I'm a secret weapon in Man City success but I've swapped sports to help England win a World Cup

The players and staff at Manchester City are split into two camps this June. They are either on holiday with their feet up or involved in a major tournament somewhere in the world.

David Young, City's head of psychology for the past five years, is no different. But while the footballers are either preparing for the European Championship or Copa America, Young is in the Caribbean with the England cricket team. And this week he is really earning his money in that summer job.

Young joined City from the ECB, having spent four years as national lead for performance psychology and he was a crucial figure behind the scenes when England won the 50-over World Cup on home soil in 2019. After that tournament, he took up post at the Etihad and has worked with Pep Guardiola's squad during a period of unprecedented success that not only includes winning the treble but also holding their nerve in some tight and tense title races.

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This summer, with England heading to the T20 World Cup in the USA and the Caribbean, he has returned to the set-up, with City's blessing. England fluffed their lines in the defence of their 50-over crown in India last year and head coach Matthew Mott felt they needed to change after that humbling.

“When you’ve had the kick in the pants like we’ve had, you just can’t go business as usual. You have to redefine how you go,2 he said in May

“He [Young] has already been a great ally in messages back to me, making sure my messages are clear. It’s always good to have someone who’s a bit removed from the squad to make sure you’re landing your messages — making sure the players are staying true to their best game."

Those messages will be more vital than ever this week. After rain washed out their opening game against Scotland, before a thrashing at the hands of Australia, England are on the brink of another embarrassing early exit from a World Cup.

They must beat Oman and Namibia on Thursday and Saturday to join Scotland on five points. Scotland's final group game, against Australia, comes a few hours after England end their campaign. To leapfrog the Scots and secure the second qualification spot from the group to the Super Eights phase England need to win both their games handsomely and then hope Australia don't roll over for the auld enemy.

The challenge for the England coaching staff and Young is not only building the confidence of the players back up but getting them to play a natural game when they know that qualification is likely to come down to net run rate, which requires them to win big, rather than just win.

Young has plenty of experience in these scenarios, with many of these cricketers and with City. He will be telling them to follow their usual routines and speaking on the Vitality Talks podcast in August 2022, he namechecked Ruben Dias as someone who excelled at that.

"He's been a massive influence on us since he came in. You can't skip over the fact that the most successful people gain their confidence from knowing they've prepared in the appropriate way," he said.

"That doesn't mean lots and lots and lots of thorough preparation necessarily, but it means you know how to prepare for whatever's in front of you and you can honestly look at yourself and say 'I've done it' and then you trust your preparation.

"Ruben is a clear example of someone who has a real clear pre-performance routine and I'm not just talking about the day of a game, I'm talking days out from a game and then he'll go in saying whatever happens now I know I've done everything within my control to prepare for this."

That's the kind of message Young has imparted before. One of his key interventions was with Jos Buttler the day before the World Cup final at Lord's in 2019. England had planned for that tournament for four years and the realisation dawned that a career was essentially going to boil down to one day.

"The day before we played the World Cup final against New Zealand, the biggest day of every player's career, Jos asked me to go and have a chat with him in the stands," said Young.

"He said something along the lines of 'I just feel like if we lose the game tomorrow my career will be over, I feel like I don't think I'll ever want to pick up a cricket bat again'.

"He did say as well 'If we win that's all I'll ever want to achieve in my career'. The most important thing is, and this is why Jos is so amazing at this, that he had all these very strong thoughts and feelings going on around [how] tomorrow is going to make or break my career, [but] by the end of the conversation he'd worked out that regardless of how he's feeling, he's got two or three performance behaviours that involve the way he prepares, the way he watches the ball and the mindset he has when the bowler is running up.

"Regardless of how he's feeling, if he focuses his attention on those three things he gives himself the best chance of performing."

Buttler opened up on that conversation in an interview with the Daily Mail, explaining how his mind had cleared after his conversation with Young.

"I had played in eight finals before Sunday and lost seven of them," he said. "I'd played in lots with Somerset, the Champions Trophy with England and when we lost the [World] T20 in Kolkata and I knew how much it hurt watching the other team lift the trophy. I didn't want to feel that pain and that regret again.

"What was scaring me was if we lost, I didn't know how I'd play cricket again. This was such a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, a World Cup final at Lord's. It felt like destiny and I was thinking: 'If it doesn't happen, I will have no motivation to pick up a cricket bat for a very long time.' When I was talking to David, I knew the answers."

Young will hope to give some answers to the current crop of England cricketers - which still includes Buttler - this week. It is a unique scenario they face where not only has their World Cup campaign already become win-or-bust, but it's win-well-or-bust. That will require a clear mind.

Young is used to those moments in his day job. City have been through some nerve-shredders since he joined the club, not least their dramatic rescue act on the final day of the 2021/22 Premier League campaign when they turned around a 2-0 deficit to Aston Villa to win the title.

"I think I'd be lying if I said I felt totally confident with 20 minutes to go in that last game when we were two goals down, but it was a brilliant season," he said.

"As you often find in sport and in life, if you've got two teams or two individuals pushing each other right to the limits as Liverpool and us did, then you tend to see the best of them.

"The feeling on the bench for myself, at that stage, if you remember Liverpool weren't winning at that stage, so even if we lost the game with 20 minutes we would have won. I sat behind the bench so I had access to my phone and I was following the Liverpool game at that stage.

"What was really interesting was that as soon as we scored the first goal there was such an enormous shift in the whole mood in the stadium, the impact that had on the players, it did feel at that stage like the momentum shift was so huge."

If England survive this week and keep their T20 World Cup hopes alive, they could feel a similar momentum shift.