Every word from Darren Fletcher press conference before Brighton | 9 January 2025

Darren, you spoke on Wednesday night after the match about the fact that you’re learning about the confidence levels of players, when it came to not holding onto that lead. What have you done this week to try and restore that confidence. What techniques have you used? Is it meetings? Is it showing them videos of the past? How have you tried to do that?

“It’s just feedback. It’s just talking to them. It’s just trying to paint the picture of what to expect and how to deal with disappointments in games, how to see out different situations in games. It’s been not a lot of time to practice it. So video, we’ll review the game against Burnley and there’s some key details in that, that we’ll try and improve on. I think it’s a constant thing that evolves over time for me. It’s conversations, it’s video, it’s coaching on the training ground, it’s learning from new experiences that happened within game. And growing and building as a team and developing confidence and going on a run where you deal with those situations, but handling disappointment in football is everything, on and off the pitch, different situations in the game, and recognising and understanding that you’ve got 90 minutes to rectify things, and nothing’s going to be perfect. I think people strive for perfection. Football is about chance, luck, opportunities, different things happen. Look at the game the other night, I mean, we conceded one shot on goal, another shot off target, and we draw 2-2. But that’s football. You have a disallowed goal, which is unfortunate. Things happen in football. You’ve got to be able to deal with them constantly and just keep believing, while there’s 90 minutes on the clock, that you can change it around.”

Darren, just going back to the Burnley game. There was an incident that was missed by VAR where Kyle Walker stamped on Patrick [Chinazaekpere] Dorgu. One, can I ask your reaction to that incident? And two, Patrick didn’t react, but are we in a situation where the players are actually feeling they maybe need to react to get the referee and the VAR’s attention? Because had he done, had he milked that moment or rolled around, Kyle Walker would have probably ended up being sent off.

“So like Kyle Walker did when Licha [Martinez] didn’t touch him? Yeah, that’s sort of the territory we’re getting into with this now. But Patrick’s such an honest guy, he’s never going to do that. It didn’t look great from Kyle Walker’s point of view, but I like Kyle and I know him as a person, so I hope the intent was to get the ball. Patrick thought his intention, at the time, was Kyle tried to get the ball and made contact with him, so that was his understanding of the incident in the moment. For me personally, I think VAR should have looked at it. They looked at the goal disallowed, which was ridiculous, so they should have been looking at that, for me. And, as you say, if they don’t, you’re just going to encourage players making massive dramas out of things and being theatrical, which is what we don’t want in the game. I don’t want that from my players. I’d strive my players not to do it. But those two situations, probably, were massive influences on the game the other night, so it shows you how influential it can be.”

I was just wondering if you might have had the chance to speak to Sir Jim Ratcliffe this week? Any conversations with him? Just about the vision of the club, and also your own future?

“I’ve not, no. And again, the process here works: I speak to Omar [Berrada] and Jason [Wilcox]. That’s how that’s how the processes work. For me, I’ve been focusing on the job in hand, preparing the team for these two games. There’s been no thoughts or conversations about my future. Honestly, Jason and Omar have given me full responsibility to take control of these two games, make my own decisions, lead the team, guide the team, prepare the team, and that’s what I’ve been doing. There’s been no conversations with anybody outside of those two people in higher-up positions in the club.”