An analysis of selected excerpts from Arsenal's celebrated 2008 motivational sheet.

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The Ideal Player As A Footballer:
How Many Players Have Studied Arsenal's Motivational Sheet?
written by
Chuka Okonkwo & Dubem Okonkwo

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The Ideal Player As A Footballer: How Many Players Have Studied Arsenal's
Motivational Sheet?
"Every player who dons an Arsenal shirt should constantly ask himself what
steps he has personally taken to develop and strengthen his power to
concentrate."
Lapses of Concentration: The Arsenal Football Team (March 2011)
Selected excerpts from The Arsenal Motivation Sheet (19th
September 2008)
The team:
"A team is as strong as the relationships within it."
"The driving force of a team is its member's (sic) ability to create and maintain excellent
relationships within the team that can add an extra dimension and robustness to the team
dynamic"
The Ideal Player as A Footballer agrees with the line 'the driving force of a team
is its member's ability to create and maintain relationships." But would add the
word "individual" before the word 'members'.
He believes it is the individual members' ability to discipline themselves to
concentrate that maintains excellent relationships. When each member sets out
to train his mind, to weed out personal weaknesses, to improve every single day
and to learn new things, that is what adds that extra dimension and robustness to
a team. Without it a team is just a collection of talented and average players
vacillating from week to week, from season to season. They turn up for training,
play if and when picked, but never attain anything worth writing about.
Individually they may be gems, but together they're not good enough to be in a
crown. Certainly not a crown, worn by kings, made of many gems each shining
and gleaming with sparkle and brilliance.

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A manager can only bring out what players are prepared to work for. Some
managers have mastered this technique better than others. Sadly, it is the
manager that suffers the fall of the axe when players fail to perform. (When
manager and players both really want success -as opposed to "would like
success"- success arrives.) Speak to any great manager and they will tell you
that lazy, ill-disciplined, unmotivated players - no matter how gifted - are a curse
rather than a blessing. When has a career progressed to the top or remained at
the top where a lack of focus and concentration was prominent?
"This attitude can be used by our team to focus on the gratitude and the vitally important
benefits that the team brings to our own lives. It can be used to strengthen and deepen the
relationships with it and maximise the opportunities that await a strong and united
team."
The Ideal Player As A Footballer notes that gratitude usually comes with
success. If a team is constantly failing, it is difficult to feel gratitude towards the
manager never mind the rest of the team. Agents will encourage a player to seek
success elsewhere rather than to serve out a contract and remain to help fix the
problem - constant failure. Of course there is a time to move on, to further one's
career, but that should be after giving your very best. Eleven players privately
finger-pointing and passing the blame does not create an atmosphere of
gratitude of any kind.
Gratitude grows from knowing that all your teammates are as eager as yourself
to win, and are working day and night to accomplish this. Without each person
learning how to concentrate, what you have is a group of players, but that is not a
team of any sort. Look at players at the end of any match. Those who have
played their best gravitate towards one another. Look at the body language and
faces of those who know they could have and should have given more. Honest
commitment is what strengthens and deepens any relationship, whether it is in
training, in a game, in the boardroom or in the home. Only honest commitment
can make a relationship strong and maximise opportunities that reside in such a
relationship.

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"Our team becomes stronger by:"
"Displaying a positive attitude on and off the pitch"
"Everyone making the right decisions for the team"
"Have an unshakeable belief that we can achieve our target"
"Believe in the strength of the team"
"Always want more – always give more"
The Ideal Player As A Footballer feels that players who have mastered the art of
concentration will naturally exude positivity on and off the pitch. Real positivity
comes from a knowledge of what we do not what we say during prematch
interviews or tweet during an idle moment on the team coach.
Making right decisions isn't easy or simple when members of the team have lost
their focus. The herd mentality takes over due to a lack of concentration and
players panic. Look at the Arsenal v Monaco game on 25 February 2015 for an
example of a collective rush of blood to the head. "The heart took over the head."
Wenger told reporters in the post-match interview.
An unshakeable belief in what can be achieved and in the strength of the team
cannot be plucked from thin air. It is what we do not say that displays our belief to
the world. If players don't train themselves to concentrate, then any talk of belief
is wishful thinking. What is there to believe? That the fifty-year old away goals
rule should be scrapped because two English clubs have exited before the
quarter-finals as a result of it. Or that eleven men (the guys in blue) can't cope
with the pressure of playing at home against ten men for over ninety minutes.
At least the manager of the men in blue didn't slink into the corner of excuse
making. He understands that the individual players need to dig deep into their
own heads to discover why they bottled it. The manager responsible for the the
famous motivational sheet ought to emulate the actions of his rival and get his
players to excavate their heads, to search for and root out the fears, doubts,
anxieties and concerns that are obviously residing in hidden corners, waiting to
reveal themselves at inopportune moments like the night of 25 February 2015.

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The Ideal Player As A Footballer has always believed in the maxim that if you
want more you must be prepared to give more, otherwise your wanting more is
merely idle daydreaming. To 'give more', time and energy have to be expended
consistently. Action not mere words is what works here, and a serious player has
to understand what giving more entails.
"Focus on our communication"
"Be demanding with yourself"
"Be fresh and prepared to win"
"Focus on being mentally stronger and always keep going until the end"
To The Ideal Player As A Footballer, the above lines may lead a player into a
state of complacency if only chanted aloud for several minutes during a team
bonding session. Complacency is a problem with many players. Simply chanting
the above lines will have no more effect on a player's ability than the handshake
or other rituals carried out by many players before the start of a game if mental
preparation has been poor.
Players should think over the meaning of the words and ask (themselves) how
can they improve communication with their colleagues during a game, then set
out to ensure their actions match their thoughts. If the manager is going to fish
around for excuses and seek scapegoats amongst the officials or opponents,
'then be demanding on yourself' should be removed from the list. Honest
introspection is the way to be demanding on oneself. Is there another?
Proper preparation will ensure freshness. A player who is constantly monitoring
himself shouldn't require someone else to tell him that he needs to be fresh, or
that he must be prepared to win. Rather than being satisfied with being prepared
to win - even if it is by his coach - a player should always prepare himself so that
he can win. There is a difference.

