Emma Hayes would doubtless laugh off the comparison, though there were echoes of Sir Alex Ferguson when she encouraged her players to observe the team ethic of geese, before the game which took them to a second consecutive WSL title.
Ferguson did not quite go to the Chelsea manager’s lengths by asking his players to ‘honk’ like the bird in question, though his parable was very much the same as hers when he employed it a decade back. ‘They fly in V-formation,’ he explained. ‘The second row subs for the first ones. The second ones take over.