.”

Eriksson, the former England and Leicester manager (Photo: Michael Regan/Getty Images)

Let’s assume you have successfully arrived. You have already done better than David Moyes, who got lost on the way to Everton’s training ground when he started work in 2002. When he did make it, he was immediately faced with an angry David Ginola and a tearful Paul Gascoigne.

“Gazza had arranged a transfer to Burnley, who were playing my old club Preston that weekend,” Moyes told the Sunday Times 10 years later. “I said he’d have to wait. He came into my office, crying his eyes out. It was strange, first day at work, and the guy you’ve admired for years is in front of you in tears. He went the next week and we ended up getting on really well.”

Having been met by a senior executive, who leads the initial greetings before eventually leaving you with someone else, the day is almost exclusively about introductions and meetings. Walking the training ground corridors and informal contact is important, like popping in on the academy director and coaches, around departmental meetings. One with their personal assistant and club secretary, who may be the same person at smaller clubs. It is a pivotal relationship. Another is with the medical staff to go through fitness and conditioning considerations, training loads and practices. Analysts and the recruitment team may well follow, potentially alongside a sporting director equivalent but especially the head of recruitment.

Next are arguably the two most important groups: the backroom staff and players. But do you speak to them all together or separately?

One coach, employed in English football and who has worked for EFL and Premier League clubs — and who asked to speak with anonymity to avoid compromising his position — said: “Before you started doing anything else, you needed the opportunity to speak to everyone — players and staff — in a group because the first thing you need when you’re getting started is for people to understand what you’re about: what’s the plan, what’s your philosophy, how is it going to work?

“They need to hear your voice and to hear you speak. You’d never go into masses of detail, not there and then. In some ways, it’s better to keep that opening conversation quite short so that people don’t feel overwhelmed. They don’t want a long spiel. It can be quite basic but it has to be direct as well, so people start to get the message straight away. You speak to people individually too but again, that can’t all happen at once. So you target the captain and maybe a handful of experienced lads. It gives you a feel for what they’re thinking.”

Former Hull City and Southend United manager Phil Brown would speak to the backroom staff first. “They are as important on that opening day as what the players will be on a matchday,” he says.

This point in the day can be the trickiest if days are numbered for inherited backroom members. “When you go in, you know who you want as part of your team,” says Boothroyd. “With the people already there, you say to them: this is the way football is, I’d like my people with me and I’m sure the club will look after you.

“You just don’t want any surprises. It’s back to the parking spaces. If there are two cars for the same space then you’ve just got to be straight with people. There are difficult conversations needed and it can be upsetting. You’ve soon got to realise people prefer their own people sometimes, deal with it and move on. Honesty has to be the best policy.”

Just a few seasons ago, one manager took over at an EFL club and inherited some of their predecessor’s analysts, who scouted their new boss’ first opponents and fed back how direct their play was. The new manager built a game plan to counter that. When the match arrived and the opposition began 90 minutes of patient passing build-up, often taking 25 passes before crossing the halfway line, the new manager felt he had been on the end of a stitch-up.

“When I went into Preston, we had lots of people jumping through hoops on the first day,” adds Brown. “But I don’t want to see that. I want to see people do their jobs to the best of their ability from day one, right the way through. Don’t be anything better on day one and then bring dross for the rest of the time. If they set the standard on the first day, I need that maintained.”

Now the staff are sorted, your attention switches to your players.

Brian Clough’s first day as Leeds manager in 1974 saw him fly back to Majorca to complete his family holiday. When day one with the players did eventually arrive, he famously called them a bunch of dirty cheats. Clough’s time at Elland Road proved a disaster and ended after 44 days.

“You’ve got three target groups to aim for: senior players who you need onside, players out of favour, and players you rate but are outside the first team,” Brown says. “Everybody’s a little excited. People say within the first 15 seconds of meeting someone, you make your mind up. It’s probably the first 15 minutes of that first team meeting where you get a vibe, stare and look. You tell everybody it’s a clean slate but sometimes you walk straight into a game and you can’t say that.

