Should players voice their displeasure through the media?

Roberto Mancini yesterday spoke out against the increasing number of his players expressing to the nation’s media their dissatisfaction at not being a part of his starting XI. Shay Given has made his position clear by stating his intention to look for a loan move in the January transfer window, whilst Emmanuel Adebayor continues to prove restless with reports of confrontation between him and Mancini. However, it is not just at Manchester City where players are speaking out against their employers in what appears to be an increasing trend.

In an interview just this week, Daniel Agger talked out about the style of football Roy Hodgson has brought to Liverpool and how he is struggling to adapt to it, whilst Gabriel Agbonlahor’s post match interview following Aston Villa’s 1-1 draw with Bolton Wanderers has threatened to undermine Gerard Houllier’s tenure before it has even begun. So is Mancini right, should players limit venting their frustration to a private environment, or are they entitled to tell anybody who will listen in the media exactly what they think?

For the players there can be a variety of motives for going public with the comments. Firstly, the ever increasing demands and intrusion of the media and the frequency with which they are expected to give interviews makes it difficult for them to repeatedly churn out the same bland statements and paint a picture of harmony in the dressing room, even if it is not the case. After all, by biting their tongue and saying nothing they are at risk at fading from the public eye and limiting their future prospects.

For those where the relationship their club has broken down irretrievably, a media outburst can also be employed as a tool with which to engineer a transfer. The most obvious and successful example of this was Darren Bent’s ‘Twitter rant’, which expressed his desire to leave Tottenham Hotspur for Sunderland in a less than eloquent fashion: “Do I wanna go Hull City NO. Do I wanna go stoke NO do I wanna go sunderland YES so stop f****** around, Levy. Sunderland are not the problem in the slightest.”

However, the players’ managers may rightly suggest that this is an abuse of the high profile they have been afforded by a club who, let’s face it, pay them very handsomely. It also undermines the manager’s authority and reflects badly on the way in which they are managing their squad. The evidence also suggests that it does little to aid the player’s cause in getting back into the first team, with managers likely to jettison dissenters who then face the prospect of a long spell in the reserves if a new club can not be found for them.

Furthermore, it is worth noting that the most successful teams in the country have been built on the kind of squad solidarity where public displays of frustration are frowned upon and quickly weeded out. As Mancini highlighted, this is the mindset he is trying to instil at Eastlands: “I want a mentality like at Manchester United and Chelsea, where the players understand why the manager has to make changes, but the problem for us is that we can’t just change it in five months”. It is hard to imagine Sir Alex Ferguson accepting any of Adebayor’s outbursts.

So for the players there seems to be a fine balance to strike between pleasing the media, pleasing their employers, and taking their careers in the directions that they want. Unfortunately, an increasing number of footballers appear to be getting it wrong. Like many managers before him, Roberto Mancini is now also discovering that being able to assemble such a vast squad can be a curse as well as a blessing. One thing is for sure, we are bound to be kept abreast of a number of players’ frustration in the coming months. It could be a busy transfer window come January.