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The Ideal Player As A Footballer will tell you that to become mentally stronger
as a player you have to concentrate, and that if your attention is prone to
wandering during a game you will be unable to keep going. Despair, frustration,
anxiety, carelessness are a few examples of inattention that prevents a player
from going on till the end. So develop better powers of concentration, and mental
strength and the characteristic of never giving up will naturally follow.
"When we play away from home, believe in our identity and play the football we love to
play at home"
"Stick together"
"Stay grounded and humble as a player and as a person"
"Show the desire to win in all that you do"
"Enjoy and contribute to all that is special about being in a team – don't take it for
granted."
The Ideal Player As A Footballer is interested in daily improvement. To his mind,
one's identity is the ideal to uphold. If you are prepared to abandon your identity
and adopt the cynical practices of your opponents, or believe that their
successes and your failures are due to such and such practices, you do yourself
a disservice and make a mockery of your much-vaunted identity. Think carefully
the next time you utter the words that you must be prepared to win ugly. Is
winning ugly an identity worthy of upholding?
Sticking or pretending to stick together when your teammates aren't playing for
the glory of the club is a dishonest practice and serves no purpose. Focussed
and concentrated minds will stick together naturally; no coercion will be
needed. Look at any team and you will see that it is a successful attitude that
binds them together. A successful attitude will bring success to a team
irrespective of talent. Too much is made of talent and not enough of hard work
and industry. No wonder many talented players delude themselves that lacing up
their boots and donning the first team shirt is all that is required for success.

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When we seek to achieve more and are not complacent about current
successes, or vain when our performance is well below our usual high standards,
when we seek to achieve greatness and to beat elite opponents, not celebrating
the fact that we've been drawn easy opponents, we are in a position to be
grounded and humble. It is greatness
that should encourage humility; for humility does not breed greatness. Can a
humble cottage become a stately mansion? The Ideal Player As Footballer
believes that a player must first have something to be humble about. Humbling
as an experience as it may be, being humbled by an opponent doesn't count.
Without the desire to focus and concentrate at all times, whether you're training
or playing in a match, you cannot have that winning mentality. You cannot turn it
off and on like a light switch. Like the sun it has to burn in your soul throughout
your career. It is not only what you do that shows desire, it is the way you think
and what you think. This is where many players let themselves down. They
expect to be successful in the Champions League, yet at the same time wish or
pray for easy draws. What kind of desire is that? One cannot hope to be the best
or be seen as the best whilst hoping to avoid facing or meeting the best.
When every player plays their part honestly and realises that it's a privilege and
an honour to play for the club not a right, then the ideas of enjoying and
contributing and not taking things for granted can be faithfully followed.
The Ideal Player As A Footballer wonders how many players at the club have
actually studied Arsenal's Motivational Sheet. Does the manager still believe the
tenets proclaimed so bodly at the start of the 2008/2009 campaign?

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How does a philosophy get from this?
"Displaying a positive attitude on and off the pitch"
"Everyone making the right decisions for the team."
To this:
"Their manager accused Arsenal of lacking patience, of failing to realise this was
a tie played over 180 minutes, of chasing an equaliser with such wild indiscipline
they ended up conceding another, potentially pivotal, goal."
Phil McNulty - Chief football writer, BBC Sport
http://m.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/31635094
Or this:
"Much of this responsibility lies at the door of the manager. At the pinch points of
pressure, Arsenal's players should remember Wenger's mantra. On this
horrendous evidence it flies in one ear and out of the other."
Phil McNulty - Chief football writer, BBC Sport
http://m.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/31635094
"There is no chance, no destiny, no fate,
Can circumvent or hinder or control
The firm resolve of a determined soul.
Gifts count for nothing; will alone is great;
All things give way before it, soon or late.
What obstacle can stay the mighty force
Of the sea-seeking river in its course,
Or cause the ascending orb of day to wait?"
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

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Further reading:
Lapses of Concentration: The Arsenal Football Team
http://www.slideshare.net/ChukaDubemTheTwinsOk/lapses-of-concentration-the-
arsenal-football-team-43439777
Arsenal motivational sheet
http://www.onlinearsenal.com/showthread.php?14640-Arsenal-motivational-sheet
The full text of Arsène Wenger's motivational handout
http://www.theguardian.com/football/2008/sep/23/arsenal.premierleague3
All for one: Wenger's motivational tips revealed by David Hytner
http://www.theguardian.com/football/2008/sep/23/arsenal.premierleague
Arsene Wenger's blueprint for Arsenal success revealed in leaked document
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/arsenal/3064653/Arsene-
Wengers-blueprint-for-Arsenal-success-revealed-in-leaked-document-
Football.html
The Football Book by David Goldblatt (p.105)
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0v8qlv61Uy8C&pg=PA105&lpg=PA105&ots
=btNzhAQL9X&focus=viewport&dq=The+full+text+of+Arsène+Wenger%27s+mot
ivational+handout&output=html_text
The 2010 World Cup South Africa: England's Preparations
http://www.slideshare.net/mobile/fullscreen/26979209/2
'The Follow-up: The Next Step To Take'
http://www.slideshare.net/mobile/fullscreen/27138410/1