Why Ryan Mason left Tottenham to lead West Brom in Championship: ‘Hard to explain why the timing felt right’

For Ryan Mason, calling time on a more than 20 annual association with Tottenham HotspurA journey that included the transition from an academy product to a first team player and the start of a coaching career required a gut feeling.

“It is hard to explain why the timing felt good, because it is more a feeling, so the feeling was there and I felt it for a while, and also to end the season in the way we did in Tottenham, it was almost like one Nice Closure of a great chapter in my kind of personal career there. “

Mason was part of the group that ended the 17-year-old trophy-dried of Spurs by winning the UEFA Europa League last spring, but even outside that triumph, it is not difficult to imagine why he had felt the itch to forge his own path “for a while.” The 34-year-old came to Spurs’ coaching staff seven years earlier, months after the end of his gaming career because of the risks to return to the field after a serious head injury. In Tottenham, Mason not only received closure, but also exposure to a acclaimed selection of managers on the way – his former boss Mauricio Pochettino was still there when he returned to the club as a coach, while Jose Mourinho, Antonio Conte and Ange Postecoglou had spells on the Touchline on the way. Mason himself had to lead Spurs a few times in two different stints such as the Interim manager, those experiences that serve more as a crisis management for the team than something else.

By time Cristian Romero stealed Mason’s beer On top of a bus last May during Spurs’ Parade in honor of their Europa League victory, the club had given the ex-England International more than enough in terms of coaching experience. A few short weeks after the final, Mason had officially booked his first management performance on West Bromwich AlbionWho offered him a brand new coaching experience in short order to prepare for his first game that was in charge.

“It’s nice because I had to prepare for games in two days in two days, so completely different,” he said. “We have had a good preseason in terms of transferring information about and trying to lay the foundation of how we want the team to look and feel. Of course there is still a lot of work to do and we understand that, but we are happy with the preseason.”

The experiences of Mason at Spurs have offered him a chair in the front row to various management styles, from the free flowing games that Pochettino and Postecoglou define to the more structured approaches that Mourinho and Conte are known for. Prior to his management debut on Saturday against Blackburn Rovers (10.00 am et, Paramount+), It should not be a surprise that Mason’s West Brom may not be the end product yet. However, the variety of strategies to which he has been exposed may have cleared the way for a flexible approach to one of one EnglandThe newest managers.

“I have my beliefs about how I want the team to look like, but then I also understand that different oppositions will form different threats and also have different weaknesses,” Mason said. “My feeling is that the team looks different from game to game with a clear game plan and understanding of how we want to win the game.”

That adaptability, he thinks, will be crucial for surviving the championship. The Second Division of England is a particularly debilitating experience. A place in the Premier League, the most lucrative reward in the sport, is waiting for three happy teams, but they first have to survive a 46 competition season. The matches come thick and fast and there is no rest for the bad or tired, especially with cup matches that have been mixed -all 24 championship teams have an EFL Cup first round match between their first and second competition matches of the season.

“Hopefully [we are] A compact team that is together, “said Mason.” I am not one of these coaches who sit down here and say that we are going to dominate the ball, we are going to do this, we want to do that because football is such a unique game that you just have to be able to respond to certain situations and different moments in games. Sometimes you have to suffer and we have to suffer on the field with 11 players. Sometimes we have the momentum and we have to take advantage of it, so the most important thing for me is, every element, every moment in the game, to try to see a team that does it together and understand what is needed at that moment. “

Mason wants to map an upward route with the Baggies, which won 15 games last season and finished ninth. He did not come out and said it, but improving a team that finished only four points behind the sixth means that his ambitions would at least land them in the conversation for the promotion -play -offs.

“This competition is so demanding and we are trying to build something and create something together for six weeks,” he said. “I want to see a progress, I also want to feel a progress. As a club we won 15 games in the competition last year, we have to win more than that. I don’t look at the end of the season. I don’t think in nine or 10 months. I just look at this week.

Championship preview: Birmingham City is legitimate, Swansea City could surprise and one USMNT talent to look at

James Benge

As Mason describes it, the real task in hand promotes something intangible – a sense of connectedness for players and staff. He acknowledges that he says the word ‘feeling’ a lot and describes himself as ‘a feelings person’, compares himself in that respect with Pochettino, the current head coach of the US National Team who handed him his Premier League debut in Spurs in 2014 and someone he still speaks of ‘time to time’.

“He was such a person – not a spiritual person, but he believed,” said Mason about Pochettino. “When you meet Him, it’s hard to tell. I think he’s some who has this presence, this aura about him that you can gravitate to and i gravitated Towards him. We have similar beliefs, similar morals in Life and I Think? Thought he was great to connect with so many different people from so many different backgrounds and when you’re in this role and you have this responsibility, you’ve got to be able to do that and I think he was there. “

The push-and-pull of the feeling is, by Mason’s own recognition, the most striking collection meal of his unique management upbringing in Tottenham, and perhaps where he wants to establish his own identity as a coach.

“I think football is such an emotional game,” he said. “Of course it is so emotional and I believe in this side of it and my position, if you are too emotional, you can sometimes make mistakes and it just tries to understand when I am show the emotion and when I keep it under [keep it] Cool because the reality is that everyone looks at me. Everyone always looks at me to guide them and help them, so that is the challenge – when do you have to act towards emotion, act towards a feeling or when I have to suppress it, so that is something I feel about over time, you learn, yes, but every day there are so many different challenges. Different things are popping up and I could say how more confident and more comfortable you are in your own skin, you have a conviction in something and what it should look like, how it should feel, then I think you can handle it organically in a way that comes of course. “

Standing out of the emotional balance is the key to a successful transition from assistant to head coach.

“Of course the easiest is on the grass,” he said. “It is a natural habitat, it is where I feel most comfortable. I have been there all my life and the rest has just switched and understand that different people need different messages at different times. … Now I am in a position where I naturally have to make decisions, I have to inspire a group of people to work, who can fight for each other.”