Carlisle United goalkeeper Tomas Holy: How I turned my mindset around

Holy’s most recent game for the Blues featured an excellent save to keep Grimsby Town at bay and tee up a 2-0 win. It was a 14th clean sheet of the season and maintained United’s impressive rise in League Two.

It cannot always, though, be like this for a keeper, and Holy, this season and before, has known lesser moments, lesser days. Dealing with them is an essential trait – one he has learned the hard way.

“I used to be like this – head down, body language horrible, and people would say, ‘What’s wrong with that keeper?’” says Holy, thinking of such occasions. “That’s how I was when I was 19 or 20.

“Now it’s about the reaction to say – you need to get back, turn it around, and then it will be even better. You can talk about it after the game, not during the game. Even at the highest level it happens. Players are human beings.”

Holy says that, earlier in his career, occasions like ‘the Walsall thing’ – a misjudgement that cost Carlisle late in this season’s FA Cup defeat – would have crushed him. He owes a better mindset to the time “when I started to see my mental coach. She turned my head around completely.

“I remember the exact moment – it was a friendly game with Sparta Prague, a simple strike from outside the box, and it went through my hands. I literally wanted everybody to feel sorry for me, and all I got was the exact opposite reaction, like, ‘What’s wrong with him?’

“That was the moment. I reached [out to] this woman, and she showed me a different angle, how to look at the situation, how to look at the world. Body language. She taught me loads of stuff.

Holy's superb save against Grimsby helped United to another win and clean sheet (Image: Barbara Abbott)

“Also I met other people, coaches, in my career. Put all these things together and I also grew up.

“Sometimes I try to look at myself from someone else’s perspective. Body language, give signals. It’s a psychological game. When you go down 1-0 and you send signals to your opponents – that now you are screwed, because we are coming for you, even though we are behind, now you should look over your shoulders – it makes a big difference. You get into their heads.”

Holy says the mental side of football has never been more crucial and has discussed this with Paul Simpson, United’s manager, and Mark Francis, a sports psychologist who works with the Blues. Other encounters along the way have reinforced the idea.

“As they say, football is about 80 per cent mind, and 20 per cent skill,” Holy says. “I think it was two weeks ago when, with Mark, we were talking about this exact statement. Your mind is the key in every sport.

“I think your mindset is the difference between being successful and unsuccessful. Especially for goalkeepers. I always say we’ve got a slightly different role on the pitch. If goalkeepers are not strong enough in the head it can’t go well.

“I’m not saying I’m as strong as hell in my head, sometimes I get myself slightly off, but we all learn, nobody’s perfect. I try to stay focused, and to help myself.”

Another unexpected encounter earlier this season helped underline the value of mindset. In September, Simpson invited Eric Steele, his former England under-20s colleague and the ex-Manchester United goalkeeping coach, to training.

“If I’m honest, I had no clue who it was,” says Holy. “When the session was over, I was taking my time, sitting on the hill by the training pitch, he came over and introduced himself, and for me it was like, ‘Wow. I don’t meet people like this every day’.

“He asked me a simple question – what is the number one thing for a goalkeeper? I was looking for a simple answer. He said it is to always set the highest standards.

“It stuck in my head, I printed it out and it’s hanging up on my door in my apartment, to see every day when I walk out for training. These kind of things help me keep my mind in place. I’m not saying, for example, yesterday I had the best training session personally. But all that matters is I’m ready for Saturday.”

Holy says a meeting with Paul Simpson after United's 4-0 defeat to Mansfield has seen him improve areas of his game (Image: Barbara Abbott)

While Holy says his save from Grimsby’s George Lloyd “boosted my confidence – I hadn’t made many tough saves”, he has also had to benefit from different days, such as Carlisle’s 4-0 defeat to Mansfield Town which led, the keeper says, to a more proactive approach in terms of claiming crosses and looking to dominate his box.

Some clearly-delivered words from Simpson were behind this, and it is clear Holy is eager to please the United manager.

“First of all it [playing that way] should be absolutely natural for me. I have to admit it wasn’t before in every game – it’s a bit of shame I didn’t use the size of me in these situations.

“What happened was – the Mansfield game, the first two goals we conceded from crosses, and on the Thursday, first thing when I walked in the building, the gaffer called me in his office, with positive criticism.

“If you saw Michael Jordan’s documentary [The Last Dance]…well, ‘I took it personally’.

“He wasn’t negative, he was all positive, but positive criticism, and if I’m honest, this is the guy I don’t want to let down. I just don’t. Not just him, but my guys in changing room and people in the stadium. But if I’m honest, the gaffer, this is not the guy I want to let down.

United's big Czech No1 says the Blues must enjoy the position they are in, and not let pressure weigh heavily (Image: Richard Parkes)

“I try to change, I’m still working on it, I will get way better in this part of my game.”

Holy is also working on that clean sheet total. “I’m delighted [with 14] but I think it could be more,” he says. “But we are where we are, and 20 is the target now – from 50 per cent of the games we’ve got left.”

These and other goals are plain if United want to be promoted, but as well as accepting the seriousness of their run-in, Holy says pressure must not weigh heavily on the Blues.

“It is different now from the beginning of the season. We are where we are and not just because of some luck. Now we feel like, ‘Yeah, we can do it’. But we are trying to stay calm. We’ve got it in our head but we just want to go game by game, step by step, and leave 100 per cent of us on the pitch every game. When we do this the result will take care of itself in every game.

“We don’t put ourselves under unnecessary big pressure. It wouldn’t work. And we are enjoying the position we are in. When you walk around the changing room there’s loads of jokes, loads of fun. Andy and Amy [from United’s media team] do some gifs with the boys, and you can hear the laughing and jokes coming out of the room.

“Everyone is enjoying the position we are in but we have to keep being focused, and encourage ourselves. We have to talk to each other, the gaffer talks to us, Gez [goalkeeping coach Paul Gerrard talks to us, about [the fact that] we need to keep or heads in place.

“We have to enjoy it because that’s what football is about.”

Tomorrow: Holy talks about the value of understudy Michael Kelly, and United's 12-game run-in as they target promotion