Lee Johnson has spoken about the negative effects of social media and how it can affect players following the FA Cup 1st round defeat to League 2 Mansfield Town. The Head Coach also admitted that we need to be better and take a focus on the league.
“The million dollar is ‘What has changed? Obviously we have gone from winning to losing. Everything is subjective, we show a lot of love to our players. I just felt two or three today were low on confidence and that has the domino effect. Social media and media, for example, how it can affect things. You have to be able to manage it really well. As a manager 10-15 years ago you could build confidence more easily, now a comment or two comments can affect players deeply. By no means am I saying don’t give us stick. Fans have to be allowed to be fans. Be emotive about anything. Just make sure it is not to the detriment of the bigger performance. I picked a team to win the game, of course I did, but now looking at it being in the quarter-final of the League Cup and in the Papa John’s Trophy, my focus is on the league and has to be on the league. It is difficult to legislate for a technical error. That has happened too many times in the last few games. That is where the confidence comes from. I saw a couple of attitude errors, not tracking runners. For me it was a bit of a freeze, no fluidity to the thinking, the movements. Everything was a struggle in terms of getting across the ground. Players thinking we were playing Mansfield and easy, as opposed to Arsenal or QPR a couple of weeks ago. If we were at the Emirates do you think we would play like that? No, you’d have 50 family members watching, a bigger stadium. We have to be better all the time.”