“Some managers sit in the stand and watch the first game but that can be a sign the manager has bottled it instead of saying, ‘I’m in the building, judge me from this moment.”

Brown has managed seven clubs (Photo: Jacques Feeney/Getty Images)

A manager will have often spoken to the squad’s senior professionals directly. Now, addressing the group as one, the formula is standard: introduce yourself, talk about the structure of training sessions, your style of play and how you handle yourself, what you expect from the players and what they can expect from your staff.

“Some like lots of talking, some don’t and just go out on the training field and go for it. Some like a lot of analysis, others don’t,” former Wolves, West Ham and England winger Matt Jarvis says.

“At Wolves, we’d just been relegated and Stale Solbakken took over. He pulled his first meeting, said the usual things, then ended by saying his door is always open if anyone wanted a chat. After that meeting, there were about 14 lads lined up outside his office. I felt sorry for him.”

“If you make the meetings individual, you make it personal,” says Brown. “It has to be about the team. The reason I’ve got the job is because you’ve all gone your own way. So you have to bind the team spirit.”

One former Premier League player-turned-manager, having taken a job in a much lower league, was standing in his new club’s canteen addressing his players for the time. All that registered with them was the shaking cup and the telltale sign of nerves.

“They’re parked in their chair just thinking, ‘What have you got for me, then?’” says Boothroyd. “There is that test. Wherever you’ve come in from, your credentials start on day one. You might have been a good coach somewhere else; now can you do it with us?

“My first memory in management is when I got the Watford job in 2005. I was standing in front of a group with Sean Dyche, Neil Cox, Neal Ardley, Gavin Mahon. There were four players older than me. Straight away you’re thinking, ‘I’m on the back foot here’.

“You’ve got to earn credibility and you only get it from communicating effectively and getting your priorities right: what you want them to do and what you can do for them. There has to be an element of honesty and being authentic. No bullshit. Then, the sooner you can get out on the grass with the players, the better. The sooner the games come, the better.”

“You’re making a first impression but the important thing is you don’t rush anything,” adds Mellon. “You can’t build a rapport with your players on the first day. It takes time. But it is the first day of building that; of getting something started. You want to get it off to a good start.”

Here is where pre-season helps, when you have a few weeks to chat with individual players and there is less pressure to cram in the tactical details.

“If they’re not much of a talker before you go outside, you’re expecting them to do a lot more of it on the training pitch,” says Jarvis. “It’s unique. If someone has that aura, players immediately know they have to listen. But if someone is more softly spoken, trying to be more friendly, then you wait to see what happens on the training pitch. That authority is one thing you take from that first meeting. Some of the ones I’ve had who spoke more softly, they’ve been really good one-on-one coaches.

“Mick McCarthy at Wolves was big and loud. He had that presence. Then Terry Connor (his assistant) was able to help you one to one. They were a really good combination.”

One area where your preparation may only get you so far is language. Any new manager will likely receive a squad of different cultures and nationalities.

Boothroyd and Brown have managed in the Indian Super League in recent years, at Jamshedpur and Hyderabad respectively.

“I went in with eight games to go. They were struggling, devoid of confidence, and you’ve got to instil that from minute one. It’s hard when you’re walking into a changing room with 18 Indian-speaking lads and seven foreigners, where maybe two can speak English fluently,” says Brown.

“I’ve always believed body language is a big one, where everybody in the world can see whether you mean what you’re saying. I sold myself on the Indian boys by walking in with a few Hindi words. Buzzwords for me: honesty, hard work and integrity. When I announced those the Indian boys were like, ‘Wow, this kid can speak our language’.

“Hindi is one of about 26 spoken languages in India, so I hadn’t really cracked it.”

Boothroyd kept a close eye on the car park on his first day in a new job (Photo: MB Media/Getty Images)

Team meeting over and self-inflicted queue outside your office dealt with, it’s time to crack on with the first coaching session.

