The Sports Psychology Blog
This Sports Psychology blog comes as Southampton offer a trial to former England striker Michael Ricketts.
Football: Michael Ricketts - The Last Chance
'It never hurts to have a look at players and with his record he is worth it'. The words of Southampton boss Nigel Pearson, after taking Michael Ricketts on loan. After being released by Oldham in January, it's hard to imagine Ricketts being given too many more chances to prove himself in the top divisions of the English league.
Since his England debut in 2002, Ricketts career has not progressed. As if, somehow, he had realised a boyhood dream and after England, there was nothing else to left to prove. Yet he is still only twenty-nine.
Someone, maybe Nigel Pearson, needs to be able to reconnect Michael Ricketts to the reason why he played the game in the first place. Those days as a teenager. His passion. His enthusiasm for the game. Beyond money. But the pure enjoyment that comes from simply doing something you love.
Ricketts once had it. And he can still have it. If he is able to reinvigorate this feeling, this desire, then he may well spend the rest of his playing days, at a good level. If he doesn't, then he will surely drift out of the game, with a sense of what might have been. Only Michael Ricketts can make that choice.
