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Inside Football With: Paul McVeigh - Manchester City start down to mental toughness

Paul McVeigh is a former Premier League footballer with Norwich City who now works as a mental performance coach with several Premier League teams. Here, he looks at Manchester City’s great start to the season.

Despite having 90% of the same players as last season and the same manager, Manchester City’s form is unrecognisable from last term. They’ve started the league brilliantly, yet, while they’ve bought new players like Raheem Sterling, the only real difference between then and now is their mind-set.

Go back to 2012 when City won the league. There were other key players and Sergio Aguero got that vital goal in the last game, but Yaya Toure pretty much decided that he wanted to win the league. Almost every time he played, he dominated games and did everything you could want from a top class winner.

He was considered one of the best-paid players in the league and there were few doubts about him during all his time in England until a bizarre incident about a birthday cake in 2014. Such a little issue, based on other perceived slights, had such a massive effect on the player and the club. He stayed but City were far weaker last season. Despite having largely the same team, their players didn’t look anything like as formidable against United, a team they’d previously done well against, in the last derby in April when they conceded four.

Only a few months later, they look the best team in England. Mental toughness is the difference, but what is mental toughness? People talk about it but they don’t know what it is or how it define it, work on it or prove it. In Man City’s case, what were they doing last season differently to what they’re doing now?

The psychologist Martyn Newman has produced a tool to describe mental toughness – or emotional intelligence as it’s known. The same ten emotional and mental competences come out time and time again in elite sport: Self-awareness, self confidence, self reliance, competiveness, achievement drive, resilience, focus, self-control, flexibility and optimism.

To have a long-term successful career in football, you need three elements. There’s the physical side of it – your body needs to be able to copy with the physical demands of professional football. The next side is the talent – which is something you can’t really develop once you’ve made it as a professional. You develop your talent less than the other factors. The third – and most important – thing is the psychology and those ten areas.

Not once, in my 20 years in professional football, was I psychologically examined. They couldn’t access, measure of gauge it like they can now. I wish I had been because of what I’ve learned since about myself.

Your personality traits doesn’t really change once you go beyond 16. What does change and keeps improving year on year until you’re 50-50 is your emotional intelligence. That would revolve around things like resilience and how you deal with setbacks. The psychology of City’s players, like all top-flight players, will be analysed just as their physical stats will be looked at in great details, the runs or passes they make, the ground they cover, their fitness. The physios and sports scientists are testing them every day, from their urine levels to their body fat.

Look at City’s players and you see players with optimum mental toughness. Watch Sergio Aguero when he misses a chance. While other players will bemoan their luck and put their arms in the air, Aguero will briefly flinch and then continue. He’s over it in a nanosecond because he’s already thinking about the next one. Young players can learn from such actions.

When Yaya Toure was rattled about a birthday cake his resilience levels were low. Now, you could probably throw a firecracker at him while he was playing and it wouldn’t bother him.

Vincent Kompany looks to have focused. Things were getting in the way of his performances last season. Not now. (David) Silva looks back to his best.

Fernandinho has found self-control. The Brazilian used to blow up and do stupid tackles.

Samir Nasri is used as a substitute. He still has to show competitiveness. It’s not enough to get to the top and win lots of trophies, you have to stay competitive.

Manuel Pellegrini, supposedly a dead man walking in his job in April, has been given security. He’s got the competitiveness back, the control.

Then you look at Chelsea and they’ve lost the control, they’ve allowed an incident with a doctor running on the field and doing her job to unsettle the club like Yaya’s birthday cake. City have got their mental strength back, their resilience, their self-awareness, self confidence, self reliance, competitiveness, achievement drive, focus, self-control, flexibility and optimism. And how it shows.