At the recent fans’ forum, Michael Skubala gave a fascinating insight into what happens at half time of a Lincoln City game.
While we avoid toilet queues, assess the first half with friends, or drink beer, all of the Imps staff are engaged in ensuring we are prepped and ready for the second period.
Gone are the days of storming into the dressing room and throwing a load of sandwiches about, or offering to fight players. Instead, it’s a balanced and calculated analysis, with precise and simple instructions for the players.
When asked about the half time process, Michael gave one of the longer answers of the evening
“Where do I start? I don’t know. There’s a lot, there’s a big process for us,” he said.
“Every manager, head coach, coaching team will do it differently. But we have the eyes in the sky in terms of George Bush, and Mason (Cook).
“We then go in, the first thing I do is go into the office with the staff. Don’t go into the dressing rooms. So, we look at what we think is going right and wrong. We have lists. We have ideas. Different coaches are looking at different things. We have the physical coach.”
Don’t worry, the players are not left to their own devices, as Michael explains.
“We send someone in with the players. And then we work out what we want to show the players or what we want to change because we’ve also got technology where we can show them clips at halftime.
“We’ve got to be really fast, really clear, lots of clarity. And if we want to show them something, we have to be really on point with that. And generally quite calm. I just think it’s better to help them than it is to not help them. So whenever we can help them, that’s what we’re trying to do.
“Each coaching member might then have five minutes after that and then we split off and we’ll give individual details or set piece details around it. But ultimately clarity and changing some things is really important.”
Half time is not the time to be making big changes. Often, it is little tweaks, like we did against Plymouth Argyle. Some say Bim Pepple’s injury changed the game, but off the record, Michael also explained a tiny tweak he made to City’s shape and approach that helped us get control.
I’ve also been told of changes to a pressing trigger before, so a slight adjustment to when we go and try to win the ball from the opposition. It’s all marginal, but as we have been told since the days of Danny Cowley, marginal gains matter.
“A lot of the time it’s not big changes, it’s little tweaks, it’s little positions where we can do certain things. So I suppose I probably think the biggest example you had of that, was probably against Peterborough when the linesman got injured because they all came over it was like a half time, it was like 10 minutes.
“So we tweaked some things on the side we changed the way we were pressing for certain reasons and then you saw the impact of that straight away. So that’s when it goes well sometimes you do it and it doesn’t go so well but that that’s the game.”
I’ve been quite vocal in that I think tactically, we’re in the best shape I’ve ever known a Lincoln City side to be in. I stand by that, and hearing how these things are handled right at the coal face is fascinating for supporters.
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