Larry Ryan: Do grounds without fans help managers dragging clubs out of a rut?

QUIET LEADER: Carlo Ancelotti might be a bit long in the tooth and have fried bigger fish to have the same messianic zeal as Mikel Arteta, but his great trick is an air of calm. Of floating above it all. Picture: Dave Thompson

At executive level they worry that sport will have changed beyond recognition by the time supporters are back in the stands. On the pitch, there may be some excitement.

Because grounds without fans may well prove a vital asset for a manager trying to drag a club out of a rut.

At the new ‘fun’ Everton, for example — already described in reports as ‘all-singing, all-dancing’ — they must grasp these precious months free of their own people.

Scour any of the self-help guides on reinventing yourself — near the top are invariably two instructions: Clear out the physical clutter, clear out the emotional baggage.

Just what might be possible if the Toffees make the most of this peaceful retreat? How much clearer does everything seem in the quiet of serene cloisters with a believer selling you a philosophy.

The feelgood factor is strong. Six points from six in the league, two freewheeling 5-2s in four days. New stadium on the way.

Colombia’s tallest building was bathed in blue light to celebrate James Rodriguez’s arrival. Rather than the air turned blue at Goodison.

Instinctively, we reject this early positivity. We see it a mile off, sportswriters rushing into this brief window to unload their meagre stocks of goodwill before reality intrudes as usual. It’s the same old tease isn’t it?

James will pull a calf and make only sporadic ineffectual cameos thereafter. Calamity Pickford resumes centre stage. Calvert-Lewin forgets where the goal is. Walcott shows flashes of his eternal promise. And the January window is spent fretting over wantaway Richarlison.

We reject it because that is what Everton fans have taught us to do. But now when the first setback arrives, the players can filter public opinion via their social media settings.

Evertonians know themselves what a burden they are on the team. “Fatalism has crept in,” club legend Neville Southall said a few years back. “And changing that mentality is a challenge the club needs to embrace.”

The Everton Aren’t We fansite expanded: “An Evertonian is waiting for it to all go wrong and then hate on Everton worse than any opposition fan is capable of. We’re a weird bunch but that’s how we roll. You could also claim it’s counterproductive as that collective mindset can rub off on the players.”

Another Blue site, The Esk, laments “a club chained to a habitual way of doing things.”

Those habits have brought six managers in four years:, the ‘permanent’ gaffers enduring a contracting journey from hope to rage and despair. A familiar arc Carlo Ancelotti traces in his book Quiet Leadership.

“First, comes the courtship, when the club identifies you and tries to acquire your services. Then comes the honeymoon period, when everyone — the players, the staff, the fans — give you the time to establish yourself, but which unfortunately, as always in life, never lasts long.

“Next comes success and stability, should you be able to achieve it. Eventually, this stability plateaus and then the problems begin: The cracks in the relationship.

“The compressed arc is the norm.”

Before he ever set foot in Goodison, Ancelotti knew well the main reason life comes at you fast these days, and why so many managers never reach phase three.

“Every week a sporting manager is subjected to the same scrutiny that a CEO receives with quarterly statements. As an English Premier League chairman once stated: ‘Every week 40,000 stakeholders turn up and tell me how they think I’m running the business.’”

At Everton they haven’t liked how the business is run. The years of frustration and angst pile more pressure and less patience on new arrivals. Fresh teething problems are attributed to the deep roots of old failure.

Maybe sportspeople are better at their jobs without fans.

Premier League penalty takers have a higher conversion rate. NBA players are shooting more free throws and threes.

It’s easier to win on the PGA Tour, argues Jordan Spieth, seemingly able to navigate his way round without any third party instructing his ball to ‘get in the hole’. “It’s easier to just be zoned in on pure golf.”

ESPN golf writer Bob Harig isn’t so sure. “A guy like Tiger feeds off [the crowd’s energy], and it can be really tough to play against him.”

Big Dunc was Everton’s gambit to feed off the energy, to harness the wild Goodison passion that so quickly turns toxic. But then they opted instead for the quiet leader, who rules with an arched eyebrow. What better time to kill the noise?

Had fans been in the stadium towards the end of last season, chances are Carlo’s arc would already be compressed. But he has had space to get the sandals on and sell his players a belief system.

In many ways, this is the asterisk season, not last, when Liverpool had it done before the hush descended.

As The Esk put it last month: “Welcome to the 2020/21 season! Still not real as Covid-19 forces football to be played behind closed doors.”

Down at Arsenal, Mikel Arteta is a few months ahead of Ancelotti.

Last season the club hierarchy made it clear how it regards fans when it lamented the “noise” around Unai Emery.

In briefings to media, executives insisted all the team needed was a bit of hush, for fans to at least stop booing their captain off the field.

“They are adamant their project is sound, well-planned and will bring success, provided the external atmosphere allows it to do so.”

The unreal silence has been perfect for Arteta, for an intense retreat leader who speaks in tongues, or at least seven languages.

Carlo might be a bit long in the tooth and have fried bigger fish to have the same messianic zeal, but his great trick is an air of calm. Of floating above it all.

Across Stanley Park, Jurgen Klopp has been speaking about shedding the baggage of history from the moment he arrived.

“Let’s not always compare with other times. This is a great club with good potential with players who are flexible. Let’s try to start a new way.”

Via a colourful range of touchline theatrics, Klopp has had to work hard at times to bring a stadium along with him.

That wouldn’t be Ancelotti’s style but his Project Restart can worry about that later.