Brendan Rogers

I want my boys squabbling amongst themselves healthily. That’s competition. But I want them to feel valued, and I think you’ve just witnessed me valuing Stuart Downing. Stuart Downing will go into training today knowing that I don’t think Stuart Downing will let us down any more. He knows it, I know he knows it and, more importantly, Stuart Downing knows that I know it. And that knowledge is power, fundamentally. But caring power – not the power you see some managers like Alex Ferguson wielding, where players are afraid of making mistakes.

What will that achieve in the long run? A team of winners? Or a team made crippled by fear? Not what I want. I don’t want a team of cripples. I don’t want my lads to go “Oh, I think I’ll try a Cruyff turn. Second thoughts, no I won’t, because if I do and I mess it up then Brendan Rodgers – top, top bloke though he is – might effin’ give it to me. I’ll play it safe. I’ll play the Allen pass".

No. I want my family of boys not to be scared of me. Not to be scared of trying new things with me. I want them to feel they can reach out to me, OK? To know I’ll be there to hold them when the going gets tough, and even when it doesn’t. OK? That’s how I do things.

People at Swansea used to go “there’s madness to his methods", and that was great. Not disrespectful, just a sort of nod that I play by my own rules, not the conventions. It was like a pun on the normal saying, and in many ways that’s how I see myself. I stray from the norm. I’m abnormal, if you like.