Damned With Faint Praise

In football, as in life generally, praise and approval are frequently earned too easily. Words like ‘great’ and ‘world class’ are bandied about, and cheapened in the process.

But there is another less common though equally unhealthy extreme. We could call it Hard Taskmaster Syndrome. It occurs when praise, far from being lavished on players, becomes virtually impossible to earn and on the rare occasions when it is expressed, it is devalued by a total absence of genuine warmth.

Liverpool’s 2-0 Champions League victory over PSV Eindhoven at Anfield took them to the top of Group C and according to reports, Steven Gerrard played a “starring role” in central midfield.

For obvious reasons, players are inclined to take more notice of what managers say than the opinions of journalists, so it is interesting and instructive to compare the views of Ronald Koeman and Raffa Benitez.

The PSV boss is quoted as saying: “The quality of Gerrard was outstanding. It was an excellent midfield performance and was something we could not match.”

Significantly, Gerrard’s own manager was less fulsome, acknowledging Steve’s “confidence” yet unable to resist adding “he knows he can play better than that”. It is the time honoured, threadbare schoolmaster’s ploy, the traditional “can do better”, the stock response which has littered so many school reports and produced nothing but resentment.

Benitez is a very good manager in many respects, but he has a real – and serious – psychological problem with praise. He is clearly suspicious of it and reluctant to give it – almost as if he believes that doing so will be seen as a sign of weakness, or an encouragement to laziness.

The truth is that players thrive on meaningful praise – the kind that comes from people who really know what they’re talking about and is made more valuable by the fact that it is difficult to earn. But it only works properly when it is conferred with generosity and warmth – not thrown down like some scrap, or buried under the weight of yet more criticism.