They were closed off, they were defensive, they were a team of individuals who had retreated into their own personal shells of self-pity and recrimination.

I made mistakes.

I made a lot of mistakes.

I dropped players who were out of form, only to see their replacements play even worse. I changed the formation, I changed the tactics, I tinkered, I experimented, I lurched from one desperate, short-term, and ultimately futile solution to another.

I was a manager who was out of ideas, who was losing control, who was drowning in a sea of his own and his team's collective, and catastrophic failure.

The system was a mirror, a cruel and deeply unforgiving reflection of our decline. The morale indicators, which had been a sea of vibrant, happy, green, were now a uniform, and deeply depressing, red.

The player performance ratings, which had been a string of 7s, 8s, and 9s, were now a collection of 4s, 5s, and 6s. The system was showing me the data, it was showing me the problem. But it couldn't give me the solution.

It couldn't tell me how to fix a broken team. It couldn't tell me how to mend a shattered spirit. It was showing me the limits of my own, and its power.

It was showing me that a manager cannot just will a team to win. It was showing me that some problems, some crises, are beyond the reach of tactics, of data, of a magical, all-powerful, football management simulation. Some problems are human problems. And they require human solutions.

We had gone from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows in the space of three short, and brutal weeks.

We had gone from being the heroes of the city to a laughing stock. We had gone from being the team that was going to win the league to a team that was in freefall. We were in a slump. A deep, dark, and seemingly inescapable slump. And I had no idea how to get us out of it.

The public criticism of a player was my biggest mistake. It was a moment of frustration, of anger, of a deep, and overwhelming, sense of helplessness. We had just drawn 0-0, another drab, uninspired, and deeply forgettable performance.

And in the post-match interview, when a local journalist had asked me about the team's lack of creativity, I had snapped.

I had singled out one of our midfielders, a player who had been struggling for form, and I had publicly criticized his performance. I had said that he was "not showing enough desire", that he was "not working hard enough", that he was "letting the team down".

It was a stupid, and deeply unprofessional, thing to do. It was a violation of one of the cardinal rules of management: never criticize a player in public.

Always protect your players. Always take the blame yourself. Always be the shield, not the sword. But I had been so frustrated, so desperate, so utterly, and completely, out of ideas, that I had lashed out. And I had made a bad situation even worse.

The impact on the player was devastating. He was a sensitive, and insecure, young man, and my public criticism had crushed him. His confidence, which had already been fragile, was now completely shattered.

He became withdrawn, he became anxious, he became a shadow of the player he had once been. And the impact on the dressing room was even worse. The other players were furious with me.

They saw my public criticism as a betrayal, as a sign that I was willing to throw them under the bus to save my own skin. The trust, the bond, the sense of a shared, and collective, responsibility, was broken.

I tried to apologize, to make amends, to rebuild the bridges that I had so carelessly, and so stupidly, burned. But it was too late.

The damage was done. The dressing room, which had been a place of laughter and camaraderie, was now a tense, quiet, and deeply unhappy place.

The players were not just playing badly; they were playing for themselves, not for each other, not for me, not for the club. They were a collection of individuals, not a team. And it was all my fault.

Frankie Morrison, my wise, and grizzled, and deeply experienced, assistant, was the only one who was still talking to me. He took me to one side after another dismal training session.

"You're losing them, Gaffer," he said, his voice a low, and gravelly, and deeply sympathetic, whisper. "You're losing the dressing room. And once you've lost the dressing room, you've lost everything. You need to fix this. And you need to fix it now. Before it's too late."

He was right. I was losing them. I was losing the plot. I was a manager who was out of control, who was making bad decisions, who was alienating his players, who was destroying everything that he had built. I was a failure. A complete, and utter, failure.

I sat alone in my flat that night, staring at the wall, replaying every mistake in my head. The public criticism. The tactical tinkering. The hairdryer treatment that fell flat. The arm-around-the-shoulder that was rejected. Every decision I'd made had made things worse.

My phone buzzed. Emma.

"Saw the result. You okay?"

I stared at the message for a long time. Was I okay? No. I wasn't okay. I was a manager who had lost his team, lost his way, lost everything he'd built. I was drowning.

But I couldn't tell her that. I couldn't admit that I was failing. That I was out of my depth. That I had no idea how to fix this.

"Been better," I typed back. "But I'll figure it out."

It was a lie. I had no idea how to figure it out. But I had to try. Because the alternative was giving up, admitting defeat, watching everything I'd built fall apart, was unthinkable.

I had to find a way. Somehow. Before it was too late.

***

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