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Liverpool hire specialist sports psychologist Lee Richardson

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King Binny

Part of the Furniture
Honorary Member
Appointed since July. Given our rush of late goals, seems like this appointment is reaping its rewards.:)

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https://uk.linkedin.com/in/lee-richardson-mbpss-55ab7523

[article]Liverpool have brought in specialist sports psychologist Lee Richardson.

Richardson, a psychologist who was also a professional footballer and a former manager of Chesterfield, arrived in July and has been brought in to consult with the squad as they bid to clinch the Premier League crown.

The 50-year-old has his own office at Melwood where he’s based for three days each week, according to The Athletic.

Reds manager Jurgen Klopp is known for his painstaking attention to detail as he bids to make every area of Liverpool Football Club perfect and turn his side into a well-oiled relentless winning machine.

His incredibly positive attitude to achieving any and all marginal gains can be proved with his appointments of Mona Nemmer, who is head of nutrition, and throw-in coach Thomas Gronnemark to name just two.

Now former Watford, Blackburn Rovers and Aberdeen midfielder Richardson has been added to the fold.

Richardson was recruited from Hull City by Liverpool’s medical rehabilitation and performance manager Phil Jacobsen.[/article]

[article]Jürgen Klopp has explained why Liverpool recruited the services of sports psychologist Lee Richardson to work with the squad this season.

The former Chesterfield manager, who also enjoyed a playing career representing the likes of Watford, Blackburn Rovers and Aberdeen among other clubs, linked up with the Reds’ backroom team in the summer ahead of the United States tour.

Richardson forms part of the first-team set-up at Melwood, offering his services to the players three days a week at the club’s training complex.

Asked whether Liverpool had already felt the benefits of the 50-year-old’s appointment, during his pre-Crystal Palace press conference, Klopp said: “Yes, but it's not that we test him. It’s not like this, it is not [like] let’s have a look if the boys [can] behave better.

“I think around about 20, 25 years ago there were no goalie coaches in football and the head coach did the goalie training by himself. You had no athletic coaches, it was all our job pretty much. So, the teams around the team became bigger.

“The next thing was, of course, with psychology. It's a job to do, but I cannot really speak [about it] because I am not involved. It is not that I speak to him and he comes to me; I spoke to him but that's a completely confidential thing.

“What he is doing with the players, I am not involved. I have my part to do with the boys and do that like I did it before. It's just an add-on for all the things we try to deliver. We try to make sure the boys are in the best hands.

“With Lee Richardson especially, the good thing is he was a player himself, a manager himself and then he decided to become a sports psychologist. It is a really interesting career, he's a fantastic person, which is important because then I don't have to convince the boys to talk to him. It’s easy.

“He is a really, really interesting person and so the boys enjoy, for sure, that he is around and when you need him, you can use him.”
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Dated 2017
[article]Sam Allardyce has hired a sports psychologist to help his Crystal Palace players overcome the fear they experience when playing at Selhurst Park.

Lee Richardson, a psychologist who was also a professional footballer and a former manager of Chesterfield, has been brought in to consult individually with the squad as they fight to avoid relegation from the Premier League.

Palace travel to Stoke on Saturday having won only two league games since September and are 19th place in the table. “I’ve employed Lee Richardson, because I do feel we’ve got to try to help the lads focus mentally,” Allardyce said. “If we can do that, then they will perform better because when you play at this level your mind has got to work in an efficient way.

“At the moment, with the fear we’ve got at home, they’re losing their concentration when they should be focused. If they’re not responding to the psychologist, then they’re not helping themselves because these guys are superbly trained to allow you to function better on the field.”

Sports psychology is not new to Palace; the former manager Alan Pardew employed the former England cricketer Jeremy Snape in that role. Neither is it new to Allardyce, who has embraced sports science in his career as a manager. He made clear he hopes Richardson’s interventions will prove instrumental over the coming months.

“Looking at our home results for many months, there’s an underlying deep problem that we’ve got to try to work out and get rid of. What better than a man more qualified than me,” Allardyce said.

