Premier League return: Why it won't just be a 'World Cup hangover' affecting Qatar returnees
Sky Sports Premier League Podcast
Sky Sports
4.0 • 760 Ratings
🗓️ 23 December 2022
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Looking ahead to the resumption of the top flight, Ron Walker is joined by mental performance consultant Mark Bowden to analyse why such a short turnaround may affect players over the next few games - without them even realising it.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Sky Sports Football Podcast brought to you by Bet365, where every now biting nil-nil, every bizarre VAR, every foregone conclusion, bad pass, slam dunk, tap-in, full-start, dead heat, and absolutely expected defeat is amazing. |
| 0:17.3 | From football to tennis and ice hockey to motorsport. |
| 0:24.8 | Whatever the moment, it's never ordinary at Bet 365. |
| 0:36.8 | We are back. |
| 0:55.3 | The Premier League returns after five weeks away, so take down your World Cup flag bunting and get your bovril pies and scarf ready for an afternoon on the terraces with Boxing Day football just around the corner. I'm Ron Walker. Welcome to Essential Football. On today's pod, we're taking a look at the mental impact of returning straight from a tournament as intense as the World Cup to the more marathon effort of the Premier League and how |
| 1:00.4 | players will adapt to that contrast. I'm joined by a special guest to do just that. It's mental |
| 1:05.7 | performance consultant Mark Bowden, who works with players across the EFL, Premier League and Champions League |
| 1:11.7 | to get the best out of their mind when it comes to football. |
| 1:14.6 | But obviously that's harder at some points than others. |
| 1:16.9 | Mark, it's going to be an interesting one for players coming back from Qatar, isn't it? |
| 1:21.5 | What are your thoughts on how they'll adapt after having such little time to mentally get themselves back on track. |
| 1:29.3 | And it's such an unprecedented situation this weekend. |
| 1:32.3 | Yeah, Ron, yeah, you're absolutely right. |
| 1:34.2 | I think when it comes to this game this weekend, it's going to be a very, very different situation |
| 1:39.5 | compared to what a lot of these players have been used to in tournament football. |
| 1:45.3 | And it's going to be a bit of a shock to a lot of players. |
| 1:49.1 | And they won't even realize why they're experiencing a drop in form. |
| 1:53.8 | And there's a very real potential that a lot of players will experience in that. |
| 1:59.3 | And we always hear these buzzwords, |
| 2:03.0 | and I think you're going to experience it from pundits as we move forward |
| 2:07.2 | through the coming weeks of things such as World Cup fatigue |
| 2:11.2 | or a player experiencing a World Cup hangover. |
... |
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