Confident Dowie is playing mind games

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Iain Dowie has done so well as manager at Crystal Palace this season that he can now turn his nose up at some of the methods used by Sven-Goran Eriksson.

Dowie is a firm believer in the value of sports psychology and has used it to help his team win 13 of his 20 League games in charge and transform them from relegation candidates to play-off contenders.

The former Palace striker has read widely on the subject and talks enthusiastically about the works of Jack Gibson and Wayne Bennett from Australian rugby league.

But he was not overly impressed by what he has seen from Eriksson's favoured sports psychologist Willi Railo, with whom the England coach has written a book.

Their approach centres on "cultural architects" driving the team forward and eradicating a fear of failure. "I have read their book and it was okay," said Dowie.

"I am into the psychology of the game and believe in cross-fertilisation with other sports.

"We have fitness coach John Harbin here and he has done a lot of sports psychology, but we do things covertly. I am not in their faces about it.

"There is a lot of goal-setting and work on mental strength. The players have fixed targets for every game to allow them to organise their priorities. You give people confidence or a kick up the backside. It is not gobbledygook. We are not sitting around with joss sticks and that sort of thing.

"The psychology side is about five per cent of the picture with the 95 per cent made up of hard work, planning and all the normal football things plus individual work.

"I am very much sweat and toil with a few other things added, but if you get the process right eventually you will get the results."

Among the extras Dowie has introduced are early morning walks with injured players during the week and on matchdays.

He argues that it is not a punishment, but a chance for him to get to know them and find out what is going on in their lives and what motivates them. "This is a people management game and you have to get people to play for you," he said.

Other changes have been a greater focus on fitness and flexibility and improvements in the team's organisation as well as individual training programmes.

Dowie's older brother Bob, a qualified coach, has been recruited to assess forthcoming opponents and Kit Symons, who was caretaker manager after Steve Kember was sacked, has been made a player-coach.

"I had a good look and did not make huge changes," Dowie said. "We had enough ability to get at teams."

He has been proved right after taking Palace up the First Division with only a few alterations to a squad which included proven goalscorers such as Andrew Johnson, Neil Shipperley and Dougie Freedman.

Chairman Simon Jordan may be a hard taskmaster, but like most Palace fans he is happy that Dowie joined them from Oldham and was not snapped up by West Ham earlier in the season.

The manager said: "We never set a points target or expected to do anything and we could be involved in a fantastic end of season.

"There have been a few bumps in the way but you have got to be your own person. I am very single-minded and like to run the football side."

Palace have won five of their last six games and go into their final two fixtures, against Walsall at Selhurst Park on Saturday and at Coventry next week, with the sort of timely momentum which could bring promotion.

To do so Dowie might have to dash the hopes of West Ham, the club he played for and supported as a boy, and who are above Palace on goal difference.

He also wanted the manager's job there when Glenn Roeder was sacked last August, but is now concentrating on the club he ended up at.

"I would love to see West Ham in the Premiership because that is where they should be," said Dowie.

"If it is not to be this year for them, then I hope it is us.

"We are probably the dark horses for the play-offs, but we have got our own designs on them.

"Things have worked out well for me and this season will have been a huge success even if we don't get in because we were involved in relegation when I came in."

They might not agree on sports psychology, but Railo and Eriksson could not argue with that.

 

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