The art of positive thinking is clearly an important one in football. Confidence is crucial, and a large part of a manager's job is to encourage this sort of attitude, which is one of the reasons why Claudio Ranieri and his breezy approach has been so successful at Leicester.
Managers are essentially part-tacticians, part-psychologists. Their job is to get the best out of their players using whatever means necessary, meaning that it sometimes doesn't really matter if what they're saying is true, as long as it has the desired positive impact.
The mentality of being a successful Premier League manager is something most of us can only observe and speculate on, with judgements about their behaviour potentially harsh. That said; there are some occasions when departure from reality becomes rather alarming. Which brings us to Arsene Wenger and Roberto Martinez.
To say that Martinez, the Everton manager, is relentlessly upbeat would be an understatement of the first order. This is a man who would make Tigger look like Eeyore, constantly gushing about how wonderful his team are and how beautifully they've played. This of course would be fine if Everton were riding high in the league, their success undeniable and their football as free-flowing as Martinez's words of praise.
But they're 11th in the table, closer to the relegation zone than the top four and their draw against Southampton at the weekend ensured their final home points total for the season will be their lowest ever in the top-flight.
Martinez's comments reached a peak level of absurdity after their draw with Crystal Palace last week. Granted, they had to play the final 38 minutes with 10 men after James McCarthy was sent off, but
the manager declared a point against a side that have won once in 2016 to be "more than a decent result" and went on to exclaim: "It was an incredible, positive performance. The resilience and hard work, and to be able to be so solid, was great...To play like that with 10 men, it was incredibly satisfying."
It's also worth noting that discontent in the stands at Goodison Park is probably at its highest in at least 15 years, with banners supporting Leighton Baines after the left-back
had to apologise for suggesting the "chemistry" was not right in their squad, plus
a fan was moved to confront Martinez during the Southampton draw.
It should go without saying that any manager should be able to go about his job without threat of physical violence, but it's possible that the fans are so unhappy not just because they're watching their most talented squad in a generation be squandered, but that the manager's public attitude seems to suggest that everything is fine.
There are other examples too, most notably recently declaring that he wouldn't sell Tom Cleverley
"for any money in the current market." Hopefully someone jokingly bids £60million to test his theory on that one. Hearing Martinez emote with such gusto is a little like watching a man enthuse about a building's great structure and solid foundations as it slowly collapses behind him.
With new investors gaining more influence at the club, in theory Martinez will have to do something fairly impressive to persuade them to keep his job (such as a victory in the FA Cup semi-final against Manchester United this weekend, the reaching of which should not be ignored), but there hasn't been much suggestion that his position is in much danger.
Everton might be wise to look at another manager who tends to accentuate the positives to observe the danger of sticking with someone like that for too long.
Before the almost parodic Arsenal performance against Crystal Palace (dominate possession, fail to turn that superiority into goals, drop points after a moment of carelessness, an ineffectual Theo Walcott cameo) that left the Gunners 13 points off the top of the Premier League and in danger of surrendering their top four place, Wenger struck a similar "Everything's fine, nothing to see here" tone.
"If you look at the top three teams, you will see they have not changed their team a lot,"
said Wenger on Saturday in discussing his plans for the summer transfer window. "We have to strengthen our squad but it's not obvious to find the players despite the money the English clubs will have. We are already working but we have to find the players and that is not easy.
"You cannot dismiss that the players are young: Alex Iwobi is 19, Mohamed Elneny is 23, Francis Coquelin 24, and they will be stronger next year, but you need to keep a core of players and strengthen where we can. The team is going the right way."
The right way? To most observers Arsenal look like a team going nowhere, neither forwards nor back, treading water and producing the same results, season after season, with the manager presenting the same positive yet seemingly oblivious front. With Wenger, the constant theme is tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow: whether he's talking about money that will be available, or they'll be fine when the squad is healthy, or the players are young and will be better next year, he constantly asks Arsenal fans to believe in a bright future that never materialises.
Arsenal are, and have been for some time, stagnant, a team that is constantly very good but always not quite good enough. This is partly the fault of those at the club who are not strong enough to remove the manager that has got them in that state, but mainly the manager himself, seemingly trying to fool himself and everything else that things will get better, that it's all going to be fine. Of course he could be taking a very different position behind closed doors, but if he is, it isn't showing in their results or performances.
Each season Arsene Wenger's Arsenal flirt with a title run only to then falter and finish fourth.
A team that includes Mesut Ozil, Alexis Sanchez, Laurent Koscielny and Petr Cech are better than fourth place with no hope of catching the leaders, just as one featuring Ross Barkley, John Stones, Romelu Lukaku and James McCarthy is better than mid-table nothingness.
Wenger's words and attitude, while not with the same almost comic unrealistic positivity, are very reminiscent of Martinez's, and can lead to ignoring serious issues as they arise, and thus to stagnation. Everton aren't at Arsenal's stage of inertia just yet, but they could be before too long.
