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Paul Cook on his dressing room philosophy and beating Pep

Five and a half years ago, Paul Cook was finishing up a successful time with Sligo Rovers that yi...



Paul Cook on his dressing room...
Soccer

Paul Cook on his dressing room philosophy and beating Pep

Five and a half years ago, Paul Cook was finishing up a successful time with Sligo Rovers that yielded FAI Cup victories and provided the platform for league success under his successor.

And February 2018 saw the now Wigan Athletic manager taking on Pep Guardiola and seeing his side beat the Manchester City manager's outstanding side in the FA Cup but also getting involved in a heated scene with the ex-Barcelona and Bayern Munich boss in the tunnel at half time.

Almost two weeks on from that FA Cup fifth round giant killing Cook joined us to reflect on the achievement, and began by sharing his dressing room philosophy and why he leaves the finals words to the players.

"In the dressing room sometimes you can suffocate the players. I do think players should be able to express themselves in the dressing room - not singing 'Will Grigg's On Fire' by the way! I like the dressing room to be able to run itself at times, and we've got some great senior players at the club so it's an important time for them to take control."

Wigan Athletic's Will Grigg (left) celebrates scoring his side's first goal of the game during the Emirates FA Cup, Fifth Round match at the DW Stadium, Wigan.

"We have certain ways at our club, but there's no such thing as the right way or the wrong way. We would normally leave the dressing room at around 2:50/2:52, because once we give the players the final messages I think that's very much the time for the players to be able to embrace what's coming themselves."

"There's an overload of information for players nowadays, sometimes they can get bogged down and think too much rather than going out and expressing themselves. I always think those final few moments are very positive in how well you're going to do and play, so I think that's often the times for teammates to be able to say 'it's our day today', but everyone's different."

The other major talking point from the game was the  incident involving Cook and Pep Guardiola at half-time, when BBC cameras in the tunnel recorded an altercation between the pair. However Cook is keen to move on from it all. 

"I don't want that night to be remembered for anything other than a great night for Wigan and the Wigan players. Everyone in English football has the greatest respect for Pep Guardiola, and in my opinion anything that was said to him during the game will remain private. I thought the player should have been sent off but they obviously hadn't seen it the same way as use, so they perhaps thought we were trying to influence the officials which we were."

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