Footballing 'Mental Blocks'

[Fearful Symmetry]

Hull City's 1-1 draw last night with Blackpool meant that since the early days of 2020, the club's record in the Championship now stands at 10 points won from a possible 87, with 22 defeats in 30 games. Considering that Grant McCann had a very successful season last year, and that he'd forged a decent reputation as a manager in L1 before joining City, it seems that managing in this league is beyond him. Okay, there are mitigating circumstances in play, but the squad that walked away with the L1 trophy last year hasn't suddenly become a poor one overnight, and you wonder if there's some mental hurdles that the manager can't jump over.

With that in mind, can anyone give any other examples of players, managers or clubs having similar issues? Strikers who scored for fun, except against one team in particular, etc?

[Simon G]

McCann's first Football League manager was Steve Cotterill when he played on loan at Cheltenham in 2000/01.

Cotterill suffers from the same issue in my view. He's a fantastic lower league manager (though he seems to be struggling at Shrewsbury) but as soon as he gets into the Championship his team spirit and bluster gets shown up against the decent tacticians.

[elguapo4]

Aleksandar Mitrovic is definitely one for this thread. Loads of goals in the Championship and for Serbia, does sweet f.a in the Premier league.

[Snake Plissken]

Burnley vs Man City comes to mind. I'm sure that Clarets stats for the last five or six meetings are something like scored 0, conceded 27.

[Kevin S]

Aleksandar Mitrovic is definitely one for this thread. Loads of goals in the Championship and for Serbia, does sweet f.a in the Premier league.

See also: Norwich City (minus the Serbia thing).

[Patrick Thistle]

My late friend Ben once remarked that it didn't matter who was playing in defence for Shrewsbury, the players would get nervous and panicky if asked to defend a 1-0 lead. Maybe that's true of most defenders everywhere, but it's spanned generations now and still applies.

Of course, it may have been amplified by the nervousness of us watching the game.

In other blind spot news, Shrewsbury waited 110 years to get to Wembley and then played there 5 times in 22 seasons. Their record of played 5, lost 5 is an outlier in terms of repeat failure.

[nmrfox]

Cotterill suffers from the same issue in my view. He's a fantastic lower league manager (though he seems to be struggling at Shrewsbury) but as soon as he gets into the Championship his team spirit and bluster gets shown up against the decent tacticians.

And up a step, Colin in the top division of English football.

[Patrick Thistle]

In my own personal blind spots remembering that teams like Morecambe, Crawley and Stevenage are Football League teams and Halifax, Stockport and York are not.

[Jobi1]

And up a step, Colin in the top division of English football.

Would it be harsh to file Steve Bruce under that heading as well? Four (I think) promotions from the Championship, but has he ever managed a top 10 finish in the PL?

[Snake Plissken]

Has he ever been given the resources to?