Liam Manning is 60 days into his mission to bring Premier League football to a south-west region that has been deprived of the top flight for 44 years.
The Midwinter Championship whirlwind of back-to-back matches and recovery time allowed the Bristol City head coach just nine full training sessions. However, non-football feedback voiced by his players during a candid briefing this week has reassured the highly respected 38-year-old that the right philosophies have already hit their mark.
“We were talking this morning about the things we’ve learned in December and the big things we’ve taken away,” says Manning, who invited Telegraph Sport into his office following a team summit at the club’s training base in rural Failand, North Somerset.
The players discussed an encouraging month of three wins, two defeats and two draws, followed by a hugely frustrating defeat against Millwall. But in a frank exchange of courage and priorities, the players volunteered to chat with families enduring real-life turmoil at the South West Children’s Hospice.
“We spent some time with several families and invited one of the kids, who unfortunately didn’t have much time left, to spend some time with us,” Manning explained. “I was really impressed that they brought this up. We talk about football, winning games, losing games, and that was one of the things that affected a lot of them. “When you have bereavement in your family, it’s a bigger picture perspective.”
‘We are lucky, we are passionate, we are obsessed’
Manning speaks from experience, having lost his father when he was 11 years old. “I think that put a little bit of a fire in my belly for me,” she says. “That was always my way of channeling it into football. And it was always there.
“We’re lucky in football. We’re passionate, we’re obsessed. Sometimes we’re quite selfish about how we should be in the industry. Then stepping outside that bubble and having a bigger picture perspective will help you when you come back.”
For those who don’t know, Manning’s career appears to be ahead of schedule. Following the sacking of the relatively popular Nigel Pearson in November, few City fans had heard that the man had been suspended from Oxford United, then flying high in League One. City’s mouth-watering FA Cup game against West Ham on Sunday is another reminder of the rapid rise of Manning, who coached the Hammers’ Under-23s just four years ago.
But childhood pain, career setbacks and real-world work have provided Manning with a unique path to emerge as one of England’s most promising managers under 40. “Every challenge, every setback; you go one or two ways with it,” she said. said the 21-year-old, who was released by Ipswich as a formidable midfielder. “You either fight or you flee.”
‘If my attitude is in money, nothing is wasted’
For much of his 20s he spent every spare hour working at a school, playing part-time and then gaining various coaching qualifications. “I didn’t succeed as an actor because I wasn’t good enough,” he admits. “But because of my values as a person and my behavior as a youth player, I was offered an academy job at Ipswich.
“If the attitude is towards money, none of it is wasted. I always worked as much as I could. I was really open to learning. I am completely committed to everything I do. “If I hadn’t shown these behaviors, I don’t think I would have been given the opportunity to go to the academy and coach.”
Manning graduated from the Premier League’s Elite Coach Accreditation Scheme and said he enjoys “cross-learning” with other industries. Google met with Saatchi and the Lawn Tennis Association. “I also love the military—the processes, the way it operates, the communication, the clarity, the chain of command,” she said.
Openness to sharing ideas was music to the ears of City owner Steve Lansdown, a financial services billionaire from Bristol who also controls the Bristol Bears rugby and Bristol Flyers basketball teams. Manning speaks regularly to Lansdown’s son Jon, who is now City chairman, and will be in the stands for matches later this month when the schedule is “more forgiving”.
There is an air of quiet confidence at City, despite the mixed reaction from the fan base to Pearson’s departure in the autumn. The club has made significant cuts to its wage bill since former chief executive Richard Gould admitted to Telegraph Sport that they had come perilously close to breaching spending rules due to excessive spending under previous regimes. Pure profits from a talent production factory run by former player and manager Brian Tinnion were hugely aided in the most recent £25m sale of Alex Scott to Bournemouth.
Having settled at Ashton Gate, now a stadium worthy of top-flight honours, Manning sees huge potential. “In addition to the academy, the profile of the team is also important,” he says. “Look at someone who hasn’t been here [midfielder] Jason Knight – volume of games owned and age [22].
“That’s pretty much where we want to get to, but the way we want to do it and the strategy for how we get there; and alongside them there are coachable, malleable young players with the right balance of experience. “Being clear about what the club is and how we want to get there was a big draw.”
However, he “hopes” the club will have more work to do in the January transfer window. “We work hard to add things to it, but sometimes those things are out of our hands.”
Whomever City bring in, Manning, who is one of many managers in favor of giving his players a mid-season break, will continue to focus on the club culture, which he says needs to be discussed “before we move on to tactics”.
“When you talk about the game and the fluid state of the game, it all boils down to ‘can you focus for 95/100 minutes?’” he says.
The most obvious example of the model mentality is Declan Rice, whom Manning coached for several years as he progressed into the first team at West Ham; but he is modest about his role as an England midfielder.
“A coach once told me ‘they’re all diamonds, we just polish them a little bit along the way’,” he explained. “In the end, it all depends on the player.”
However, he said the record £105m Arsenal signing had shown the level of resilience he is currently preaching to the City squad. “We deal with challenges and setbacks in different ways, and I think that’s an issue we’re definitely going to encounter even more with where the world is right now.”
From a broader perspective, Manning says the “sense of entitlement” in society is one of his biggest concerns. He stays away from social media, relying instead on his outspoken assistant Chris Hogg, who accompanies him everywhere, to give him honest assessments and his wife, Fran, to put him in his shoes. This future face, who has such an adult perspective, is excited to face 60-year-old Moyes. “He’s a great role model for someone like me,” adds Manning.