Leeds United v Liverpool: Daniel Farke on what drives him on despite the criticism
After weeks of criticism, questioning and even public debate about whether he should be sacked, Leeds United manager Daniel Farke had a night to enjoy on Wednesday.
When he addressed the media on Thursday, though, he was already trying to put a 3-1 win over Chelsea behind him and focus on another difficult assignment, at home to Liverpool on Saturday evening.
Such is the nature of football management, where disappointments tend to linger but successes have to be fleeting.
Leeds is another level for Farke, “the most difficult, most exhausting, most challenging, demanding job of my life” but it keeps him coming back for more.
Even when he was leading his club to a 100-point Championship title last season, the brickbats kept flying. Now it is Liverpool's Arne Slot, who breezed to a maiden Premier League success in the spring, strapped into the bullet seat.
Nobody, though, should feel an ounce of sympathy. Like Slot, Farke knew what he was signing up to and is well rewarded for it.
Banknotes are one thing, but he took much greater reward from his post-match lap of Elland Road and is driven by a sense of mission which beating Chelsea nudged in the right direction, but which is years from being accomplished.
"I'm still a human being with emotions and a person who loves football with his whole heart," says a man in his third season at Elland Road who always seems to be fighting for the respect his career merits. "I don't judge this just as a job.
"If after the game you go around the stadium and you see the joy and the smiles on the faces of our supporters, if you see you have played a little part and helped in bringing this, that gives you everything."
As for the criticism, he insists he is too focussed on what he is trying to achieve to listen. If he could only bottle Wednesday’s positive, united mood, his chances would be much better.
"I don't waste one per cent of my energy thinking about myself or outside noise," he protests for the gazillionth time.
"Everyone knows this club belongs in the Premier League but there is a reason why in the last 25 years we have not really established ourselves at this level.
"The answer can't be that everyone in key roles was clueless. It's difficult, it's challenging, it's not easy. I'm prepared for this.
"I was 100 per cent aware it's so difficult to bring this club back to where it belongs, to not just establish it in the Premier League but first stabilise this club, give it a clear philosophy and values of how we want to work, our way we want to play.
"In the mid- and longer-term hopefully it is possible to talk about something different than it being a huge success if we finish 17th.
"I was prepared that this would be the most difficult, most exhausting, most challenging, demanding job of my life. This motivates me.
"I want to be with my boys, with my coaching staff, my medical department, my players. I want to be the guy who establishes my club with these boys.
"This is my only concern, why I am working more or less from the moment I wake up in the morning to the moment I go to bed and even sometimes at night thinking about what can we improve.
"This club is so special and it deserves to be back in the big time not just for one or two good seasons. I'm only thinking about how to do this, not outside noise and rumours."
As to how Leeds can get a foothold again, it is telling the manager whose job has apparently been under threat sees stability as the key.
"I'm not a board member or owner, they have to decide how to run the club but I can say I run the football," he says. "I have key principles of how I want to do this.
"It's also important to learn from the past. When did we have our most successful periods, our big eras? When did we win titles, when did we play in Europe? It was always when this club was unbelievably united, when there was a team that gave you the feeling they were working their socks off and they'd give their life for each other – side before self.
"If you work in such passionate surroundings don't be scared of criticism. Be there for each other.
"I always run my football so I protect everyone, I'm responsible.
"I told them there will – hopefully! – be many times when you get credit but I guarantee you there will be times when you get criticised and I always want to be there for every employee, every member of our group. I'm like a shield for them.
"When we started the season with Joel (Piroe), Willy (Gnonto) and DJ (Daniel James) and we didn't score goals in the first games and they got criticism, I backed them.
"Then there was criticism of Dominic (Calvert-Lewin), Lukas (Nmecha), Brenden (Aaronson), question marks about Jaka (Bijol) when his first appearances in English football weren't that impressive.
"It's more important to be there and I back these players and tell them, 'We trust you.'
"Internally we are very self-critical but publicly it's important when there is criticism that I'm there for them, I'm not scared to be crticised when I back my players. This is how I work and these are my values.
"I'm 100 per cent convinced this is how we can be successful."