Brian McDermott_ the Good, The Bad and the Ugly

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Brian McDermott: The good, the badand the uglyIn his first season as a top-flight manager, Reading's Brian McDermott is learning to lovethe Premier League and to loathe the greed, the histrionics and the instant judgementsthat go with it, as he explains to Jack Pitt-Brooke

Jack Pitt-Brooke

Saturday, 1 December 2012

There is a thrill to managing in the Premier League for the first time, but there is also adistaste. Brian McDermott will take charge of his 14th top-flight game this evening, andadmits that he has already been taken aback by the relentless unpleasantness andacrimony.

"I don't feel swamped by it. We don't feel swamped by it," he says. "We love the league.Some of the stuff that goes with the league I don't love. The greed, the perception of it.Some of the histrionics. The whole thing, with the judgements, how people are judgedconstantly

"Sometimes I go into press conferences and don't discuss the game. I find that bizarre. Or

you are sat there talking about your own position. Or they're talking to you aboutsomething else that is not to do with football. And at times you do think, 'Let's talk aboutthe game'. But I don't know what people are interested in in 2012 is it the football or isit about someone's position or is it about whatever? It seems to be the culture we havegot and we are in."

McDermott has been in charge at Reading for three years. His tenure has been dramatic,but that is precisely why he is so averse to the trigger-judgement world of modernfootball.

"We got to the play-off final [in 2011], we lost it. It doesn't make me a bad manager, itdoesn't make me a good manager. It just makes me a bloke who tries his best every day.The following season, we started the season rubbish; we lost five games on the spin.Does that make me a bad manager or a good manager? We just lost a few games. Wethen win the league. Does that make me a great manager? Not really. It makes me OK.

"We're now second from bottom; we've won one game from 13. Does that make me a badmanager in the Barclays Premier League? With the resources that we have got, andeverything that we are, and being a small club, not really."

This is typical McDermott: open, thoughtful and self-effacing almost to a fault. These arenot qualities always associated with the modern game. McDermott, though, is a slightlyunusual figure, having been Reading's chief scout before succeeding Brendan Rodgers fromwithin in 2009. But McDermott certainly would not want Reading to be anywhere else thanhere.

Ahead of tonight's visit from Manchester United, there is a light buzz around the Royals'Berkshire training ground, situated within the Royal Electrical and Mechnical Engineers'Arborfield garrison. This will be United's first trip to the Madejski Stadium since 2008.There are interviews to be done, DVDs to be studied and to judge from the chatter ofyouth-teamers tickets to be argued over.
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Unsurprisingly, McDermott looks to United for inspiration. He speaks about how Sir AlexFerguson called him to offer advice while Reading's takeover was ongoing. "It was not justuseful but very important to me. And it just tells you the calibre of the man." McDermottsays that "the name itself Manchester United is synonymous with everything that isgood in football".

Unity, more than anything else, defines McDermott's approach, and he admires United'smodel. "I look at what United do," McDermott says, discussing how important it is to makesure everyone feels involved and engaged. "They keep the players, the nucleus of thatsquad, together. Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs, Gary Neville were there for a long time. Thoseplayers were integral to what they're trying to do. And they bring on the younger playersas well."

That family ethos is what McDermott has tried to build at Reading. In a football landscapedominated by tension and friction, Reading try to stand out. "I think we have to be whatwe are. We have to be different here. That family environment, with everyone feeling apart of it, is very much a part of what we are trying to do here."

McDermott often describes his players as friends, and says that he loves them. This is notschmaltz or front; it flows genuinely from his personality. "I, personally, don't have to bedifferent. I have to be myself, and that's what I will be. But I think we have to bedifferent as a club because we haven't got the millions that some of these clubs have got

to spend. So we've been different over a number of years. Last year in the Championshipwe didn't have the resources that others had so we had to mould a group."

It would be fair to say the approach is not currently working perfectly. Reading have wonone game all season. McDermott insists that they "have competed in every game bar one" a bad defeat to Tottenham Hotspur. He puts their struggles down to too many lapses ofconcentration.

So is it as simple as haranguing his players towards higher standards?

Certainly not. "Why? I don't see why. I don't see it that way," he said. "I don't managethat way. You are asking someone to be different from what they are. My personality iswhat it is. Results suggest that, over a period of time, what we are trying to do here

works.

"I can't go against my nature because I am what I am. I don't try to be anyone differentto who I am. I am happy with that. I am comfortable with that. It seems to have workedup to now. Hopefully, it will work again this season and we will do well.

"Where we were three years ago, staring League One in the face, to where we are now, isphenomenal. And what the guys have done. So that is the realism and the place thatwe're at. We are a small club in this division, fighting every day to be better, to get towhere we want to."

Of course, McDermott would not comment on rivals, but you can sense the differencebetween this approach and the profligate mess of players at Queen's Park Rangers, or the

seemingly point-making exclusion of Darren Bent at Aston Villa.

"It's all about the team. It's all about the respect that we've got in the group, not just forthe players that are in the team but the players who are out of the team. And those outof the side are supporting the team."

That is probably the most surprising thing about McDermott's Reading. The manager makesthe club sound like an autonomous commune, but this is a multimillion pound business, onethat is now owned by Anton Zingarevich, the son of Russian pulp and paper billionaire BorisZingarevich. Sir John Madejski is still chairman and McDermott insists that, even with thenew foreign money, the ethos is the same as ever.

"It hasn't changed! [Zingarevich] is very much into the team, the group. That is probablyone of the reasons he wanted to buy the club in the first place.

"He is not going to throw millions of pounds at it, that is obvious. He is not going to dothat. He loves the team ethos, he loves the group ethos very much, he is very much partof it."


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Zingarevich is certainly very much involved, and McDermott refuses to be territorial abouthis input. "I have conversations about the owner, and I've heard he was talking toplayers," said the manager. "Good! Let him talk to players. He is the owner, he is entitledto do that. It is not a problem. I never get defensive about things like that. I am very,very comfortable in that situation."

Zingarevich has "regular contact" with the director of football. "He speaks to NickHammond a lot more than I do," McDermott admitted. "I just concentrate on the team.

"He talks to Nick about players, not just from Russia, from all sorts of different countries France, Germany, anywhere. He's got football input. He loves it.

"He came on pre-season with us in Portugal. He came into the dressing room after we gotbeat 7-5 [by Arsenal in the Capital One Cup] and he was devastated for the players. Hesaid a few words, which was really good. It just tells you about him."

How better to set an example than that: the successful knitting of a wealthy Russianowner into the harmonious fabric of a football club?

My other life

I play guitar. I just listen to a bit of music, it can be anything. It can be absolutelyanything: old-school U2, Oasis, or I can listen to Black Eyed Peas, I listen to anything. Iplay on my own. Ive played in front of a few people before, for fun. Just on an acousticguitar. I played at the end-of-season do. Ill never ask any of the players to do anything Iwouldnt do myself they go up and sing so Ill go and play. I make up my own songs but Iwill do a bit of Knocking on Heavens Door by Bob Dylan because you can make upwhatever words you like to that.

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Brian McDermott_ the Good, The Bad and the Ugly