Hello and welcome to the TIFO football podcast. I'm Joe Devine and here's Alex Stewart.

Hello.

How are you, Alex?

I'm very well, thank you. How are you?

Yeah, I'm delighted because we had such a great episode. Just had a text from Ian Everett, our guest saying, thanks for having me. We really enjoyed it.

Yes, I really enjoyed it too. Ian Ever, manager of Barrow. Barrow, of course,

Barrow in Finesse, one of the more, I suppose, what do they call it, secluded areas of the UK,

northwest, lovely bit of wind up there, very nice spot. Barrow have been nicknamed by their fans,

Barrow Salona, for the style of football that they play.

So naturally, we were delighted to talk to Ian about his coaching philosophy, which by the sounds of it is very inspired by people like Pep Guardiola, amongst others.

And here, Alex, is a little glimpse of some of the data that they have, I think, collected themselves,

because Opta don't appear to collect data at their level. Their average percentage of possession

for the season is 59. Average number of passes is 507. The highest possession in a game was 81%. They have

the best ball recovery time in the league. They play the most passes per match, they have the highest time of ball being in play. They are playing football in the National League and currently they are top with 70 points, I think. Obviously there's a coronavirus pause and who knows what's going to happen next. But it seems like they're the best team in the National League. Would you agree? Oh, by some distance, yes. I mean, they're really, really good. I watched some clips

before we recorded this, and they're fun. They're a great team, and it was fascinating to get an

insight into how you make that happen with all of the constraints and preconceptions that come

with National League football.

Yeah.

From a tactical and from a sort of a mental perspective as well, we talked to Ian quite a lot

about how you mentally prepare yourself and players for football games.

And I don't know, I find that stuff really interesting.

Yeah, and of course the mental side of things is going to be, or is increasingly important

...