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Alison Bender gives an insight into how journalists, players and managers construct their questions and answers, whilst Laurence Ernest and Elizabeth Helenek speak from their point of view as football fans.

Press conferences are a form of interview conducted by a press officer, usually with a player or manager. Journalists attend press conferences in order to gather quotes for their respected companies; Examples of these companies are Sky Sports, talkSPORT, HaytersTV etc...

Alison Bender is a freelance football TV presenter who works for ESPN, talkSPORT, BBC, Chelsea FC, Sky, Real Madrid C.F., and CNBC. She has grown a large following through her social medias, most noticeably her TikTok, where Alison has amassed over 300,000 followers producing viral football related content.

Speaking to Alison, she spoke thoroughly regarding the psychology behind press conferences and interviews. Whilst studying Psychology at the University of Bristol, she gained valuable knowledge which definitely plays a part within her current role.

Alison spoke on interviewers feeling sympathetic when asking tricky questions which may push the manager into a corner - "You’re trying to build a long-term relationship with these managers, because you know you’re going to see them again. Sometimes it’s really hard because sometimes they say you only have two questions, so if you really want to get that question in it might be the first thing that you say. I think there is a way of wording things gently. I remember I did a player interview with Granit Xhaka who had the worst rate of errors leading to goals and I had to say it quite gently ‘unfortunately you have this terrible statistic but how would you respond to your critics?’ I think that’s a nice way of saying it ‘how would you respond to your critics?’ – You’re almost saying that I’m not your critic, its someone else."

Through years of experience within the football media industry, Alison mentioned that she can sense a level of confidence of the manager in a pre-match press conference - "One of the things I’ve learnt over the years, the better the manager the more relaxed they are, you know everyone experiences imposter syndrome. New managers like Frank Lampard, or someone who has just come into the game, you can detect that they aren’t quite so comfortable. When you look at someone like Carlo Ancelotti who has been doing it for a very long time, he’s not trying to prove anything anymore, he’s much more relaxed. When I speak to managers about this, they mention that they’re not trying to get too high with the highs or too low with the lows. So, on the touchline, someone like Carlo, who is a great example, is generally very calm. He speaks about his early days with management when he was very passionate, but now he tries to be a bit more stable and level-headed. You can detect it to an extent through a press conference, but I was at Marco Silva’s the other day, and he tends to not give anything away, which is a tactic from very experienced managers to make sure journalists don’t get a headline. Managers get more experienced the more they do it."

Alison mentioned that the psychology behind interviews are not only with the individual being interviewed, journalists can also find the situation quite intimidating, especially if there's a big name in front of them! Sometimes journalists are too anxious to ask the question they want to, making them hold back and asking a safer question - "I do that sometimes then afterwards I’ll be really annoyed with myself. It’s all about timing as well, if you’re the one talking about a disastrous record or something, it is so hard to bring it up at the right time. Taking an answer and asking them to expand is very useful when they don’t give you the answer you want. It can be really intimidating in there, when they only say you can ask one question, journalists will try to put all their questions into one, which doesn’t usually produce an ideal response."

 I also spoke to Laurence Ernest, who plays for Met Police and previously Walton and Hersham. Laurence is also an avid football fan who has been following the sport for 16 years. He spoke regarding how managers conduct their interviews from a fans point of view - "I think managers at the top level construct their answers so well because it is so secretive at the top level in terms of giving information away to the opposition. Managers like Mourinho, Guardiola, Klopp, they give very little away in terms of tactics and players' fitness levels because they don't want to give their opposition an advantage. What they do well is giving the journalists a strong answer but without giving too much away, its really important. However as football fans, we do want managers to be more open with their answers as it would be really interesting, but I do understand that they have a job to do and we have to respect that."

Finally I spoke to freelance Premier League presenter who features on Chelsea TV and Premier League Productions. Elizabeth is based in Madrid but follows her favourite club Chelsea very closely. Elizabeth spoke from a Chelsea fans' point of view regarding whose press-conferences she enjoys watching the most - "Thomas Tuchel always gave really honest answers, when Chelsea's ownership was an issue I remember he said 'I don't care how we get there, I'll drive a bus if a need to', he gave really honest answers for his assessment of the team. With Graham Potter it seemed like we wouldn't get as much information from him."