How right messaging can help in defence of title

[Getty Images] Sports psychologist Dan Abrahams joined the latest episode of Football Daily, in during which BBC Radio 5 Live's Aaron Paul spoke to him about Arsenal defending their Premier League title. So for Mikel Arteta's squad, when does the preparation start? "You're doing it straight away, coaches are bringing the right players in, working with their scouts to bolster the squad," said Abrahams. "Then from day one, you want players hitting the ground running. There are all kinds of different messages, is it 'we've never defended the title so we're going to set that as an objective?' or is it that we're just going to continue the processes that we've done really well in the last season. "You always try to create mini stories and objectives in the minds of the players when they come back from pre-season. For us at Feyenoord, it was 'let's hit the ground running again, let's have great leadership and teamwork, let's be even better than we were last season, let's make sure no complacency kicks in' because I think that word is so pertinent here. It takes a lot of energy, it's metabolically costly. You've got to be on it every single day." The Athletic's Amy Lawrence also provided her take: "I'm not a fan of the word 'complacency' being thrown around in football. I don't buy it all that often. "I'm more interested in how you recreate that hunger when you've pushed yourself to the absolute limit, when you remember the enormity of the stress they have put themselves under for 10 months. Every single week it was on a knife edge and so intense."