Keith Andrews: Belief and confidence

‘Snakes and ladders’

Andrews’s career as a player gives him an insight into that. As a teenage scholar, he joined Wolverhampton Wanderers, and describes his playing days as “like a game of snakes and ladders”. Although he got international caps for Ireland in tandem with regular Premier League football, that did not happen until he was 27 – which, he says, “is obviously pretty late in a career - but I had to fight hard to get that.”

He has played for clubs from the top to the bottom of the English professional pyramid, and he is very well aware of the work that people put in so that teams are able to succeed. Knowing how quickly football can change also led him to begin planning for retirement relatively early on – at the age of 29, while he was still playing for Blackburn Rovers, and he enrolled on a coaching course and started to work with the club’s under-14s.

“I quickly realised that the session didn’t need to be about me and how good it looked and how many cones were down and what I got from it. It was ultimately what was that part of the training session? What did we need to achieve from that? What did the players need to get to that? Did the players learn? Did they develop and was it effective? And that was a journey of course, and I think it always is a journey.”

Five years later, he was at MK Dons as player-coach, and after hanging up his boots following their promotion to the Championship, he spent a season as assistant coach to Karl Robinson and his assistant manager Richie Barker – a period he describes as “invaluable learning”.

He also coached the Ireland junior teams from under-15s upwards, getting as much experience as possible ready for the transition back into a club – which he did when he joined Sheffield United as assistant to Chris Wilder, alongside Alan Knill.

“When you get back into a club environment, time is pretty precious,” he says.

“Time on the grass, you just don’t have it. You don’t have the luxury of a week’s preparation for a game [as you do at international level]. Sometimes you’ll have two training sessions and you’re straight into a game. So what’s your priority? How much are you focusing on set pieces? How much are you focusing on out-of-possession? If you’re having 30 per cent of the ball, I would suggest that the vast majority of your training session doesn’t need to go on build-up.”

Creating club and coaching culture

Andrews feels that being Brentford’s head coach is “an absolute privilege” – and that the club’s beliefs align with his own.

“My beliefs on the game are that you need to find ways of winning games, you need to find a way of playing that absolutely suit the players that you have at your disposal,” he says.

“And I think in time, you can tweak, you can evolve, but you need to really nail down the basics.”

Of course, that starts in training.

“I hate fake training!” he declares. “I only train really game-realistic scenarios. I’m quite big on that. How we train is how we play the game. We try and create an edge to how we train, and how we approach things, and I want to see the realness of a game being replicated in training. 

“I also want to see players enjoy training and pushing themselves to limits, to know that they will improve from what they do on a daily basis - and instilling the belief and a confidence in players is a huge part of it.”

He encourages open communication from players and his staff team in as many ways as possible – particularly bearing in mind that several might not have English as a first language.

“The multicultural aspect of this club has been key,” he says, adding that he has consistently worked on improving his communication skills. “That’s certainly been a big part of the journey towards this point over the last few years.”

“My beliefs on the game are that you need to find ways of winning games, you need to find a way of playing that absolutely suit the players that you have at your disposal”

And that openness and honesty helps to create a strong and supportive culture.

“We know pretty much how we want to work and we’ll push each other. We’ll be demanding of each other, which I think is needed. But ultimately, when decisions are made, we all support whatever decision that is.”

Of the club, he says: “It’s genuine, it’s real, it’s filled with people that actually care about the players before anything else. They just genuinely want to help support on, off the pitch. There’s good people surrounding the players to try and enable them to be the better versions of themselves.”

Andrews is strongly committed to continuing coach development, gaining knowledge from different sectors to develop leadership and communication skills. And naturally he is also passionate about player development through the age groups, which he says requires input from experts – not simply relying on the head coach’s opinions.

“It’s really important to be really honest and be open about where you’re not particularly as strong as someone else. Your knowledge cannot be as good as certain people like the performance team, as an example, in terms of how we track the data from our physical numbers. I have absolute trust in our experts on that field.”

The same applies to his coaching staff and their range of backgrounds and experiences. His aim is to work in a place where people can bring their knowledge and offer respectful challenges where necessary.

“I certainly haven’t got all the answers. I never will, and I don’t profess to,” he says. “I do think it’s important that you have different skill sets, for sure.”

‘Consistency is key’

Andrews has high ideals, but that does not mean he is unrealistic – describing an important element of footballing success as “just graft”.

“The tough times make you the person that you are. We’re all a little bit deluded if we think everything’s going to be rosy all the time. It’s not the real world. It’s certainly not football. It’s not elite sport. Try and take in the good times - easier said than done, I’m not particularly good at that, but I’ve quite liked the struggles. I quite like the journey I’ve been on to go through some pretty tough times in my career and my playing career and coaching career, because it puts you in a place where you can put things into perspective well and appreciate the better times.”

And he says that he has not set any benchmarks for his team this season.

“We just keep striving. I’m big on day-to-day, week to week. Tomorrow looks after itself once you do today.

“We just keep striving. I’m big on day-to-day, week to week. Tomorrow looks after itself once you do today”

“Consistency is the key. The players will have off days, I will have an off day. I get things wrong all the time. We need to be understanding of that, but equally at the right times, be really demanding of each other and honest and transparent, and feel vulnerable at times.” 

He adds that he does not spend too much time considering other teams and their progress – but rather focusing on how to improve the players he has, and then assessing how the squad could be improved even further. He recommends that coaches should not lose sight of their players’ biggest strengths: “Where do you put your chips? If you spread them too thin, you’re not really going to improve, you’re just going to move the dial a little bit, whereas if you can focus on aspects of the game where you’re really good and keep working hard at those, I think that can prove dividends.”

For coaches beginning on their own journey, there are three qualities he pinpoints as essential: “honesty, respect, humility.”

And from his own experience, there is something else he says is crucial.

“If you care, that matters. That really matters to players. Players can feel that. We’ve got players who’ve suffered injuries here, as an example. I’m quite big on involving them in the team meetings, speaking to them as much as I can, because I still remember managers that didn’t particularly speak to me when I was injured, which just stays with you.

“Just care – and it goes a long way.”