Soccer: Mental fitness strategy getting put to the test

The psychological component of Brendan Rodgers' management work is about to come to the fore like never before. Photo / AP

For Liverpool, the evidence that American owners can actually be good for you is clearly emerging.

While Manchester City are using their own entirely new Major League Soccer franchise to help attract sponsors for both sides of the Atlantic, Anfield is cashing in on companies who have already signed up with the Boston Red Sox, another Fenway Sports Group franchise, with Dunkin Donuts the latest.

But it will take more than helping shift cakes to get the club back into the Champions League next season, a target upon which we have to assume Luis Suarez's future at the club is contingent. The squads of Manchester City, Chelsea and Arsenal are deeper and stronger than their own and when the pips really start squeaking, Brendan Rodgers won't have many players who know how the territory feels at the top.

The psychological component of Rodgers' management work is about to come to the fore like never before. In his press conference ahead of last night's home match against Aston Villa (which last season was emblematic of Liverpool's poor spirit), he spoke several times of mental fitness, arguing with typical Rodgers fluency: "We are not just going to win games on ability in football."

Last weekend's 5-3 victory at Stoke City demonstrated that self-belief - which the manager believes December's 5-0 win at Tottenham helped build exponentially - is more abundant than last season.

Rodgers was remembering the desultory Boxing Night defeat in the Potteries last season.

There were family guests in the house when he got home to Formby that night but he just could not face the pleasantries, he related: "I went straight upstairs to the room and didn't come out."

The pressure of securing the fourth spot on which so much is contingent will require stronger mental faculties, too, because it may be very tight. Dr Steve Peters, the sports psychiatrist Rodgers has engaged at Melwood, has cautioned that a top four place should never be more than an aspiration because achieving it is outside of Liverpool's control. Rodgers subscribes to that view.

He is also ready to use his experiences of his 2010-11 Championship promotion season at Swansea City to bear - when in a sense he faced just as much pressure.

He recalled the nerve-wracking run of two wins from eight games in March and April 2011 which threatened to wreck that promotion.

"We couldn't win away from home and I took the team away," he said.

The Western Mail described the plans Rodgers laid - taking the club for three days to the luxurious Pennyhill Park Hotel in Surrey, the five-star country house hotel used by England's rugby squad. Rodgers' psychological emphasis seems to have been on how this pressure was something to embrace, not fear.

"It was a working break, to evaluate how well we have done throughout the season," Rodgers said.

His Swansea team didn't lose again.

We are about to learn if knowledge and powers of motivation are enough to take them over the line.

- The Independent