There will be players that managers need to be convinced by, but it is rare for someone to be written off before day one. The head coach will likely collect as many quick chats in an individual’s ear as possible.

Sometimes things are not so productive.

Pepe Mel’s infamous four months in charge of West Bromwich Albion in 2014 got off to a rough start with his first training session, before facing Everton striker and Albion’s former loanee striker, Romelu Lukaku.

“Pepe put out an 11-vs-11 in training and all our team were in their half, charging at their goalie,” recalled former captain, Chris Brunt. “I was at left-back, looked over my shoulder and there was about 60 yards of space behind me. I thought, ‘I don’t fancy that.’

“Jonas (Olsson) and I walked off after training shaking our heads. If that’s Lukaku running in… he’d scored 17 of those for us the season before. We managed to get a draw in that game, but everything was a shambles.

“Pepe couldn’t speak very good English. If you’re the coach of an English football team, that should be a priority. Then Dave McDonough (technical analyst) started coming out to translate. At first, he came out in his suit, then he got a tracksuit and eventually he got a pair of boots and ended up telling people what to do in training. I’ll always remember James Morrison telling him to ‘fuck off’ and thinking, ‘Oh no, that’s not good’.”

That may feel like a pretty full first day but we are far from done.

There are likely to be media duties, with the club and external media organisations, all of which counts as direct engagement with your new supporters.

Once again, first impressions create opinions that stick, such as Graham Potter’s wide-eyed unveiling video at Chelsea. He was sacked within seven months.

A first word with the new boss! pic.twitter.com/rBDEhd8fpL

— Chelsea FC (@ChelseaFC) September 12, 2022

At least the timing of such events can be fluid.

“On my first day at Southend United first time around, I had a press conference due at 10.30am Monday,” says Brown. “Paul Sturrock, the previous manager, received the bad news on Sunday so I asked the LMA to get me Paul’s number so I could see him face to face and tell him under no circumstances was there any skullduggery.

“I knocked on his door at like 9.30am on the Monday and he answered it holding a pool cue. I thought, ‘Oh no, I’m in trouble here’. But he just loved playing pool, had a table in his house and was chewing the fat over what had happened.

“I ended up having two and a half hours with him. He went through the whole team. All the things you want to find out on that first day, Paul marked my card. We delayed the press conference to 1pm. The chairman was going crazy, wondering where the hell I was. If I’d have told him, he probably would’ve pulled the job.”

Fortunately, most managers know how to ‘speak well’ at that first press conference.

With that done, attention turns back to the remaining staff at the training ground and stadium; meeting as many as possible and generating enough positive energy in public-facing staff that it can transmit to supporters.

The day will finish late. You are likely to have moved to your new club on your own or with a member of your backroom team, set up in a nearby hotel, while your family and friends remain at home.

It is likely your entire first day has been documented by your club so a friendly, behind-the-scenes production can go out and get more buy-in from the early enthusiasm.

Still, where there’s a will there’s a way to find a few moments to yourself.

“I had a leather chair that swung around, a swivel chair,” wrote Roy Keane in his book, The Second Half. “For the first few days, I used to swing around on it. If any of the players or staff had peeped through the office window, they’d have seen me going ‘Weeehhhh!’”

Then there was Moyes, again.

The Scot waited for the coast to be clear — no chatter or footsteps — before finally sitting in the ordinary leather chair at an ordinary wooden desk, in the Manchester United manager’s office occupied for the previous 27 years by Sir Alex Ferguson.

“It felt odd,” Moyes said to The Athletic. “I thought I would have to see how it feels in case anybody thought I looked stupid.”

It is now time to go get some sleep, safe in the knowledge of a solid football truism.

“Whatever it is you do or say, it always comes down to results and performances,” says Boothroyd, on your most important day as a manager – at least until the next one.

Additional reporting: Phil Hay

(Photo: Christof Koepsel/Getty Images)

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