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Jamie Carragher revealed in Ring of Fire, a new book by Simon Hughes about Liverpool players in the 21st century, that the “guilt” he felt after losing games has partly prevented him from becoming a manager to this point.
However, another extract from the books shows when that when the Sky Sports pundit does eventually decide to become a manager he’ll certainly know how to get inside a player’s head and motivate them.
Carragher speaks about when Fernando Torres joined Liverpool from Atletico Madrid in 2007, for a fee in the region of £20m. The former Liverpool defender says Torres struggled in training at first, so he took measures to try boost the Spanish striker’s confidence.
Carragher’s method was unorthodox, but thoughtful and rather clever.
“I tried to help people, especially early on when they’d just signed,” Carragher says.
“The example is [Fernando] Torres. At first I thought, ‘God, I’m not getting much out this one’. He didn’t say a word to anyone and was struggling in training for the first week. So I bought my son a kit with Torres’s name on the back. I brought James into Melwood to try make Torres feel a bit better. James was only four years old and didn’t have a clue.
“Torres obviously proved himself as a very good player but I thought he needed a lift, so I did what I could. The club made a huge investment in him. I cared about the club but most of all I wanted Torres to score the goals that would win us games.”
Torres went on to score 33 goals that season, and would probably have done so regardless of whether Carragher had took such measures to try boost his confidence. However, it shows Carragher’s drive to help the club win, and his own motivation skills.
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