“I’ve been using them since 1999. The coping skills I got taught by psychologists since becoming a Premier League manager is the reason I’m still here and why I can sit back and deal with the pressure in this particular situation.”[/article]

Dated 2012
Martin Hardy: Lost your job as a manager? Think about psychology
[article]It is hard to imagine what Lee Richardson would have made of the following talk, should a careers adviser have taken him to one side when he first thought about becoming a football manager. "You'll get about 15 months in the job, son – enjoy it. The likelihood is it'll be your last."

Richardson got a bit more, at Chesterfield. He got two full seasons, and finished eighth and 10th. Then a new owner came in at the old ground, Saltergate, and his contract was not renewed. That was in 2009.

He tried for 12 months to get a foot back in the door, but it stayed shut. That is not news, at least not to the League Managers' Association. Its statistics show that 55 per cent of managers who take over at a Championship, League One or League Two side never get another shot. It is an incredible statistic.

There have been 12 new appointments outside the Premier League already this season. Three of those are having their first crack in the hot seat. Neal Ardley (AFC Wimbledon), Joe Dunne (Colchester) and Leam Richardson, no relation to Lee (Accrington Stanley) are all on a honeymoon that rarely ends well. All three will believe (and it is fundamental they do) that this is the start of something wonderful.

Statistically, one of Ardley, Dunne and Richardson (Leam) will never take charge of another League club. One of them will and the odds for the other are highly stacked against.

Lee Richardson moved to Chesterfield as a player in 2000. His career had its highs at Blackburn (a Wembley play-off winner), Aberdeen and Oldham. From that role at Chesterfield, he went on to become assistant manager before the big job was his, in 2007.

"I'm quite proud of the job I did there," he said. "One, because I was a player there and then the assistant manager and then the manager, and that it is a hard transition from each role. You have to remould your identity within the environment.

"There was a high expectation, we had been relegated from League One. I believe myself we should have got promoted, if I'm dead honest. We finished eighth in the first year and then 10th, I was out of contract, a new owner was coming in and that was another factor.

"I enjoyed it. I had a mix of good stress and bad stress. I didn't like being out of work and I was out of work for a year. You have to experience that to appreciate it. As a manager, when you're out of work for the first time in your life, signing on in the dole is quite a challenge to your sense of who you are. That is the roughest part of the job."

Richardson, though, had shown foresight in his playing career, when he began a psychology degree. A door to something different was opening, a door to the Premier League as it would transpire. He kept up his studying in what he calls Plan B, and offered a unique perspective as he progressed in his new career. A former player, former manager and qualified psychologist do not usually come in one package.

He came close to getting a job at Blackburn with Sam Allardyce. He was recommended to Peter Moores and began working with Lancashire County Cricket Club. They won the Championship in his first season there.

Allardyce had followed his progress and when he himself re-entered management after a shambolic dismissal at Blackburn, a call went in to Richardson to join him at West Ham last summer.

"I love it," he added. "It's very much a blank canvas. There are no set guidelines to what the role entails. It is about trying to help, through marginal gains. Sam is all about that, getting one per cent more, and the players that work behind the players... On a match day it is observational.

"There are key areas. I work with the staff, the players, young players and with the Elite Player Performance Plan [the youth development scheme initiated by the Premier League], who have rightly acknowledged the need to employ a psychology education programme. I have devised my own, which I run at West Ham with Katie Evans Jones.

"We're at the beginning of the new horizon of football. Psychology and football have not always hit it off. There has been mistrust about what it can offer ... but I have the insight to make the areas relevant."[/article]

From Sam Allardyce's autobiography
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Fascinating read, that statistic on 55% of first time managers in championship and below managing never again is ridiculous.


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A podcast I listened to said something about a lot of the players seeing him by choice & finding it beneficial.

It makes perfect sense, I'm just amazed it's not standard, I know it's standard practice at most big multinationals with their staff who operate under pressure & are responsible for huge contracts, so assumed it was in football too.
 
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Liverpool are unbeaten in 30 Premier League games. This is the third-longest unbeaten run in the competition's history behind Arsenal (49 games from May 2003 to October 2004) and Chelsea (40 games from October 2004 to November 2005).
 
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